The Pop-Music Satire in ‘I Love LA’ Is Absolutely Lethal

Tony Soprano. Don Draper. Fleabag. Carrie Bradshaw. Those spoiled brats from Gossip Girl. Those selfish pricks on Seinfeld. Larry fucking David. Who amongst us hasn’t been drawn in by terrible people on TV? I love an antihero, especially one who doesn’t know they are wildly insufferable (though clearly their creator does). So when a friend asked me if I like I Love LA, the new HBO vehicle from terminally online “It” girl Rachel Sennott, I had an answer ready: I enjoy watching it, but I dislike every character.* (*Besides Josh Hutcherson, who plays the down-to-earth boyfriend of Sennott’s character Maia; mostly I forget about him.)

Girls was a love-hate watch because it could hit close to home, at least among white girls trying (and sometimes failing) to become writers and “creatives” in Brooklyn during the 2010s. The failing part was important. I Love LA could be considered Girls’ influencer kid sister, but to me it’s like a more self-aware Entourage about Erewhon-toting Gen-Z girlies and gays scheming their way through the attention economy. I do not find I Love LA aspirational in any way—though apparently some young creatives do, on account of how well the real-world Rachel Sennott and her clique are doing. With each episode, it becomes clearer and clearer that the series is a finely drawn satire about nepo babies and celebrity dick-riders seeking online fame and Silver Lake status. You will laugh. You will cringe. You will feel the sting of recognition that yes, culture has become depressingly vapid. 

There’s this quote from the second episode that I keep thinking about. Instagram comedian-turned-actor Jordan Firstman plays Charlie, the stylist of a British pop star (Ayo Edebiri) who is insistent on 29-year-old Zendaya playing her mother in a music video. It’s an absurd notion and everyone around the singer knows it, but when Charlie’s friends hear about this, their reaction is priceless: “Why is she making a music video? Just do a TikTok and move on like everyone else.” Because pop music and TikTok are so intertwined, it makes sense that a show about an influencer, her manager/bestie, and their fame-adjacent posse (including Forest Whitaker’s daughter, True, as Hollywood nepo baby Alani) would end up touching on the music industry. The fourth episode, “Upstairses,” sent me over the edge in this regard, showing how some of the cheesiest songs in existence go viral on the platform.