The story
Issa and Molly have been best friends since their Stanford days and are now in their late twenties, back home in South Los Angeles. Issa works for a non-profit serving local schoolchildren and feels stuck in a long relationship that has lost its spark; Molly is a successful corporate lawyer whose dating life refuses to cooperate. Their friendship, careers and romantic detours drive a warm, frank comedy about everyday Black life.
Why it matters
Issa Rae's path from a crowdfunded YouTube series to an HBO comedy became a reference point for creators trying to break through online. Insecure is described as partially based on Awkward Black Girl rather than a direct transfer, but the web hit put Rae on the map, and the HBO show went on to earn eight Emmy nominations for its fourth season alone.
From web series to TV
Insecure is not a straight transfer of the web series: it is described as partially based on Issa Rae's YouTube hit The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl, which premiered in February 2011. Rae began developing a new pilot with co-creator Larry Wilmore in 2013, and HBO picked it up in October 2015; the first episode streamed on HBO Now and HBO Go on 23 September 2016 before weekly HBO broadcasts began on 9 October.
Notable facts
- Awkward Black Girl premiered on its own YouTube channel on 3 February 2011 and won a Shorty Award for Best Web Series in 2012. (source)
- Insecure debuted online via HBO Now and HBO Go on 23 September 2016, about two weeks before its weekly HBO run began. (source)
- The American Film Institute named it one of its top 10 television programmes of 2017. (source)
- In July 2023 it was added to Netflix in the US, the first HBO series to be made available there. (source)