Meme Boys Review: A lightweight comedy that needed better writing

Meme Boys, now streaming on SonyLiv, is a Tamil web series that tips its hat to this vibrant social media culture of finding humour in all kinds of situations.
Meme Boys poster
Meme Boys poster
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There is no significant event in Tamil Nadu – be it politics, cinema or reality TV – that does not become a Vadivelu meme. However grave the situation, the people of the state always find a way to laugh at it. Meme Boys, now streaming on SonyLiv, is a Tamil web series that tips its hat to this vibrant social media culture. The eight-episode show directed by Arun Koushik was created by Rajiv Rajaram and Drishya. It credits A Gokul Krishna as the showrunner. 

Meme Boys is set in the fictional Apoorva University, one of the numerous engineering colleges that dot the landscape in and around Chennai. The show follows the story of a group of four students – Mohan Jyothy Babu (known as Mojo and played by Aadhitya Bhaskar), Karthikeyan (known as Jumbo and played by Siddharth Babu), Srikumar (known as Power and played by Jayanth) and Julie (played by Namritha). 

Mojo’s parents run a grocery store and expect him to take over from them. Jumbo wants a high performing laptop but his single mother cannot afford it. The way out of their misery, they decide, is to win the meme fest which comes with a substantial cash prize of Rs 10 lakh. Neither of their motives is strong enough to drive the plot forward, so the conflict point arrives in the form of Dean Narayanan (Guru Somasundaram).

It’s a Don-like premise, but Meme Boys differs from the Sivakarthikeyan movie in the sense that all their battles against the dean are fought online. The series employs a deliberately quirky, light-hearted, and fun tone all through, from the title card and background score to how the episodes are designed, cut and narrated. The young actors try their best to wring humour out of the lines that are often heavily peppered with Tamil pop culture references. But the problem is that you can see them trying. 

Guru Somasundaram, on the other hand, delivers an assured performance as the dictatorial Narayanan. The role is a readymade caricature but he gamely stops it from slipping into one. Badava Gopi, as his assistant, makes do with what he’s given while the same can’t be said about the other ‘grown-ups’ on campus – the hostel warden and head of security – who are stuck in predictable stereotypes.

The success of a meme template depends on the popularity of the visual and how apt it is for the situation. The humour is lightweight but sharp. The show attempts to capture this meme-like hilarity, but translating it to a live action episodic comedy is not easy. Meme Boys runs with common circumstances from campus life – bad canteen food, unreasonable hostel curfew hours etc. –  that are probably very relatable to the young crowd that it targets; the humour, however, depends too much on the lines and not the situations. The jokes are a dime a dozen, and though some of them land well, the show becomes repetitive when the conflicts are not built sufficiently. For instance, there’s a mention of a student (resembling Rohith Vemula) who is denied his scholarship. Before it can be turned into something meaningful though, it is swatted into a resolution. 

You learn the drill too quickly; a conflict pops up, the Meme Boys put up a meme, the dean is angry, the conflict is resolved and the dean becomes angrier. Why the haste, boys (and Julie)?

The video memes that appear as part of the show are laugh-out-loud funny. For the humour to hold across eight episodes, though, you need more than that. The creators are so eager to make the viewers laugh every second that they’ve held back on anything remotely substantial that could have involved us more. The character sketches, too, are underwhelming and dependent on the lines that they keep repeating. The twist is saved for the last episode but it probably would have worked better if it had been introduced earlier and developed sufficiently to keep our interest alive. The hurried narration makes the turns in the plot appear convenient and difficult to buy, falling back on improbable coincidences. 

What is encouraging about Meme Boys is that it is a thoroughly homebred Tamil series that doesn’t try to be pan-anything. If you don’t follow Tamil pop culture, the references will be lost on you. At a time when Over-the-Top platforms and film industries are trying to make everything appeal to audiences across the board and unwittingly diluting cultural specifics, Meme Boys is a refreshing effort. But, it needed better writing and imagination for it to stay afloat. 

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.

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