Three of the most hated YouTube videos of all time are as follows: Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” with over 3 million dislikes; Justin’s Bieber’s “Baby,” with over 2.7 million dislikes; and Rick Perry’s “Strong,” with over 700,000 dislikes. However, each of those videos also has their share of defenders. On a percentage basis, 87 percent of rankers hated “Friday,” 69 percent hated “Baby,” a whopping 96.9 percent hated Rick Perry’s homophobic campaign ad, “Strong.” There’s one TV trailer, however, that as a percentage, viewers hate even more than Rick Perry’s “Strong.”
MTV’s Americanized version of The Inbetweeners currently has 54,000 dislikes compared to only 1,355 likes. That means that a staggering 97.6 percent of all those that have ranked The Inbetweeners video dislike it. People hate American remakes of awesome British comedies even more than cowboy homophobes!
It makes sense, too: Anyone that has seen the British version of The Inbetweeners understands what a brilliant, hilarious, and often poignant show it is. I like to describe it as a cross between The Wonder Years, American Pie and the Urban Dictionary entry for vagina.
The show was such a huge hit in Britain that the feature-film based on The Inbetweeners had the highest opening weekend ever for a comedy (surpassing Bridget Jones and The Hangover). The British movie, released last year, is set to open in the United States in September, and American studios have already planned an American remake of the movie. But MTV has had a remake of the TV series in the works for a while. It’s set to premiere on the network in August, and the trailer basically represents everything that the British movie is not.
Iain Morris, the co-creator of the original series, has even felt compelled to take to Twitter and offer a half-hearted defense:
“I’m not going to comment on the American inbetweeners a lot because I have to use twitter for more interesting things like complaining but the pilot director, Taika Waititi, has made consistently funny TV shows and one of my favourite films of all time in ‘Boy’.”
He added: “My wife is American, and she is as funny and clever as anyone I’ve ever met, so I don’t like or appreciate the anti-American stuff. Anyway, you might like it, you might hate it, but don’t pre-judge it. And the original will always exist. Always. Never going away. Thanks.”
Basically that weak defense can be summed up like this: The director of the pilot has made funny shows in the past, although I won’t comment on his work with the American pilot. You might like the show or you might not. Either way, my check has already been cashed, and I’m going to buy my hot American wife a new house in California.
The video is not embeddable, but you can watch it on YouTube here.
