'Meme Boys' review: Gen Z might relate to the story and characters despite flaws

Julie (Namrata), Karthik (Siddharth Babu), Srikumar (Jayant), and MJ Babu (Adithya Bhaskar), in 'Meme Boys' on SonyLIV. (Screen grab)

The world of memes is familiar ground for most youngsters today. On the flip side, memes have also landed some in trouble, with creators getting thrown out of school and even arrested in some parts of the world.

It is in this world that creators Rajiv Rajaram and Drishya base their web series Meme Boys - the first Tamil original web series from SonyLIV. Directed by Arun Koushik, it has Gokul Krishna as its showrunner.

Set on a college campus, the series revolves around four students who want to take part in a meme fest to bag a big cash prize of Rs 10 lakh. Apoorva University students Power aka Srikumar (Jayant), MJ Babu (Adithya Bhaskar), Julie (Namrata) and Karthik (Siddharth Babu) end up becoming friends because Julie is the only one with an Apple laptop that can design the memes of their dreams.

But college life is not what they had all hoped for, and they end up dealing with a strict disciplinarian of a dean – Dean Narayanan (Guru Somasundaram) – who makes their life worse than their parents. To top that, the ladies hostel warden (Latha Venkatraman) thinks that college rules can be tightened even further and makes the girls’ life more miserable.

So what happens when all these factors combine? Well, a meme fest! Srikumar, MJ Babu, Julie and Karthik take the first step towards the meme competition by creating memes under a pseudonym: ‘Meme Boys’. The memes are about their college dean and all the things that the four friends find torturous about their college, including the terrible canteen food, constant surveillance and crazy rules. But we see them get arrested. What transpired and why did they get arrested? Do they win the competition?

Meme Boys is reportedly the first web series in India to be centred around the theme of memes and youngsters who create these new-age cartoons as a way of expressing themselves. While the theme is interesting, the plot is not meaty enough to sustain through eight episodes and therein lies the problem. The writing and the script, the idea for which came from a YouTube short, seem to be the very first drafts that could have been honed and polished much more before being turned into an eight-part series.

Also read: When local is universal: SonyLIV to launch Tamil Originals this month

In fact, turning this into a six-part series might have made the narration crisper and more engaging. As for the main characters themselves, the role of Julie is not well fleshed out and she seems to be more a female prop rather than key to the series. And this is quite unfortunate – a strong female character would have added more value to the team of Meme Boys. Badava Gopi, Latha Venkatraman and Sri Ganesh have been added for the comic factor, but there aren't many laughs they elicit. Having said that, this is a decent attempt by the creators, showrunner, actors and director to offer something new to the audience.

One word that is bandied about often in the series is boomers and how boomers won’t get what the Gen Z youth in Apoorva University are going through. And that’s right – along with boomers one can also add Gen X and Gen Y.  Meme Boys is a series that’s possibly ideal for Gen Z kids who can identify more with the characters and story despite the shortcomings.