It is not the first time that an influencer has left his usual video platform milieu to try out himself in front of larger cameras. Sometimes it works quite well, for example with Nilam Farooq, as daaruum at times one of the largest Youtubers in Germany, who worked alongside Christoph Maria Herbst at the end of October in Contra will be shown again on the big screen. In other cases, an influencer appearance does not at least take away the success of the ensemble as a whole, like the guest role of lifestyle video producer Julia Beautx in youth romance The most beautiful girl in the world. And then there are the cases where it should have been left off altogether. So it is with Life’s a glitch with Julien Bam.
Bam, real name Julien Zheng Zheng Kho Budorovits, was one of the most successful German (comedy) youtubers for a long time. His account also had more than five million followers Julien Bam was called. Then he dissolved it at the end of 2019. But his career continued. First a restart on the Twitch gaming platform, then a return to Youtube, this time in the gaming area. Meanwhile, well-behaved advertising cooperations, as it should be for an influencer. Since the summer of this year he has also been hosting a podcast on Spotify with the self-proclaimed CDU destroyer and YouTube colleague Rezo. So far, so common is the influencer career. The only thing missing was the cherry on top of the icing on the media world.
In the parallel universe, the famous influencer has to start all over again
His brother, director Shawn Budorovits alias Shawn Bu, has now fulfilled this wish for him: In Life’s a glitch, in German as much as “Life is a breakdown”, Bam practically plays himself. A successful influencer who wallows in success, money and awards, and only from his down-to-earth friend Joon (Joon Kim) and his dream woman Clara (Vivien König) is grounded. He has just asked her for a date at an event and watered the promise together with a Mexican when he and Joon crashed into a 5 G mast on the way back from the event. You don’t end up in the hospital, but in a parallel world and Julien is right on the groundwork: he’s no longer a celebrated influencer, but an unknown taxi driver (“I thought you were fans.” “Fans of a taxi driver, or what? “).
The spoiled Youtuber doesn’t like the new world. Together with Joon, who is a famous rapper in the parallel dimension, but cannot live up to the associated expectations, Julien tries everything to return to his world. Fight crazy fights, master challenges, build connections to physicists and to the other dimension. As soon as the two have contact, they experience the so-called “glitch”, a glow and flickering on the 5 G mast or on the mobile phone.
Actually, it seems like the brothers want to question influencer fame
Even if it’s just a miniseries – the way back to old life takes four episodes – is the same Life’s a glitch an imposition. One insane scene follows the next. The plot is incoherent, the dialogues are mostly without any depth. If you enjoy series with a game character, you should go for the hyped ones Squid Game keep. Neither Bam nor his co-actors shine with their acting performance (and mind you, the others are full-time actors).
This is a pity. Because it seems as if the brothers had set themselves the task of questioning the supposedly high value of influencer fame (“Very simple. No chic and nothing. That was kind of nice.”). But to thematize this through a further profitable and high profile self-marketing is contradicting itself. Perhaps influencers should rather stay on their usual platforms and not travel to the parallel universe of drama. Unless their name is Farooq and they are really good actors.
Life’s a glitch, on Netflix