How a 2007 kids' show predicted modern social media stardom
iCarly was the blueprint for TikTok stars
welcome back to ok zoomer, a newsletter about young people on the internet
howdy. mood for today is curly bangs and tired eyes before a floral backdrop. i wish i could go back in time and make this my senior photo.
ib this viral twete (ib means “inspired by” and it’s what creators say before they copy someone’s tiktok)
content dump
Everything NY Mag has published as part of their Tea-MZ series is making me violently jealous, including this profile of Trisha Paytas that calls her ”frighteningly entertaining” and an interview with a man I’ve been DM-ing like once a week since for a year.
speaking of trish, how did her friendship with david dobrik fall apart? and could she ultimately be his downfall?
speaking of david, do we like dispo? vsco girls and dispo boys? is this anything?
the macarena predicted tiktok dances
squishmallows are the new beanie babies
i dunno if i agree with the thesis of this emo resurgence article but i do enjoy it
i wanna be angelcore. or maybe glitchcore? (big flashing light warning)
no wait … quiltcore!
the person behind the “your fave is problematic” tumblr realizes their motivations were a little problematic, too
gizmodo scooped me on this story about culttok. good for them.
next time your tweet goes viral, sell something thru this company why dontcha
why can’t clubhouse simply cool it with the notifications
drama of the week
this week’s drama has vintage roots. thanks to netflix, i’m re-watching icarly alongside my likeminded, 20-something silly friends. (seriously, how did we all watch it?)
its availability probably has something to do with the fact the show is being rebooted for paramount+ (formerly cbs all access, now with viacom stuff, does anyone have a login) at some point this year.
then and now! then and now!
tragically, though, the show will be devoid of sam puckett - the loveably violent sidekick who supplied more than half the laughs on the show for none of the name recognition. actress jennette mcccurdy, who is now a podcaster, said she’s not coming back - to icarly or to acting - because she’s ashamed of the roles she’s played in the past. which is pretty much just sam.
sounds like there’s something going on there, so i’m not gonna joke about it, i just hope she’s ok and that she has jerry trainor aka spencer, who is handsome, on her show soon.
this icarly resurgence is the best kind of nostalgia — the kind that not only reminds me of nights spent watching tv with my parents and brothers but also celebrates absurdist sense of humor we all share.
it also made me realize that if i had been in this exact position - youth online culture blogger - in 2007, i’d have been writing up a storm about it.
i have found myself telling my husband, who is reading about nfts and not paying attention to a children’s show he has no heartwarming feelings about, that “this would definitely go viral” at least three times per episode. the show came out in 2007 - merely 2 years after the launch of youtube. nearly 15 years later, it’s still weirdly accurate in its portrayal of viral content and internet celebrity.
the icarly gang deals with plagiarism, bad sponcon deals, creepy superfans, bad reviews, feuds for clout and so much more. how is it so … sage? how did they know we’d still be doing this in 2021? how did they predict that all bits should be 30-60 seconds long and involve dancing?
because a lot of things that are true about humor and the human attention span are still true now. duh. we’ll still be doing this 15 years in the future in some form or another.
one of the most profound ways this manifests is the dynamic between the show’s leads.
-> tech producer freddie, a character entirely lacking in drip, was the first true simp. he has a weird love triangle with both the leads which plays into BOTH friends-to-lovers and enemies-to-lovers tropes. were you a seddie or a creddie and will you follow him just to see which one of them he posts about??
-> sam, the loveable badboy (who is a girl), is everything bryce hall wishes he could be. she is constantly in and around jail, pranking people and wearing bermuda shorts. her mom is jane lynch! she’s the perfect foil to carly, who….
-> is so boring. carly has no personality aside from “loveable.” we are made to believe that she is loveable and cool based on the fact everyone seems to love her. but why! i call this boring-girl-itis, and nearly every Nickelodeon teen show had this problem. victorious…zoey 101…so on. and the tiktok girlies today have it too. they are boring and beautiful and they have good friends and they’re already popular and unproblematic so…follow em!
-> spencer, carly’s older brother who could be the only explanation that she was allowed to post so freely and recklessly on the internet, was a handsome artist who made ridiculous sculptures and spaghetti tacos. there’s no way he would not be more popular than carly when all was said and done. major crush potential.
-> gibby. gibby! gibby. he has the most staying power of all of them. he is ridiculous and shirtless. he would have gone viral the first day and stayed famous for the rest of his life, enduring cycles of obscurity and resurfacing after re-making old segments like a fusion of frankie jonas and … everyone on alt tiktok.
if icarly were a youtube show today, it would be massively popular. per an early episode of the show, around half a million people watched the web show each time it aired. converted to 2021 viewership rates, bearing in mind we really did not know what a “webshow” was in 2007 … that is a very popular show.
its stars would be doing quite well on tiktok, in my opinion. here are my predictions on follower count.
stream icarly for clear skin!
i don’t think you understand, i’m obsessed
more tiktoks should end like this one, which starts like a cringey dispatch from straight tiktok but introduces something called the “scootski”
i only want two things: the harry styles sweater and the princess diana sweater
my greatest hobby these days is re-learning the things i didn’t learn right the first time. my favorite podcast for this is you’re wrong about
i have watched every single video this woman, nava rose, has made. she is so good at making weird clothes look good. is it because she’s skinny and beautiful? partially. but it’s mostly because she’s confident. i will never be able to do that but i do enjoy watching it.
deeply fixated on youtube pop culture explainer channels. this one is a favorite
from yours truly
i’ve been a full-time reporter at in the know for a year now! how time flies. this is the only anniversary happening this month, right?
manifestation … what is it? how does it work? can we make fun of it? i am so happy and grateful that you clicked on this.
i let a cool gen z tiktoker tell me what to wear and it helped me realize what the best thing about tiktok is
i wrote the companion piece for this excellent video interview with a woman who created an entire app to make talking about your mental health a game, and thus easier and so much more fun
rae dunn pottery has a sort of gen x white woman cult going on. i tried to explain why (and why tiktok is so fascinated by it)
see you sometime,