- Hey guys, so I watched a few episodes
of "The D'Amelio Show", which is a new reality series
on Hulu about the most famous TikTok girl,
and her very boring family.
And I am confused?
I turned this on expecting to make a video
about all the funny cringe moments in a day
of the life of the wacky TikTok sisters.
And instead, I think I feel bad for them,
but I'm getting ahead of myself.
First, I want to walk you through
what my thought process was
as I was watching the show, trying to collect my thoughts.
My original take was, "This family is so boring,
oh my God, why is this a show?"
See, I've been really intrigued by the idea
of "The D'Amelio Show"
ever since I first watched a promo,
I think it was last year.
- [Marc] All right, so what do you think's
gonna happen on this show?
- Are you, like, flipping tables?
- Maybe. (everyone laughs)
- It was so awkward and forced,
and made a lot of people wonder
why the hell they were even making this?
Fast forward to a few months ago,
they released a more in-depth trailer of what to expect.
And it featured some unfortunate editing.
- [Heidi] Being normal kids,
that doesn't change with the following.
- I still have to make my bed.
- I'm sorry. Did you just say she still has to make her bed?
Ew. That's something only peasants do.
I just assumed at this point they had so much money
that every morning she'd wake up
and throw her sheets into a pit of fire
while robots put new ones on the bed.
But I guess she's just like us.
And finally, when the show actually aired last week,
I was able to tune in to some riveting television.
- That what you did all day?
- Yes. Well, I went to the gym.
I got Jim, and then I went to the gym.
- [Dixie] You went to the gym today?
- [Charli] Mm-hmm.
- [Dixie] I don't have a can opener.
(upbeat music)
- I want soup.
- [Male Speaker] Do you want soup?
- Handle things similarly, similarly,
simmer-murley, simmer-
- Everyone calls him a golden retriever.
He's literally a golden retriever.
- He literally is a dog.
He's covered in fur from head to toe,
he always barks at the mailman, he does have fleas,
but he's taking medication.
For their own sake, I'm glad that they seem
like normal, down-to-earth people.
If they were famous and dumb,
it would make life a lot harder for them.
But the appeal of reality TV, isn't so much to watch
regular people do stuff, as it is to marvel
at the terrible choices made by screaming lunatics.
Like I have a generally higher opinion of this family
than I do with the Kardashians.
But "Keeping Up With the Kardashians"
is an objectively funnier show.
- My earring's gone! (beep)
- [Male Speaker] Are you serious? We'll find it, baby.
- We're not gonna find it in the ocean.
My diamond earring came off in the ocean, and it's gone.
- [Female Speaker] Kim, there's people that are dying.
- On top of that, the editing is really weird.
They'll randomly split the screen in half sometimes
to show the same shot twice.
They keep putting these hate comments on the screen
that were all posted three minutes ago with 2,100 likes.
And I get what they're going for here.
But sometimes it just feels like you're watching
a bad dramatization and an anti-bullying PSA.
But it's not really their fault that that's how it plays,
it's just the editing.
The D'Amelios come off as an extremely normal family
that was just living their life, until one day,
one of them accidentally became the Queen of TikTok.
This is all still brand new for them.
It's probably very overwhelming.
And they're all just kind of along for the ride,
a ride that seems to be heavily piloted by other people,
which brings me to my second tape.
Boy, these managers sure do make a lot of decisions here.
I get this really weird feeling in my stomach
when I see the way these agents and executives
start planning out an entire year of a teenager's life.
- [Greg] So what this is,
is this a look at your 2021.
This is the major things we're focusing on,
starting a clothing company, so,
and then you have books and TV shows, so-
- Let's see just how many business ventures
we can start all at once.
- So how do you feel about 2021?
- I think this is definitely
a lot more stuff than I thought I was doing.
- [Host] Oh, this Hulu show is part of the plan.
The only reason this exists is because of these guys.
In my own personal experience of dealing with people
who stand to make money off of you,
it can be difficult to always know
when they have your best interest in mind,
because they often don't.
Hollywood, and now social media,
are industries full of parasites.
And a lot of these big management companies
have a funny way of making you think
that their ideas are your ideas.
They can be very manipulative, often in subtle ways,
to get you to agree to do the thing
that they want you to do.
I'm not saying that this is what's happening here,
but I am saying that this does happen a lot.
And on top of that, to be a teenager,
to not even be old enough to fully know who you are,
and what you want to do, and don't want to do,
it's historically really easy to be taken advantage of.
They talk about that a little bit in this documentary.
- Yeah, I trusted a lot of people, but at the same time,
a lot of the people I trusted did me very wrong.
- There's already a lot of pressure
put on young social media stars
to do as many things as they possibly can,
because you never know when it's all gonna end.
Better make that money now, sis,
you can sleep when you're old, and grown.
And there is some truth to that,
but it can also have the opposite effect.
You do too much and burn yourself out.
You start to resent your work,
and no longer get any joy from it.
But that pressure to say yes to everything is real.
There's a guilt that sneaks up on you.
When you think about turning down a brand deal,
or a business opportunity, just 'cause,
"Well, I don't really feel like it.
Wait, am I a piece of shit?"
You're not, but your brain might make you feel that way.
Your anxiety will convince you that your career
is gonna crash and burn tomorrow.
And when it does, you'll wish you'd capitalize more
on things while you were still relevant.
Another thing I wonder about is like,
the $14 million house they live in.
Is she paying for that? You'd have to assume so, right?
Because they weren't multi-millionaires before TikTok.
I only bring that up because that would add to the pressure
she's already under, if her family was more or less
financially dependent on her.
Because then it's like,
"How do I say no to things I don't wanna do?
If I don't do this Pepsi Max sponsorship,
are we gonna lose this house?"
- I just literally have no time
to like actually do anything, which is the thing that sucks.
- Again, I'm just speculating here.
I don't know the ins-and-outs of their financial situation,
but this is something that does happen.
Jennette McCurdy has opened up about this,
that she didn't even like acting,
but felt like she couldn't stop doing it,
because at that point,
her family relied on her for income when she was a child.
I don't know if it's even remotely close
to being the same thing for Charli.
But I do know by watching this series
that she and her sister have a lot of anxiety.
They have panic attacks,
they have these severe emotional breakdowns.
Most of which stem from the circumstances they're in.
- I mean, I don't think young people
should be allowed to be famous.
- It makes me think of child actors,
and the agents that they have to hire.
An agent's entire job is to get their client
to do gigs because they don't make money
unless their client makes money.
So they're gonna do everything they can
to convince them to do everything they can.
Which can lead to someone
who's still in the middle of puberty,
to get spread so thin,
that people start making videos about them.
Like, "This overworked kid isn't very nice sometimes.
She was so rude that even Ellen kicked her off her show."
Oh no, Millie, don't tell me you looked her in the eyes.
That's her one rule! Just kidding.
She has several rules.
Remember when the paparazzi caused Brittany Spears
to have a very public meltdown,
so that the paparazzi could film her
having a very public meltdown?
And then everyone was like,
"How could this have happened?
She must be crazy 'cause there's no way
this was caused by extenuating circumstances.
We're all trying to find the guy who did this."
I'm not saying that that is a path
that the D'Amelio sisters are gonna go down,
and I certainly hope it's not.
They do seem to have a good support system around them,
but it is extremely difficult
to navigate fame as a teenager.
And it was about halfway through episode two,
when I arrived at my third and final take, which was,
"Oh, shit, I think I feel bad for them."
For better and for worse, social media has democratized
the process of becoming a celebrity.
No longer do you have to audition
or hundreds of roles in hopes of finally getting
your big break, you can just make stuff and people see it.
And if it's good, then a lot of people see it.
And if that happens, then you can make a career out of it.
You can film yourself on your phone,
in your bedroom, and become rich and famous.
It is the greatest thing ever,
and also kind of the worst thing ever.
Because I feel like what's happening more and more
is you have these children who become famous,
and then have to figure out what they're good at,
rather than the other way around, which makes more sense.
You act or sing or write music for several years
until you're so good at it,
that people start giving you recognition.
And at that point, you're confident in your abilities
because you've had time to hone your craft.
But now, so often I feel like
we're reverse engineering this process.
You know, a teenager gains a massive following
for doing, more or less, nothing.
And then someone swoops in to try and figure out
how they can capitalize off it.
"Hi, nice to meet you. You said you're a child?
Not anymore. Now you're a brand."
Dixie, for example, has become sorta just famous by proxy.
She even admits in the show that if it wasn't her sister
posting TikToks in the first place,
she would never be where she is today.
So now she has this amazing opportunity
to become whatever she wants.
She tried acting for a little bit,
that didn't really work out.
So now it's like, "Okay, I guess we'll just
turn you into a pop star."
The show highlights Dixie's process
of trying to become a singer,
even though she's not naturally a singer.
She'll be working with this vocal coach
who's trying to get anything out of her.
And she's too nervous to sing because the cameras are there,
which I get, you know, I'm pretty self-conscious, too.
But also like I went to school with singers,
they would sing in front of anybody.
They would just go around
singing their thoughts at all times.
Even if it drove people crazy,
they would never stop singing.
And that's where it can be almost kind of frustrating
to watch, because you know there's so many talented people
out there who would kill
to have the audience that they have,
that could be so successful
if they had access to the resources that the D'Amelios do.
And she has all of that,
and doesn't even know what to do with it.
But at the same time, it's not her fault.
It's not their fault that a hundred million people
decided to make them the most famous family on TikTok.
It's not Dixie's fault that she's now so popular
that every single thing she does
will be endlessly scrutinized.
And that's where she's in sort of an impossible situation.
with anything in life, failure is a part of success.
You have to fail some so you can grow.
It's gotta be so fucking hard
to fail in front of millions of people,
many of whom are rooting for you to fail for no reason.
Dixie has gotten a lot of hate for her music because, well-
(Dixie singing)
♪ I was really, really, really, sad. ♪
It's not very good. Sorry.
But when she sings live, she actually has a decent voice.
The problem for her is there's so much more
that goes into music than just having a pretty good voice.
You need to be able to not just write lyrics,
but also melodies, and the instrumentation,
and have an idea of the entire projection
in your head as you're writing.
And she hasn't had time to learn all of that yet.
So she's in a position where all she has to do
is just write down that she's feeling
really, really, really sad.
And that, you know, of course makes her feel
really, really, really bad.
♪ Really, really, really, really bad ♪
And then she just kind of gives that to her team,
and they microwave it together,
and sort of overproduced the shit out of it
until it doesn't even sound like music anymore.
Oh, and Wiz Khalifa's gonna do a verse too,
because why the hell not?
♪ Quit your cryin', why you messin' up your makeup? ♪
- I think Dixie has the potential
to make really good music a few years from now.
But in the meantime, she's gonna have to repeatedly fail
in such a public setting
that it's gonna be really discouraging for her.
And she's gonna have to power through all that,
if this is what she wants to do.
So I can see both sides of the argument,
where one side would say, "Well, you know,
she's lucky to have everything she has.
I don't really feel bad for her at all."
But you also have to acknowledge that the spotlight
she didn't necessarily ask for
is as much of an obstacle as it is an advantage.
Would you rather suck at something
you're trying for the first time
in front of 50 people, or 50 million people?
I genuinely feel bad for Charli and Dixie
when they talk about how much pressure they're under.
I can relate to a lot of the things they described,
and their spotlight is 100 times bigger than mine.
Unfortunately, the only way out of it
is to just accept that this is how it's gonna be.
All of your dreams have come true,
but you gotta take the good with the bad.
A lot of people are just gonna hate you now,
no matter what you do, it's almost never justified,
and it's really hard to ignore.
But the only solution is to find a way
to not let it affect you.
And that's a skill that takes time,
because of course you want everyone to like you, of course
you want to find validation from other people,
but you can't seek that out until you have
a solid foundation of self-confidence to fall back on.
- [Heidi] But you liked it, right?
- [Dixie] I mean-
- [Heidi] And you are still proud of it?
- [Dixie] Well, no.
Now I feel like it sucks,
'cause that's what they made me sing.
- I think the ideal way to come up in this industry
is through slow, incremental growth.
Your work gets better as your audience gets bigger.
And by the time people really start to shit on you,
you already have a pretty thick skin.
But when you're practically like an overnight sensation,
you're just not equipped to handle any of it yet.
At the end of the day, most people aren't gonna have
much sympathy for rich people,
especially if they don't personally see value in the methods
they use to get rich.
For a lot of them, it won't matter
what else a celebrity could possibly be going through
in their personal life.
It will never be as bad as having to work two jobs,
struggling to pay bills,
living through financial insecurity.
It's sort of like, "Oh, you feel sad
'cause you have to read hate comments in your mansion,
if only your phone had an off button."
But I do feel like these are somewhat unique circumstances.
For one, they are children.
They did not ask for this, but also they're not just famous,
they are the most famous.
I would never wanna be the most of anything.
Put me somewhere in the middle,
give me all the benefits of being like
a mid-tier internet celebrity,
without the stress that comes with having
a hundred times more of everything.
- So someone like predicted my death,
and apparently they predicted like
a bunch of other people's death.
But instead of dying, I posted a dance video, so...
People weren't nice 'cause they thought
I was gonna die.
- Fuck that. I don't want that.
I think it would be fair to say
that the D'Amelios don't deserve to be as famous
as they are, but they certainly don't deserve
to be hated this much.
I just hope for her and her sister that they can make it
through this period in their lives,
relatively unscathed, and not let this industry
completely destroyed their mental health.
Well, that's pretty much all I had to say about that.
Sorry, I think I forgot to put jokes in this one.
This topic ended up being a lot more serious than I expected
when I first started writing it,
but I will make up for it
by doing a really funny brand deal.
- Hey, what's the deal with airline food, right?
(audience laughing)
You know, it's like,
"It's cool and all that we're defying gravity right now,
but what's the guy gotta do
to get a slice of pizza around here?"
(audience laughing)
You know?
Yeah, if I was a flight attendant,
I would just serve everyone HelloFresh.
- [Male Speaker] Are you kidding me?
- [Male Speaker 2] Oh my god, he's doing it again.
(audience booing)
- [Male Speaker 1] Get off the stage.
- All right, maybe that wasn't the right setting
to do a sponsorship, but you know what?
I've been using HelloFresh long since before
they started sponsoring my channel.
And that's because it tastes good,
and convenience is very important to me.
I hate going to the store.
If I have to do it, I'll go at like 9:00 PM on a Tuesday
just to avoid people.
But even once I'm there,
I gotta traverse through 19 different aisles
just to find the last ingredient for a recipe
I found online that I'm probably gonna mess up anyway.
Plus I don't need an entire box of panko,
what am I gonna do with the rest?
Turn it back into bread and make a sandwich?
Probably not.
With HelloFresh I get pre-portioned ingredients
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That's right, you don't have to go out
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You can actually save up to 30% by using HelloFresh
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And all the meals come with simple to follow recipe cards
that only take about 30 minutes to complete.
So you can get back to doing the things you love,
like working on your top five.
- So what's the deal with train food?
Is that a thing? - Now, for everyone
out there thinking, "Drew, that sounds great and all,
but I'm only gonna try HelloFresh
if you give me 14 free meals."
So fine, I will.
Go to hellofresh.com and use my code, IMALITTLESTINKER14,
to get those 14 free meals you demanded from me,
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If you want to get out of a rut, and try some new recipes,
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I highly recommend it.
Thank you to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video,
and supporting my channel.
As fun as it is to sympathize with uber-famous teenagers,
there are a lot of people right now
who are in much worse circumstances.
For example, there was a hurricane a few weeks ago
that ripped through Louisiana,
and flooded a lot of the Northeast.
So I wanna do my part to help by taking the ad cents
from this video, and splitting it
to two different organizations
that help each of those two causes.
I'll leave the links to them in the description.
If you wanna read more about them, or donate yourself,
but also you don't really have to
because you sort of already did donate
just by watching this video.
Well, I'll be back tomorrow with another video
where the sun shined in my office so bright
that I turned into a ghost,
and now I'm haunting your house.
So, boo!
Just kidding. I'll say that for next time, bye!