Carlos Gonzalez/Netflix
At first look, Netflix’s new actuality present Hype Home–a few group of younger, wealthy TikTok influencers who stay collectively below one roof–might merely appear to be TheActual World with a hoop gentle. And in loads of methods, it's, as Hype Home founder Thomas Petrou notes in an early episode of the collection, out Jan. 7, “Now we have ten 20-year-olds residing in a $5 million home collectively, filming content material all day. It simply doesn’t sound actual.”
However over the course of Season 1’s eight mind-numbing episodes, it turns into more and more clear that it’s not actual–as a result of the very last thing any of those bona fide social media stars need to do is movie any content material in any respect. Hype Home is a present a few bunch of well-known children who hate what they do.
The bitterest of all of them is Petrou, essentially the most stressed-out 22-year-old with a Rolls-Royce. He calls himself the dad of the home, and he’s perpetually weathered, exhausted, and has had it as much as right here together with his lazy mates who aren’t doing their half to maintain Hype Home afloat. As Petrou helpfully explains, the hire on the Moorpark, California, mansion–made infamous in a 2020 New York Instances profile– is paid for by the model offers they do on Hype Home’s social media channels, and everybody in the home is predicted to assist out by contributing viral-worthy content material.
Petrou says he sees Hype Home as a type of Nickelodeon or Disney Channel–a launching pad for younger stars to catapult into the mainstream, à la Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez, whom he names as examples of A-listers who've efficiently landed that bounce. That’s the whole objective of Hype Home, he claims, and he needs to see his mates go far and grow to be well-known whereas additionally encouraging them to “simply have enjoyable.”
The issue? None of them are having any enjoyable.
Take Vinnie Hacker, the most recent member of Hype Home, who admits he blew up on social media due to his barrage of “thirst traps,” which he’s since parlayed into a large following on the livestreaming platform Twitch. At a gaggle dinner, one of many home’s fellow Generic White Guys vents in regards to the 19-year-old beefcake, saying Hacker “hates” making content material and the eye that comes with it–a declare later confirmed by Hacker himself, who’s grown pissed off with the demand for extra shirtless selfies from his legions of more and more obsessed followers, as a result of all he needs to do is be a full-time streamer on Twitch. On the identical dinner, Petrou responds by declaring, “Ninety p.c of the preferred social media folks don’t need to be social media folks.”
Which begs the query: Why is that this dude attempting to pressure it? The throughline of the whole Netflix collection is Petrou’s disdain for his mates not contributing sufficient to Hype Home. However Petrou is a strolling contradiction; he encourages the home’s members to try for the following stage of their careers, then hates after they handle to do this. A self-proclaimed hustler, he ceaselessly delivers parental screeds in regards to the Hype Home model and their technique, calling home conferences the place he tries and fails to persuade everybody to be a workforce participant.
The principle perpetrator of all this, in Petrou’s eyes, is his Hype Home co-founder Chase Hudson, aka Lil Huddy, who was as soon as a part of the O.G. group earlier than shifting into his personal mansion in Encino. The plan was for that home to be an extension of Hype Home, however as Petrou repeatedly reminds us, Hudson hasn’t held up his finish of the deal as a result of he by no means contributes content material to the Hype Home socials anymore. That’s as a result of, frankly, Hudson obtained too well-known. The collection finds the brooding, vampire-obsessed eboy within the midst of constructing his debut album below Interscope Data and openly proclaiming, “My objective is to be fucking Beyoncé.” (Whether or not or not that’s a wise plan is up for debate; he’s racked up over 100 million streams on Spotify, certain, however he’s additionally advised whereas rehearsing for a stay present, “You don’t really have to sing. The best transfer is to only go [holding a fake mic out to the crowd], ‘I can’t hear you!’” Beyoncé would by no means.)
Hudson isn’t the one notable influencer who outgrew Hype Home–previous members embrace TikTok’s reigning queen, Charli D’Amelio, and her sister Dixie, who've gone on to star in a Hulu actuality collection about their household, and Addison Rae, who’s been adopted into the Kardashian circle and has launched a half-baked music and appearing profession. Principally everybody on Hype Home appears to be lusting after that stage of fame, together with TikTok and YouTube star Larray, who seems as an everyday on the Netflix present. “I’ve been doing social media for 5 years now. Anyone could be well-known. Anyone,” he says. “One million followers on TikTok doesn’t imply shit. Can I be well-known for being gifted is the true query.”
Larray is among the two saving graces of Hype Home, a reprieve amid the ocean of white dudes with shaggy hair who're inconceivable to inform aside. A homosexual, mixed-race 23-year-old from Compton, Larray is BFFs with the opposite actual star of the present, Nikita Dragun, a trans lady who’s received over thousands and thousands of followers together with her fierce vitality and over-the-top model. The 2 of them ceaselessly and thoughtfully discuss all through the collection about reclaiming their identities by means of social media and the truth that they face extra scrutiny than white creators, particularly in the case of their brushes with cancel tradition (Nikita has repeatedly been accused of blackfishing, which Larray confronts her about after feeling like he was disowned by the Black neighborhood for associating together with her).
Larray and Nikita aren’t official Hype Home members and don’t stay within the mansion–and it doesn’t appear to be a coincidence that they’re two of essentially the most profitable faces featured on the present. That’s as a result of the home is stuffed with creators who by no means really need to create, regardless of how bored all of them are. In a last-ditch try to encourage everybody, Petrou arranges a visit to Joshua Tree for the group to bond, aka to movie some rattling movies already. However his desires of a content material waterfall within the desert are shortly drowned–everyone seems to be combating, their tenting floor is supposedly haunted, and Petrou breaks down crying as a result of everybody’s simply consuming pizza and watching Ratatouille, at the very least within the case of Hype Home member Ryland Storms. His excuse for not making any content material on the journey? “We’re nonetheless so younger and, like, we’re on this life and we’re getting cash that a 21-year-old, or no matter age, shouldn't be making.”
Storms later contributes this different astute remark: “I really feel like the rationale that everybody’s on this trade is that they weren’t good with authority to start with, in order that’s why they didn’t go the college route, and so they needed to be their very own bosses.”
A part of that impulse, these creators make it abundantly clear, is their want to not be beholden to another person’s plan. Petrou retains attempting to wrangle them into productiveness, he retains failing, and by the tip of the collection he appears to resolve that possibly content material homes aren’t a good suggestion in any case.
No less than, that’s what he tells us–till the ultimate scene of episode eight, when he declares that a number of the home’s members have moved out after deciding they don’t need to stay collectively anymore, and he’s now in search of contemporary meat to recruit. The Hype Home should go on, apparently. However who really needs it to?