ICarly reboot will need to deal with the new reality of online life

Nickelodeon’s hit series Did not make a statement It landed on Netflix in February, and since then, it has enjoyed a regular spot on the streaming service’s list of the top 10 most viewed titles. The show is set to get a sequel series on Paramount Plus this summer, Following in his footsteps Raven’s house, Fuller House, And Peacock Punky Brewster: Recently, there has been a round of sequels featuring young characters familiar with family-friendly sitcoms, now being seen for years in the line, themselves as adults.

Did not make a statement, Which puts around three teenagers on a web show of the same name, is a particularly intriguing show for such treatment. Not only will it bring back familiar characters dealing with issues that are currently relevant to audiences who grew up with them, it could also potentially test internet fame 10 years down the line, going viral at such a young age Consider the effects of being, and inquire into, a rapidly changing online world.

Real Did not make a statement Follows a trio of teenagers – the titular Carly (Miranda Cosgrove); Her best friend, tough girl Sam (Janet McCready); And Geeky Boy-Next-Door Freddy (Nathan Kress) – who starts a web show that skyrocketed to popularity. They deal with internet rivalries, petty bloggers, figure out what content to create, and reinforce how to get more viewers, with showy issues in general, like crushing and mean teachers.

There is definitely a nostalgic factor involved in looking back iCarly, But what makes it particularly intriguing is that apathy is not just for TV shows, it is for the Internet’s long-standing era. In-universe web show Did not make a statement The late 2000s / early 2010s are a capsule of Internet culture. It was a time defined by randomness and bizarre, where can I have Hazberger? Supreme governance, and memes still follow an almost universal top-text / bottom-text format.

At the web show, Carly and Sam symbolized this brand of LOL XD humor. They get into a fight with meatballs. They periodically stop the show to dance randomly. They dislodge a floating bra to tell horror stories. This is the kind of thing that was not only hilarious to a predecessor, but also hilarious in an internet time where high-pitched scrimmer Fred was the most popular thing on YouTube. (Incidentally, Fred guest-starred in an episode Did not make a statement.) Looking at this in 2021, Did not make a statement Seems like a perfect pocket of that Internet age in all its highs and lows. An older Carly in the sequel series will have to focus on how fast the Internet can change.

Much of the iCarly brand was built on public ridicule. The girls put a camera in front of a bus stop and made fun of people walking in a segment. They regularly do mischief and harass their doorman, Lubert. At one point, he crushes Sam with a veggie machine. (He was cheating on her, but still… kinda rude to do on a lewdress at age 13.)

to be fair, Did not make a statement Many aspects of the affected culture have been touched upon that still seem relevant: children get into internet fights, they take on a sketching sponsorship deal, they deal with intense bets, and in a strange way, they are a They also get into boxing matches. a professional. As Palmer Hash recently reported on Insider, Did not make a statement Staying ahead of Curve avoided being dated: “The show premiered at a time when YouTube still felt like a novel phenomenon and being an online producer was not viable as a career path. Did not make a statement That transition premiered early, and the show promoted the rise of the creators’ culture, which some have called the Golden Age of YouTube. “

But the compelling part of it is that the show had already become hallmark before Hallmark. The sequel series has the chance to find exactly the same after 10 years, when all these big staples of online figure became very common parts of online figure. How did Carly approach the online world at such a young age? Does he have a big head about it, or has he tried to move on? How does she feel about the changes that have gone through the Internet culture? Has he tried to capitalize on his once-viral fame? If Carly is like other creators of this time period, there is a possibility that she will have to deal with an era where a new generation logged on and found her material to be crisis and dated.

There is even bigger, overarching specific topics for dealing with the internet that whenever there were not really issues Did not make a statement First aired. Does his team now want to demonetize its content that they are not doing for fun after school? Will someone dig up Carly’s old video and write a call-out post? What about online harassment and parasitic relationships?

While some of the core tenets of the Internet remain static – pageviews are always good and rivalries are inevitable – Internet culture has changed fundamentally since Carly and Sam uploaded a video to Freddy, where they created a video Freddy Was uploaded where he made fun of his teacher. In 2021, it’s easier than ever for content that attracts some notices to be accidentally viral – but with so many creators dying for their chance in the spotlight, also attracting that notice at first is very difficult. What has changed about the show being online really digs deeper or not is the concept of one Did not make a statement The sequel series already offers a unique look at a version of the Internet that was mostly good – or at least not so overwhelmingly bad.

Did not make a statement Is streaming on Netflix.