MovieChat Forums > Insecure (2016) Discussion > How similar to Socially Awkward Black Gi...

How similar to Socially Awkward Black Girl?

posted 8 years ago by DiminishingRainforest
2 replies | jump to latest

I was a huge fan of Socially Awkward Black Girl when it first came out, and I remember going through withdraw waiting for each new episode to be released. There's a really strong universal appeal to the show - I'm a white male, but living with high-functioning ASD really makes me relate to J's awkwardness innocence (and occasional lack of innocence). To my dismay, it was discontinued, and I remember at the time there was talk about Issa Rae working with someone with more clout (maybe Shonda Rhimes?) to pitch a pilot for network TV that never came to fruition.

I've been living in a small town in China for the past few years and that shelters me from a lot of developments in pop culture back home. Two days ago, a random memory of Socially Awkward Black Girl popped into my head and I thought about what a shame it was that someone as talented as Issa Rae never got her big TV break. I decided I'd do a web search to see what she was doing now, and you can imagine my surprise to see she's on HBO!

I'm looking forward to finding a way to get access to this show over here, but in the meantime, can anyone who watched both the old web series and this new one share some thoughts about how similar or different they are? Is Issa's character here more or less the same as J from Socially Awkward Black Girl?

[–] OhhHello 8 years ago

This show is a lot darker and explicit than the web series. You may be disappointed if you enjoyed J's awkward innocence. She is a complicated anti-hero in this show. She had to change the feel of the show to fit in with HBO's aesthetic. She still has funny ABG moments though.

[–] Michael901 8 years ago

To me, it is similar. If you liked ABG, you will like Insecure. The title indicates that it is still in realm of ABG. Insecure is not as goofy as ABG and a little more serious, but not so much that you will not recognize the web series that inspired its network run.