If you have used the internet in the past year, you have definitely heard of TikTok. If you use TikTok everyday, then you definitely know who Charli D’Amelio is. While she is best known as a TikTok influencer, she and her family are the stars of a new show on Hulu about their lives.
The show starts off by introducing Charli and her sister Dixie, detailing their rise to fame. More interestingly, the show also gives viewers a look behind the social media pages of the family. The sisters deal with a lot of mental health issues that they are very open about throughout the whole series. As snippets of the D’Amelios’ lives play out—Dixie records new music, Charli trains for a dance competition—the screen floods with comments and tweets from anonymous internet users, which range from praise to death threats. And their parents try to support them through it all.
“I am physically and mentally exhausted,” Charli expressed on the show. A common theme in the show is the heavy backlash she receives that becomes increasingly difficult to tolerate. And in Episode 7 she takes a one week break from her work (as her mom recommends) to relax and focus on her mental health away from social media hate.
The show reveals Dixie in the studio, life with her boyfriend Noah Beck, performing live for the first time and in the last episode she releases her newest single. Charli tries to balance work, return to dance, win a KCA, release a clothing line with Dixie, meet up with her old friend from Connecticut and celebrate her seventeenth birthday in the last episode.
While the behind-the-scenes look at TikTokers in LA was intriguing, the show lacked compelling storylines. It seemed to be very authentic but the subject matter was sufficiently interesting for a reality show series. The show could have been easily converted into a Youtube video or a one-hour documentary.
If you’re a Charli D’Amelio fan, this show is definitely for you. If you’re a reality TV fan, then you can just stick to the new season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Written by Nour Faragallah of Walter Johnson High School
Photo courtesy of Priyanka Pruthi via Wikimedia Commons