This review, like the webisode it covers, is a bit of an experiment. If you have opened up your Snapchat application recently you will no doubt notice some sweeping changes to the service. Most notably you will see the “Discovery” feature that highlights paid content from a select group of outlets and feeds them directly to you. Sure, it kind of goes against everything that this once simple app stood for (aside from sending pictures of boobs and dongs all over the internet), but it is a move that looks to set up Snapchat as more than a photo and video sharing platform and more along the lines of a content provider.
Leading the charge is Snapchat itself with the début of its very first scripted web series, Literally Can’t Even. The series is set up in small easy to digest five-minute episodes that will premiere in the “Discovery” section on the app. Keeping in line with the nature of Snapchat, Literally Can’t Even will only be available for twenty-four hours before vanishing into the ether, presumably forever.
The problem isn’t with a web series in and of itself, every up and coming actor/actress seems to be taking a crack at the YouTube market to jumpstart their career, but it’s the nature of the show that just falls flat, at least for anyone over the age of twenty-five. Even clocking in at around five-minutes, Literally Can’t Even plays like you’re stuck at the longest most boring party ever with no way of getting home.
Essentially what we have is a poor attempt to capitalize on the Broad City formula, taking direct cues and beats from the Comedy Central show. Unfortunately for Literally Can’t Even, they failed to take into account just who their target audience was. The two leads, and everyone involved, looks like a bunch of thirty-year olds trying to play hip, young twenty-somethings. It just doesn’t work out and every joke just falls flat. The two leads go to a pool party to chill and meet they guy, but wouldn’t you know it, things take a wacky turn and they have a bad time. It’s beyond trite and doesn’t make for a good first impression.
It’s a shame when a web-series that runs for five-minutes feels like a slog through an hour-long drama, in another language, without subtitles. Maybe as I just turned thirty a few days ago I have magically fallen out of the demographic for this kind of thing, but I feel that even teens would find this sort of thing pedantic. You can see the show trying too hard to want to be hip and cool and just coming up short.
I’m not against the idea of web-series in general as I follow a great many with much anticipation when they release, but Literally Can’t Even just doesn’t quite work. It isn’t a terrible production though as it does a lot of great things that showcase the Snapchat platform. The show is set up to fit in a vertical format with lots of different panels playing out at the same time. It’s the only time that I can think of where a vertical video actually works. Yes, it’s a little jarring at first, but once you get an idea for how the show flows it becomes Literally Can’t Even’s strongest feature.
At the end of the day Literally Can’t Even is a nice experiment, but if Snapchat want to become a series content provider they are going to need to figure out their audience and give us original shows, not poor mans knockoffs of better ones.
Pros:
- Great use of the Snapchat platform
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Engaging camera work in a vertical format
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It’s gone in 24 hours
Cons:
- Not very funny
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Falls well short of the Broad City clone it wants to be
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Seen this all before done better
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Isn’t sure of the demographic it wants to capture
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Even at five-minutes it’ll feel too long
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