‘Haters Back Off’ not up to the hype, but great for comedic relief

With more than 7 million subscribers on YouTube, Colleen Ballinger, better known as the YouTube sensation Miranda Sings, came out with “Haters Back Off,” her own Netflix original series, on Oct. 14.

Ballinger began her YouTube career six years ago as the fictional character Miranda Sings, covering pop songs and purposely remaking horrible music videos, as popularity continued to skyrocket.

Flaunting her signature smeared red lipstick, loose-collared shirt and nasally voice, she ventures through life as a YouTube star in the comedy series as she deals with hate, guys and her unusual family.

The show revolves around quirky, narcissistic and overconfident Miranda, who seeks fame on YouTube. The episodes depict Miranda’s road to fame, and the price she pays for trampling on the feelings of others, from the start of her career to when her videos go viral.

Of course, after hearing all the hype surrounding Miranda and her ridiculous singing performances, I was excited to begin the show and find some comic relief in the midst of  my stressful junior year. Although the show is a definite go-to for laughs, it is also one that viewers could grow easily bored of.

Besides the characters, the plot is heavily based on Ballinger’s YouTube career, twisting reality so that she is depicted as a ridiculous star-wannabe instead of a viral success. Since the plot is very similar to her YouTube videos, it is nowhere near as interesting as it could be. I found myself getting somewhat bored of her singing covers for YouTube on the Netflix show when I realized I could be watching her shorter YouTube videos.

The show consists of four major characters besides Miranda: her younger sister Emily, an ordinary teenager trying to live her life; her timid mom Bethany, who is unable to confront Miranda about her ridiculous singing and nonexistent talent; Patrick, Miranda’s closest guy friend; and Uncle Jim, her biggest supporter.

The characters portrayed are perfect foils to Miranda’s quirkiness and self-absorbed characteristics — Bethany is timid, while Emily is more straightforward and blunt, as she tries to confine her sister’s limited-talent from making a fool out of herself.

I enjoyed the first few episodes of the show; they were funny and getting to know the characters was interesting. As the episodes proceeded, I began to grow bored of the static characters who each seemed to possess the same intention throughout the entire show. While Bethany and Emily continue to instill reality into Miranda that she is talentless, Patrick and Uncle Jim encourage  Miranda to  make more videos, hoping  that her videos will go viral.

Since Miranda is  the same character in the show as she is on Youtube with the signature red lipstick and career aspirations, I wasn’t as engrossed into it as if she had played a whole different character in the series. It would be nice to see a different side to Miranda than her persona on YouTube, making her ridiculous music videos and covers.

Ultimately, the show’s simple editing and cinematography reveals that not much time and effort was put into its production and is not worthy for a second season; the first season provided enough comical relief and a simple plot that further deepened Ballinger’s character, Miranda.

Although the show does give her audience more of her funny personality, leaving all her “Mirfandas” satisfied, the show was nothing more than her YouTube career transformed into a fictional story and elongated into a series.