References from our digital world are scattered throughout the show, like a

sort of constant Easter egg hunt: Charlie plays the video game Rust, Mr.
Frog tries to clear his name on The Tonight Show, and there are occasional
auditory or visual gags referencing hyper-specific memes. Where Pim is a
vastly optimistic romantic centered in the world and on all of its potential,
Charlie is his balanced, pessimistic foil who spends a lot of time scrolling
through his phone and involving himself in our modern urgency.

While the premise of the show is simple — and the plot descriptions are
cutesy enough —Smiling Friends more often than not borders on horrific in
its animation style. Hadel and Cusack create a sort of multimedia animation
world: alongside our cute little 2-D protagonists are hyper-realistic,
disturbing 3-D figures and the occasional human actor, all melding to
create a sort of continual uncanny feeling. In the opening episode, Charlie
and Pim are given an assignment by their employer, known only as Mr.
Boss (Marc M.). While he is animated as a sort of big-headed tycoon type
and exists in a massive black void of an office, our understanding of his
entire being is upturned when, mid-meeting, he whips out a strange, almost
Eraserhead-like baby, and begins breastfeeding him at his desk. These
startling, icky visual gags run throughout Smiling Friends, always waiting to
pounce mid-episode.

While Smiling Friends puts its absurd and silly plotlines first and foremost, a
critique of our exhausted, overstimulated, late-stage capitalist culture hums
underneath. Even the very notion of Charlie and Pim’s work — a capitalistic
outsourcing of friendly behavior, loaded with paperwork and bureaucracy
— is a bitingly sad observation of capitalism’s constant urge Smiling
Friends follows coworkers Charlie (Zach Hadel) and Pim (Michael Cusack)
of Smiling Friends Inc., a company whose sole mission is to go out and get
troubled people to smile. Its clients range from Desmond (Mike Stoklasa), a
dejected working-class man on the brink of suicide, to a heartbroken video
game addict shrimp named, quite literally, Shrimp (David Firth), and a
famous frog actor, named, also quite literally, Mr. Frog (Cusack), who has
been “canceled” after putting a journalist in his mouth.

to commodify. When Charlie is sent to Hell (which is also running on a

strange kind of bureaucracy that is underfunded), even Satan himself is
stuck in what Charlie describes as a “loop of short-term dopamine rushes”:
ordering DoorDash, vaping, and spending all of his time gaming or on
Discord, bemoaning the fact that he doesn’t get paid until his job is done
(“Which is… forever. It’s eternity,” the disturbing, 3-D Satan intones flatly).
Smiling Friends finds a funny and nuanced balance between being its own
collection of “short-term dopamine rushes” entrenched in the digital
zeitgeist while simultaneously pointing out how horrific and exhausting our
online world (and the culture it produces) has become. Funny, weird, and a
little scary, Smiling Friends encapsulates the noise of right now and
presents it as something compelling, fresh, and atrocious.

While the premise of the show is simple — and the plot descriptions are
cutesy enough —Smiling Friends more often than not borders on horrific in
its animation style. Hadel and Cusack create a sort of multimedia animation
world: alongside our cute little 2-D protagonists are hyper-realistic,
disturbing 3-D figures and the occasional human actor, all melding to
create a sort of continual uncanny feeling

While Smiling Friends puts its absurd and silly plotlines first and foremost, a
critique of our exhausted, overstimulated, late-stage capitalist culture hums
underneath. Even the very notion of Charlie and Pim’s work — a capitalistic
outsourcing of friendly behavior, loaded with paperwork and bureaucracy
— is a bitingly sad observation of capitalism’s constant urge Smiling
Friends follows coworkers Charlie (Zach Hadel) and Pim (Michael Cusack)
of Smiling Friends Inc.,

Smiling Friends é uma série nascida da internet: uma comédia animada caótica,
psicadélica e por vezes aterrorizante estruturada em episódios de 11 minutos.
Os criadores do conceito Zach Hadel e Michael Cusack eram, originalmente, artistas
assentes na internet, mais reconhecidos pelos seus trabalhos no Youtube e Newgrounds. A
carreira destes é refletida nos visuais e ideias de smiling friends em que se sente que o
público alvo está acostumado à gratificação rápida e pouca capacidade de atenção dos
espaços digitais de hoje em dia.
Nos episódios seguimos os colegas de trabalho Charlie e Pim, que trabalham para uma
empresa com a missão de trazer a pessoas tristes um sorriso. Os clientes desta vão de um
homem com pensamentos suicidas até um camarão com coração partido viciado em jogos
de computador, sim literalmente um camarão.
 Enquanto Smiling Friends põe em primeiro lugar as suas premissas absurdas para efeitos
cómicos, uma crítica ao nosso mundo exausto e cultura capitalista continua de fundo . Isto
combinado com o estilo de animação caótico que mistura o 3D com o 2D e por vezes um
ator humano leva a uma série engraçada estranha e por vezes aterrorizadora que apanha o
espaço digital de agora.