Amazon animated comedy Fairfax's obsession with consumption is more depressing than funny

Variety

The animated comedy about "a group of middle-school hypebeasts (which is to say, streetwear obsessives) coming of age in image-obsessed Los Angeles, is often very funny in how far it’s willing to push its media-saturated sensibility," says Daniel D'Addario. "More often, though, it can feel bleak, as in thrall to the phenomena it’s satirizing as it is skeptical." He adds: "Fairfax is all about the struggle to be cool. It also inhabits it, deploying references (the first episode is built around a Supreme-style brand) and semi-ironic celebrity guest spots that seem intended to dazzle more than to amuse. After several episodes, the pursuit of impressing others came to feel insufficient as a guiding principle. Because the characters’ relationships are minimally developed — Dale’s effectively plopped into a pre-existing friend group and immediately adopts their interests — the quest for status is the guiding light, and the bond that unites. And that’s not quite enough."

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• Fairfax presents itself as a show for the terminally online, but somehow only scratches the surface of the internet culture that makes up its whole premise: "The series never explains what it means to be an influencer, or why the crew works so hard to reach this status. In episode two, 'Big Peens,' Dale reveals a horrifying fact—he’s never had an Instagram account. In order to get into an influencer’s birthday party, he has to gain 100 followers. The episode has its moments, including every time Dale’s pupils dilate with dopamine hits as his follower count rises. In Fairfax, Instagram is the only social media with any real sway. But the question remains: Are teens actually using Instagram right now? According to a New York Times article that dropped just two weeks before the show’s premiere, teens do not care about the photosharing-app-turned-whatever-Instagram-is-now. The show’s depiction of teenagers screams 'millennial writers’ room.' In 2021, a series about internet-savvy seventh-graders only references TikTok in passing, which means that, for season two, Amazon should probably hire some Gen Z consultants."
• Fairfax is a fittingly ephemeral thing, more amusingly silly than deeply funny: "It’s visually energetic, humorously frantic and populated by an exceptional voice cast," says Daniel Fienberg. "It’s much more invested in endless name-dropping than in being consistently substantive, but it does a good job of simultaneously respecting and mocking the world it’s depicting."