Everyone Is Jealous of Rachel Sennott

For years, it lurked: Untitled Rachel Sennott Project floated around the trades and web with lofty promises that this would be the next "Girls" or "Insecure" or "Sex In The City" — a coming-of-age woman-driven HBO dramedy to bring us out of our cultural slump.

Well, that mystery project now has a name and a trailer, which was just released to a predictable mix of fanfare and insanity. There were some positive calls that Josh Hutcherson (yay) and Leighton Meester (double yay) are employed, and some tepid claims of “seatedness,” but overall, the girls seem bitter.

Now famously: Twitter [X] is not real life, but it feels like the many hyper-viral dunks we're seeing are a bit half-baked.

One viral post called it “spiritually ai,” while a slew of others comparing it (pejoratively) to other HBO shows like “Insecure” and “Girls,” implying nacho theft. Now, we’ll have to wait and see, but the plot, which centers on a group of friends specifically trying to cut it in young celebrity/influencer Los Angeles, feels culturally and historically specific ... and thus this is quite different from those shows?

Also, young viewers yearn for shows about young people, and thus, isn't it sort of natural that every gen refreshes this coming-of-age style show and adapts it to our current moment?

Beyond that, I see some digs about being bored of shows set in Los Angeles, but there are over 10 million people in LA County and it’s famously the center of entertainment … seems like an apt locale for a show about young creative ambition! And if you want a moving show about a non-coastal city, may I recommend the wonderful Kansas-set HBO series, Somebody, Somewhere?

I’m not saying anyone who is not excited or into this show is jealous, but I do think Sennott’s trajectory does inspire a twinge of envy in the masses. She, like so many of us, started as a funny person online.

She’s been a working comedian and actress for years, but she did genuinely parlay her casual, shitposting internet notoriety into important and buzzy roles in Shiva Baby, Bottoms, The Idol (which I shudder to remember), and now, the dream: her own HBO show.

Given her roots in internet culture, the distance between Sennott and so many people online feels relatively minuscule. These days, so many people are trying to be notable online personalities or influencers, be it on Instagram, TikTok, X or Substack. And whether you're actively pursuing online status or not, the nature of digital culture means that basically everyone is semi-conscious of their own brand.

The fact that Sennott started off like so many regular funny people online and is now hobnobbing with Charli xcx in Europe is a bit triggering, because, well, that’s the dream … and worse yet: her trajectory feels somewhat attainable. The pain of possibility! The fact that Jordan Firstman and Quenn Blackwell are on the show and have an internet personality-to-A-list story kind of hammers in the envious aura.

Photography: Getty