Issa Rae and Awkward Black Girl Fill a (Tiny) Niche

Issa Rae and Awkward Black Girl Fill a (Tiny) Niche

By Rebecca Haithcoat Wed., Jun. 27 2012 at 3:11 PM

W.B. Fontenot

Issa Rae

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In front of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at the Grove, someone is scraping lightweight plastic chairs across the pavement instead of picking them up, and the sound is akin to fingernails being dragged down a chalkboard. Issa Rae, the 27-year-old writer, director and star of the web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, continues to talk as if nothing is happening.

The scene feels plucked out of ABG, as the show's fans affectionately call it. Spurred by the absence of characters in TV and film like her -- normal, slightly nerdy black girls dealing passive-aggressively with awkward situations -- Rae created a series about J., a 20-something who works at a call center for a weight-loss pill company. One of the funnier first-season episodes revolves around J.'s first date with a white dude who (cringe) takes her to a soul food restaurant and spoken-word night.

ABG began its run on YouTube in February. Broke midway through, Rae and her production partner, Tracy Oliver, launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the second half of the season. Their goal was $30,000. By their deadline, they'd received almost double that.

Episode one of season two of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, which premiered June 14 on its new home, Pharrell Williams' I Am Other YouTube channel.

A happy side effect of that campaign was a healthy boost to the show's profile. Pharrell Williams, musician and member of production duo The Neptunes, cherry-picked ABG for his I Am Other YouTube channel (devoted to "thinkers, outcasts and innovators"), and its second season premiered on June 14.

"It's refreshing when people of all races say they don't see an awkward black girl, they just relate to who she is," Rae says.

Rae, the daughter of an African-American mother and a Senegalese father, grew up in Los Angeles, Potomac, Md., and Senegal. In her last year at Stanford, she filmed a web series about her group of friends. She'd also written a script, Naima, that was a semifinalist at Sundance, but being 19 and "cocky," she balked at the notes she was given and instead took solace in the web.

Up next: Rae's vicious commenters

Tags:

abg, awkward black girl, issa rae, youtube

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McTwist

really unnecessary to put down a writer. As she mentioned, it was titled something else. How bout this? THANK YOU REBECCA for bringing this story to others who may not have seen it. Thanks for making more people happy by simply reporting. Great job!

Nicole

Thanks for responding. It's a disapointing title change and from any angle, doesn't really make sense with your piece. Please pass along readers' general discontentment to your editor (there was a ton more "choice words" about this on FB btw). Hopefully he/she will take the time to explain the train of thought here or at the very least think twice about such changes in the future.

HaithcoatIsFailure

I wonder if the writer of the article Rebecca Haithcoat is a failed filmmaker. If I was a failed filmmaker in LA and had to write a story of a successful black woman who turned down offers, I'd make every effort to undermine her success so the world can see how i failed so bad at filmmaking I ended up blogging.(tiny!)

Disiny2003

I love this show and niche is anything but tiny. And we wonder why Hollywood churns out the crap that it does.

Nicole R.

Dear Rebecca Haithcoat, would you please explain the use of "tiny" in the title? I'm not sure I understand the relevance. Was it supposed to be some sort of a unmentioned pun??

Veronica

Lincoln Heights... but of course it had to be set in the ghetto lol

Wendybergonse

I love this series and have watched from the beginning. Issa Rae is hilarious!!!!

Miami

What a way to ruin a great story by adding [tiny] to the title. It's completely unnecessary. The author didn't even substantiate or provide data to show how big or 'tiny" the viewing audience is to make using the word legitimate. #sideeye

Amanda

Hi luckyevem, I totally get where you are coming from. Issa came to my college a few months back and showed several episodes of ABG. I was not familiar with the show but was instantly enamored with it. During the audience Q&A she mentioned that a network had been interested in picking up the show but wanted someone "less black." The audience reaction was HUGE. As a non-black person it was an eye-opener for me, most likely because I've simply not really had to deal with it (although as a Mexican I think I say there aren't a lot of proper representations there either). The audience connected with Issa because she filled that void and she resonated with others just because J. is so damn relatable! I love this series. It's amazing and much more than just for laughs.

Luckyevem

I think you shouldn't have put the word tiny in your title and then in brackets because its a really sizeable niche. the idea of very few people like her generally on television is rare.For example, I have never seen a high school tv show for black kids but we have gossip girl, vampire diaries, secret life, pretty little liars, etc. I think this is one of those we see it but we dont want to address it kind of things but unfortunately when Shonda Rhimes addressed it, she was slammed by so many people. We love the shows on tv but we want to see people who look like us too being represented.