By Waves & Runways International Magazine
Interview by Pamela Quinzi, Owner & Editor-in-Chief
Some interviews are scheduled weeks in advance. Others happen because the right people cross paths at exactly the right moment. During the Arab Media Summit 2026 in Dubai, Pamela Quinzi, Owner and Editor-in-Chief of Waves & Runways International Magazine, had the opportunity to meet and interview comedian, content creator and keynote speaker Shawn Chidiac, widely known online as @myparents_are_divorced. The encounter took place in the dynamic atmosphere of the Summit, where media leaders, creators, influencers, decision-makers and innovators gathered to exchange ideas about the changing face of media and communication. The 2026 Arab Media Summit was held from 15–17 September at Dubai World Trade Centre, bringing together multiple forums covering media, content creation, film, gaming, government communication and the creator economy. For Quinzi, whose own international career has moved across fashion, publishing, media and entrepreneurship, the conversation with Chidiac offered an opportunity to discover the person behind the characters, and the story behind the laughter.
FROM MANY CULTURES, ONE UNIQUE VOICE
Lebanese, born in Canada and raised in Dubai by a single mother, Shawn Chidiac grew up navigating different cultures, personalities, accents and perspectives. What could have simply been the complexity of growing up between worlds eventually became his creative advantage.
He listened.
He observed.
And, perhaps most importantly, he remembered.
Long before millions of views and international stages, Shawn was already experimenting with voices and characters. Even during his school years, impressions were part of his personality, including teaching history lessons in a German accent simply because he could. Those early instincts eventually developed into something much bigger: an ability to recognize the tiny details in the way people speak, move, react and communicate, and transform them into comedy. Today, those observations are at the heart of the Shawn Chidiac universe.
THE MAN BEHIND @MYParents_ARE_DIVORCED
The name itself tells you something about Shawn’s approach to comedy. @myparents_are_divorced takes something personal and potentially uncomfortable and turns it into something people can laugh about, recognize themselves in and connect through. Behind the spontaneous feeling of his videos, however, is a surprisingly structured creative process. Shawn writes and performs his own material. Ideas often begin with real conversations and human interactions that catch his attention. They are collected, developed and storyboarded before becoming the characters audiences eventually see on screen. The accent is only one layer. There is the walk. The expression. The attitude. The rhythm. And, most importantly, the logic of the person he is portraying. His characters work because audiences feel they have met these people before, perhaps at work, at home, in a restaurant, at the airport, or sitting around the family dinner table. It is observational comedy shaped by a particularly multicultural life. His official biography describes an audience of more than 1.1 million followers across social media, while some of his most viral content has reached extraordinary audiences. His video “The Egyptian Pilot” has been watched 178 million times, according to his official press materials.
COMEDY THAT CROSSES BORDERS
What makes Shawn’s work particularly relevant in a city like Dubai is its universality. Dubai is a place where languages, nationalities, accents and traditions encounter one another every day. Shawn has transformed that environment into creative material, drawing from the multicultural Gulf experience while creating stories that can travel far beyond it. His comedy plays with cultural observations and recognizable stereotypes while aiming to find the shared humanity underneath them. That philosophy has followed him from social media onto the stage. His live show, “Laughing in Translation,” has taken his characters and storytelling to audiences internationally. When speaking about the show ahead of a London performance, Shawn explained that connecting people through stories about his upbringing is central to his comedy, particularly because people who have lived in the Gulf often recognize similar experiences in their own lives. And perhaps that is the real meaning behind Laughing in Translation: you do not necessarily need to come from the same country, speak with the same accent or grow up in the same household to recognize the same human behavior. Sometimes laughter does the translating.
FROM MARKETING TO MILLIONS
Before making comedy his full-time career, Shawn worked in marketing and strategy. That chapter of his life gave him another perspective on creativity: understanding not only how to make something entertaining, but how audiences think, how ideas communicate and how brands connect with people. Today, the creative and business sides of his career exist together. His work has led to collaborations with international names including Porsche, McDonald’s, Sony, Breitling and Carrefour, while his career has expanded beyond digital content into stand-up comedy, hosting and keynote speaking. His keynote subjects include cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence and human behaviour. It is an interesting evolution for a creator who became famous for becoming other people. Behind every character remains the same observer: someone studying the way human beings communicate with one another.
WHEN PAMELA MET SHAWN
Against the international backdrop of the Arab Media Summit 2026, the conversation between Pamela Quinzi and Shawn Chidiac felt especially fitting. The Summit itself was centered around the transformation of media and the growing influence of creators, digital platforms and new forms of storytelling. Its programme brought together traditional media figures alongside content creators, influencers and experts shaping the next generation of communication. Shawn represents precisely that evolution. He is not simply a comedian performing for an audience. He is simultaneously writer, performer, producer, storyteller and his own digital media platform. During their encounter, Pamela interviewed Shawn for Waves & Runways, discovering more about the journey behind the familiar characters and the personality behind a social media presence that has connected with audiences across cultures. It was a meeting between two different sides of today’s international creative industry: publishing and digital creation, editorial storytelling and social storytelling, fashion and comedy, connected by media. And in an era when audiences can scroll past hundreds of pieces of content within minutes, Shawn has achieved something every creator wants:
He makes people stop.
Watch.
Recognize someone they know.
And laugh.
BEYOND THE CHARACTERS
Perhaps the most compelling part of Shawn Chidiac’s story is that the characters are ultimately vehicles for something larger.
Identity.
Family.
Culture.
Resilience.
Belonging.
Human behaviour.
His childhood between cultures gave him voices. His marketing background gave him strategy. Social media gave him a stage. And comedy gave him a language capable of connecting all of them. From a boy experimenting with accents to a creator reaching audiences around the world, Shawn has turned observation into entertainment and cultural differences into points of connection.
There may be many voices behind @myparents_are_divorced.
But behind all of them is one very distinctive storyteller.
And his story is still being written.
FOLLOW SHAWN CHIDIAC
Instagram: @myparents_are_divorced
Website: shawnmpad.com
Official Show: Laughing in Translation
PR & Media Inquiries: shawn@mpadmanagement.com
