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In the classic short story “The Monkey’s Paw,” a family uses a magical mummified monkey’s paw to make their wildest wishes come true. However, with each wish they make, a curse reverberates back on them in retribution. It’s a cautionary tale warning people to be careful what you wish for and I couldn’t stop thinking about it while watching Hulu’s new reality series The D’Amelio Show.
The D’Amelio Show follows TikTok superstars Charli and Dixie D’Amelio as they attempt to transition from social media fame to the real thing. Their parents have reluctantly uprooted the family from the Connecticut ‘burbs to a splashy Instagram-worthy house in Los Angeles. Shy sixteen-year-old Charli has her life mapped out in Google meetings, marketing campaigns, and content creation, while Dixie struggles with self-esteem and mental health issues while trying to become a pop star. The D’Amelio Show clearly wants to be the next Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but ultimately it is a harrowing look at the dark side of social media fame. In just the first episode, Dixie has an emotional breakdown, Charli frets over losing time for her actual dancing, and a dog shits all over the mansion.
If Keeping Up With the Kardashians and the Real Housewives are escapist soap operas, then The D’Amelio Show is a heartbreaking tragedy that makes TikTok fame look like a blessing that soon becomes curse.
Charli D’Amelio started posting videos of her dancing and lip synching with friends on TikTok in the summer of 2019. Quickly she amassed a gargantuan following, becoming the most followed person on the app. Her older sister Dixie soon followed suit, gaining her own fanbase after appearing in Charli’s videos. As Charli explains in The D’Amelio Show, being stuck in Connecticut during lockdown meant she had to pass on a ton of Los Angeles-based opportunities. Hence why the family decided to move cross-country in pursuit of girls’ dreams.
As Charles Bramesco notes in his fabulous piece on D’Amelio and fellow TikTok star Addison Rae, Charli seems a bit adrift when not mugging for the iPhone-sized screen: “In her videos, she projects supreme ease and confidence; speaking for herself, it’s as if she’s intimidated by her own voice.” Indeed, both Charli and Dixie seem torn between the disaffected cool girl personas they’ve crafted and a sense of overwhelming insecurity. Charli honestly doesn’t know why she’s so famous and while Dixie tries to laugh off comments that she’s only famous because of her sister, she is physically in pain from anxiety. In her vocal lessons with a superstar coach, Dixie doesn’t seem “intimidated” by her own voice, but absolutely terrified of it.
And yet, it’s hard to feel wholly sympathetic to the D’Amelio girls’ plight as it’s clear they are enjoying the wealth and opportunities their fame has brought them. I mean, I one hundred percent feel empathy for the girls and wish their parents had stayed in Connecticut, but Charli is raking in $4 million a year. In a world besieged by suffering, the D’Amelios’ problems seem like blessings. There’s a clothing line, record deals, endorsements, and a rolodex of celebrities clamoring for the girls’ attention. Blessings, again, that feel like curses.
The D’Amelio Show makes it clear that none of this would have happened to the family if Charli hadn’t posted videos online for fun. While Charli is a trained dancer, neither sister has the depth of experience that most child performers get in community theatre, workshops, choirs, on sets, and in audition rooms. Teen stars typically have a ramp up to the D’Amelios’ type of success, along with media training and on-set minders. The speed with which the girls have become famous have not equipped them in an emotional or professional way to handle it all. Worse, the D’Amelios are only famous because they entertained people on the vipers’ nest that is social media. Transitioning into the music industry or entertainment biz is going to be that much harder.
In Episode 2, Charli says she feels guilty for the hate thrown at her sister. By her logic, people wouldn’t be able to hurl insults at Dixie if she hadn’t become famous in the first place. It’s not Charli’s fault that strangers like to be mean in the comments, but she’s not wrong that there’s a cause and affect at play. The D’Amelios are living the dream. They have fame, fortune, and Instagram faces. But because they have all that, they also have to spend the rest of their lives worrying if they deserve it all. Only they can say if having their wishes come true was worth the curses that came along in the deal.
The D’Amelio Show is now streaming on Hulu.
