Everyone remembers a moment when they said something that was so accidentally inappropriate that the room was silenced, people stopped to stare at you, and then you had to go on stage, naked; nothing but a piece of A4 with your now forgotten lines to cover your shame.

Hang on, wait. No, that was a nightmare I had that totally isn’t based on anything. It’s also what Little Horribles is like.

Little Horribles bills itself as a ‘darkly comedic web series following the poor decisions of a self-indulgent lesbian,’ and it is gathering more and more steam. Little Horribles takes the classic format of a character likely to say or do the wrong thing, and then watch them suffer in a variety of painfully awkward scenarios. I previewed this show when it first launched back in June, and episode 7 hit YouTube on Wednesday 4^th September. The show so far gathered over 250,000 views, been featured by BuzzFeed and promoted by Sarah Silverman. Not forgetting, of course, that an executive producer to the show is Issa Rae, she of Awkward Black Girl fame. Little Horribles is a show with good exposure and good production pedigree.

Created by and starring Amy York Rubin (and produced by Rubin’s crowd sourcing company, Barnacle Studios), Little Horribles presents us with Rubin playing an exaggerated version of herself. The Rubin on-screen is cynical and self-deprecating, but also foot-in-mouth prone, the author of her own misfortune, and hopelessly inept at dealing with the embarrassing situations she puts herself through. Each episode so far focuses on some poor decision of Rubin’s, or her suffering in silence as yet another person berates her looks or speech.

There is always a perverse pleasure in watching someone else crash and burn due to their own ineptitude. We love that it isn’t us suffering, but can easily image a scenario where it could have been. Little Horribles makes Rubin’s character the embodiment of all the times you felt like a comment was passive-aggressive or a thinly veiled insult was thrown your way. It’s a wince-inducing show that I mostly watched from behind my hands, barely able to look at the screen.

Each episode has one situation for Rubin to fall into and the trick is for said situation to not overstay its welcome, otherwise watching from behind the hands could soon become not watching at all. For the most part Little Horribles gets the balance right and measures out its awkwardness in short sharp cringes. It forsakes character depth or development for pure scenario based humour, which can be both a plus and a minus.

On first watch, I must admit I wasn’t overly enamoured with Little Horribles. When a show focuses solely on ‘wince humour’ it can languish with uninspired repetition, with each situation being clearly telegraphed way in advance. The second episode, entitled ‘LMFAO’, is the weakest entry in the series. The episode deals with Rubin chatting to someone on-line despite that person being only across the room. Rubin tries to be funny and sends interesting links but even though the other person is typing things like ‘LOL’ and other such amused acronyms, Rubin can see that her co-conversationalist is actually yawning and completely disinterested in what is popping up on her screen. Thus the scene descends into Rubin confronting the person and the awkwardness that comes from being utterly dismissed. The problem here is that Rubin switches from ‘hopeless victim’ to ‘needless accuser’ and the episode falls flat because of it. Indeed, one inherent problem with the format of the series as a whole is that due to the snapshot of each cringe worthy moment in time, Rubin’s character rarely gains any depth, making it harder to sympathise with her, often self-induced, predicaments.

Perhaps it is because there is such an initial scarcity of character information that where the series begins to shine is when highly identifiable character tropes start to surface. A particular highlight is episode three (‘Date’) where Rubin is on a public date but the pairing is a complete mis-match of personalitie. The confidence smashing dialogue that pours from this situation is really funny. Similarly, Rubin being completely dismissed by a mother who then goes on to unashamedly try to set up her son with Rubin’s pretty co-worker is delightfully painful to watch. I particularly enjoyed the extended episode ‘Minibar’, because, unlike the rest of Little Horribles to date, there is a rich vein of added depth to Rubin’s character through our being introduced to her family. The nuances of family irritation combined with Rubin taking on the chin the insulting comments from an otherwise well-meaning mother is highly relatable. The depressive binge eating that follows is all the more funny for adding this thread of empathy.

The series looks and sounds great. There is a clever use of limited space which can be partly attributed to intelligent set choice, but also is thanks to a restrained but glossy directorial style. Be it through wide shots, where we see people oblivious the effect their words are having on Rubin, to close-ups of her expression on the more teeth-grinding moments, the camera knows just when and where to be in order to squeeze every drop of agony out of the room.

Other characters have so far come and gone, having little reason other than to be a vehicle for the awkwardness. Regardless, the casting is superb. Each line of dialogue and facial tick layered on by an additional tormentor adds to the discomfort on-screen. A particular highlight was Echo Kellum, playing a man disgusted with Rubin’s slightly too public pubic self-pleasuring. Also playing her character to infuriating perfection was Jennifer Bartels as the date completely disinterested in Rubin, although willing to screw her if she doesn’t talk during, or after…or before. With episode 7 we are re-introduced to the keen-to-escape jazz-loving girlfriend from the first episode, ‘Sexual Encounter’. Rubin has said that more characters should make a return in forthcoming entries which should add a needed amount of extra flavour to proceedings.

Although the gaps between episodes have been a little unpredictable so far (there was a month between episodes 6 and 7) the current commitment is that a new episode should upload every Wednesday. How long the run is going to be is unclear, but since launching in June it has moved from somewhat flat one-dimensionality into a show spreading its wings. Little Horribles is growing in confidence with each episode and is really hitting a sweet spot right now. With a newly revamped artwork splattered all over their YouTube Channel, Twitter feed, Facebook Page and website, plus the views continuing to pour in, Little Horribles looks set to only get bigger and better.

Little Horribles: Episode 6 – ‘Minibar’