Haters Back Off!

Thanks to the unique way this blog is funded (it makes no money whatsoever) I’m able to dedicate hours of my life to watching things on Netflix so that others don’t have to.  Whereas sensible folk will switch something off halfway through the first episode, I’ll push through to the end so that I can write a snarky post about it (see Altered Carbon).  You’ll be glad to know I have now done this with Haters Back Off!  Subsequently, I can tell you whether you should plan your time to take in the sixteen thirty-minute episodes that make up its two series, or whether you should fill your precious fleeting existence on this planet with something that will offer you greater enrichment.  Such as watching traffic pass on a moderately busy road.

Let’s look at the ingredients that led me to click watch whilst scrolling the depths of the Netflix menus, drowning in unnavigable options and pledging my life away deciding there were too many things I simply must watch.  Haters Back Off! is about someone who’s really bad at singing.  Not only am I really bad at singing myself, but I love nothing more than hearing someone sing who thinks they’re really good at singing but actually isn’t.  And this is our protagonist, Miranda, all over.  There’s a certain tone of voice, off-key, off-pitch and off its face, that acts to me as both a brown noise and an immediate joy producer.  For those that don’t know, brown noises are sounds that have the ability to cause humans to evacuate their bowels.  Seeing as this is something I have no trouble with at the best of times, it’s a miracle the sofa has come away unsoiled from my viewings of this show.  Despite the risk, this is what reeled me in when the trailer auto-played at me, unasked, one day.  Hearing Christina Aguilera’s breakthrough hit, Genie In A Bottle, turned into a cacophonic wail told me everything I needed to know about Haters Back Off!

Miranda takes popular songs and records videos of herself murdering them.  We’ve covered the bad singing, but she also makes dreadful expressions and gesticulations at the camera that plumb a depth of self-unawareness we have never seen before.  In an age where everyone wants to get rich quick as a YouTube influencer, there’s a brutal realism to Miranda’s appalling uploads.  Her bids to find fame and fortune run aground as the internet trolls gather to leave their comments.  What she lacks in talent, she makes up for in determination.  As a spoiled, home-schooled teen, she expertly burdens the rest of her family with her mission, and they spinelessly tag along.

And this is my second ingredient for success.  Bad singing?  Check.  Ruthless female lead who is awful to everyone but who cannot be blamed just because others are enabling her awfulness (like Jill Tyrell in Nighty Night)?  Check. Beyond this, though, the show rarely gets into gear to soar like it should.  This is the Napoleon Dynamite end of America – depressing and humdrum.  The family home is expertly crammed with the most banal clutter.  While this is a great touch in evoking Miranda’s natural environment, you’ll want to crack the vacuum out and get the cheesy puff dust out of the carpet.  In addition, whenever she’s outside, it’s normally just rained.  The sight of wet tarmac is curiously crushing to the soul.  It’s the perfect accompaniment to Miranda’s tattered dreams of fame, but maybe it’s too close to home for me as a suburban Brit who has been damp from rain for approximately 75% of his life.  Overall, the tone is gently disgusting, helped along by the vile Uncle Jim’s dodgy installation ability with regards to septic tanks, or watching Miranda shove a Froze Toes in her mouth.  But if you’re looking to roll on the floor laughing, just so you can use the acronym ROFL when whatsapping your pals, then you’re going to come away disappointed.  I can’t decide if the supporting cast are deeply complex, or ill-defined enough that their behaviour is easily moulded to fit each storyline.

It was only later I learned that Miranda Sings was originally a hugely successful YouTube character in real life (9.6 million subscribers).  Which means the whole show is the sitcom translation, getting all meta on us by showing us the same character’s attempts to become successful on YouTube, when she is already successful on YouTube.  Lacking any of my own success in either YouTube or TV programmes, it’s not for me to tell you all that this doesn’t really work, but let’s just say Netflix haven’t taken up the option for a third series. 

Unlike being in or out of tune, comedy is subjective.  Colleen Ballinger has created a memorable anti-heroine who perfectly apes so many of the dreadful idiosyncratic clichés our YouTubers love to use: “Hey you guys!”  When performing as Miranda, you can see that she is embodying her alter-ego with every corporal resource available to her.  And a lot of red lipstick.  The whole thing just needs a few more jokes, otherwise it’s a bit like watching traffic on a moderately busy road, only not quite as enriching.