But the lethargy reads less like laziness than exhaustion and anxiety the residents (mostly indistinguishable teenage boys) are hesitant to produce more cringey sponsorship videos, gin up plot for clicks, or mine themselves for more attention. Throughout the season, Petrou laments a lack of interest from the Hype House residents to post content, which keeps the business afloat. The main plotline of the first few episodes is a rift between Hype House co-founder Thomas Petrou, the 22-year-old leader of the house, and Chase “Lil Huddy” Hudson, 18, a TikTok e-boy archetype perhaps most famous to outsiders for dating Charli D’Amelio, and who moved out before filming. It is perhaps best described as a work-from-home reality show whose drama basically boils down to threatened income. The kids are constantly stressed out by the prospect of getting canceled (ie a scandal which prompts a flood of hate messages and sponsorship cancellations) and the lashings of toxic fans (such as when possessive female fans of heartthrob Vinnie Hacker, 18, post death threats for a girl whom he kissed as part of a prank video.) But it’s an effectively depressing portrait of one’s life as a voracious business. Hype House isn’t as deliberate with mental health messages as The D’Amelio Show, which is bookended by content warnings and resource lists and witnesses both girls have panic attacks.
HYPE HOUSE SERIES PROFESSIONAL
Both end up being intriguing not for the charisma of its stars, whose professional futures remain a constantly stressful question mark, but because they are human beings undergoing an ineffable, relentless experience of extremes, happening too fast and at too large a scale for anyone to process and which few people seem to actually enjoy. Like The D’Amelio Show, it’s a project whose aim seems unclear beyond the mandate of fame maintenance – is the point to turn the participants into mainstream stars? To reveal a more “authentic” experience of celebrity? To convince people to take the profession seriously? To be a fly on the wall? – whose interpersonal drama is at best half-hearted and whose stakes exist on an off-camera app. Hype House is the latest TikTok-adjacent content, to use the overused, air-quotable term, that tries to capture the “behind the scenes” dynamic of a life that is constantly on camera anyway.
“So you just woke up one day and became an internet celebrity?” an unseen producer asks Kouvr Annon, 20 (13.5 million followers). I just posted a video on an app, now I’m living in a mansion,” said Jack Wright (8.1 million followers). I don’t even know how this many people follow me, or even just care about me,” says Larri “Larray” Merritt (24.3 million followers).
“A million people who know who you are – it’s just … weird,” says 20-year-old Mia Hayward (3.7 million followers, the show notes it’s unclear on what platform). Like sisters Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, the TikTok stars and former Hype House collective members in Hulu’s Kardashian-esque The D’Amelio Show, and Gen Z music superstars Billie Eilish and Juice WRLD (who both blew up on Soundcloud) in their respective 2021 documentaries, the kids find the experience of social media fame basically inarticulable.
HYPE HOUSE SERIES SERIES
In confessionals which open the series and recur throughout the five episodes made available for review, the Hype House stars attempt to explain their fame, their jobs and the experience of being known by millions of people and having your worth - and income - quantified by followers.
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