If you ask a friend what their favorite television show is, they may answer with a series that doesn’t even play on television. But in a few years, it might.
Since the introduction of YouTube in 2006, web series have become a huge market unto themselves — some shows have even made YouTube stars full-on celebrities.
And every once in awhile, a web series makes the leap from the Internet to the television screen, getting picked up by a network. The biggest one that’s made the transition is “Broad City.”
“Broad City,” which just finished its second season on Comedy Central, follows Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson through their millennial misadventures in New York City. Glazer and Jacobson, the series’ creators, began the show as a web series in 2009, and it ran until 2011. Amy Poehler, who knew the two from the Upright Citizens Brigade, starred in the web series’ final episode and helped bring the stoner-duo show to television.
Comedy Central also picked up “Drunk History” from the web. The original series streamed on Funny or Die in 2007, featuring an inebriated person narrating a historical event. While the narrators recall past events to the best of their ability, actors reenact the scene while lip syncing the narrator’s dialogue. This concept was carried over to television in 2013, featuring celebrities like Michael Cera, Nick Offerman and Kristin Wiig.
The television series of “Drunk History” — produced by Will Ferrell, who has also made a cameo on the series — will premiere its third season this year on Comedy Central. With the ongoing popularity of the series, another version of the show premiered this year in Great Britain, recounting events from their history.
Unless you’re Alex from Target, getting Internet famous is hard. But it’s not impossible. Aspiring online stars don’t need to worry about demographics and ratings in the same way television executives do — they just need to worry about having a camera and ideas. This, of course, can be a double-edged sword for web-series-turned-TV-shows. Online artists generally have a smaller audience, but they’re free to create anything, whether it’s six-minute episodes, or trying something out of the box. Television expands viewership, but also creates limits, whether of timing or profanity.
In some cases, producers don’t necessarily want the actual web series — they want the talent.
One of the newest television series in this tradition is “The Grace Helbig Show.” Premiering on April 3, the show features YouTube star Grace Helbig on her own primetime comedy/talk show on E!. Helbig’s claim to fame comes from her own YouTube web series “DailyGrace.” She has also starred on the YouTube-exclusive web series “My Music.”
While many web series have made the hop to television, some television series have made their own webisodes to accompany their show. AMC’s “The Walking Dead” features an additional series of online episodes on its website, expanding the lore of the “Walking Dead” universe.
Video killed the radio star, but the Internet has only enhanced the video star. While becoming an Internet celebrity is not as easy as it seems, those that grasp this fame can achieve much more.