Most 20-somethings have that one friend with an encyclopaedic knowledge of internet memes. Every Vine, every TikTok challenge, every viral song that you’ve yet to even hear. Lou Wall is that one friend; she knows it, and she uses it unashamedly to her humorous advantage.
The result is a musical comedy show depicting the inner turmoil that comes from a life on social media. Lou crafts a hilarious story of envy and petty revenge, that has you cringing from second-hand embarrassment and buckling from unfortunate relatability. At the crux of it all is the inescapable jealousy that arises every time you see a young, attractive person on the internet achieving anything at all that you don’t have – even if you didn’t realise you wanted it till then. It is an unflinching look at the ugly reflection you see when the reel takes a little too long to load, and you’re forced to see your own face staring uncomfortably back at you.
Lou Wall vs. The Internet is intricately crafted, and perfectly suits an attention-challenged world. Never sitting on one moment too long, the show travels seamlessly from joke to joke, with Lou bravely unveiling a side of the internet we all subscribe to but refuse to share. She expertly evokes the feeling of mindlessly scrolling through TikTok as she delivers her set at a rapid pace, deploying that classic parodying technique of attacking her subject whilst simultaneously using it at every opportunity. It is as chaotically brilliant as it is delightfully self-deprecating.
Lou Wall’s delivers a witty look at the modern world, as she forces her audience to take the filter off and see the raw realities of our internet history. The petty revenges that the show strives to achieve succeed in multiple ways. Most importantly they make the audience laugh, the kind of unhinged laughter that makes you glad to be sitting in the dark. But sad to say, they succeed in an even darker way – as I now am forced to acknowledge another woman on Instagram whose talents I am entirely jealous of.