Soursop & Gen Z Media Platform Woo Present ‘main Character’ - Filling The Gap Between Tiktok And Netflix

What do you get when you take the voice, themes and sensibilities of Gen Z off TikTok and transplant them into a comedy-drama? Introducing our new favourite online mini-series, ‘Main Character’ - a fresh, feel-good new entertainment genre - one that captures the voice of a generation frequently misunderstood by mainstream media. 

Main Character - Episode 1

Working with Soursop and pioneering youth media brand Woo, we’re helping to launch Main Character. The series features an artist, a rapper and a dancer from the Dublin underground, and tells three interwoven stories of personal growth in a candid stream-of-consciousness style. Inspired by the TikTok main character trend (“I’m in my main character era”) - where people embrace confidence in themselves and their decisions, living out as the main character in their own lives.

Relatable, optimistic and inclusive, this three-part series features a series of eccentric, real-life TikTok personalities confronting - and finding the comedy in - real situations from dating disasters to birthday blues. 

Watch the trailer for Main Character here

In the first episode, ‘Venus Finds Love’, Dublin-based artist Venus is revealed as the ultimate romantic… so on a date she’s willing to be open-minded. But when she finds the real deal can she risk being vulnerable?

Watch ‘Venus Finds Love’

Reflecting Woo’s mission to redefine self-care for Gen Z audiences - the so-called ‘Generation Anxious’ - Main Character rejects the wellness industry’s tropes, instead taking the voice, themes and sensibilities of Gen Z off TikTok and transplanting them into a comedy-drama. Creating a pioneering new entertainment form that captures the voice of a generation that’s all too frequently misunderstood by mainstream media. 

In the first episode, ‘Venus Finds Love’, Dublin-based artist Venus is revealed as the ultimate romantic… so on a date she’s willing to be open-minded. But when she finds the real deal can she risk being vulnerable?

Woo’s ethos is not about creating content directly related to wellness, but rather creating entertainment that ‘makes you feel good’. Its aim is to create a safe space in what many Gen Z-ers see as a toxic world, through a design-driven, audience-first and fluid approach which prioritises storytelling. As a media ecosystem that reframes wellness as feeling good and that embraces internet culture, Woo creates multitudes of endorphin-inducing micro-moments that stand out compared to franchise shows.

“Woo’s purpose is to redefine wellness for a generation: removing the rigidity and perfection associated with the wellness industry to make it more accessible and aligned with how people live in the modern world,”  says Stephen Mai, CEO of Woo.

“The world is in a tough place right now and we need escapism through relatable storytelling that rejects tropes and makes you feel good. We make entertainment that breaks the norms of digital storytelling.”

“Inspired by the TikTok trend that captured everyone’s imagination, Main Character plays on the idea that we experience life as the protagonist of our own story,” says Isolde Penwarden, Creative Director, Woo. “We selected our main characters through Zoom interviews with real young people. I was seeking moments from their lives that could be classified as ‘everyday acts of bravery’ - small actions which had altered the trajectory of their life stories. To acknowledge the agency that we have in creating our life plots, I wanted our main characters to have a direct interplay with the camera - sometimes breaking the fourth wall to make an aside or guiding the lens to what’s important in a scene. However, the camera has a motive of its own: it's always looking for the next main character. This tension point creates an opportunity for comedy.”

“Main Character plays in a really new entertainment space - taking the honesty and relatability of TikTok and launching it into a more elevated, yet still 'real' space. It's addictive feel-good storytelling done differently - which has come to embody the Woo way of doing things,” says Ravi Amaratunga Hitchcock, Executive Creative Director and co-founder of Soursop. 

Read more about Main Character, Woo and Gen Z storytelling in this interview with Ravi and Stephen in Creative Review

Credits:

Producer: Aaron Mc Enaney
Production Manager: Gaia Curti
Production Coordinator: Emmet Jones
Production Assistant: Abby Wood
Director of Photography: Albert Hooi
Casting: Isolde Penwarden

Created, Written & Directed: Isolde Penwarden
Executive Creative Directors: Stephen Mai & Ravi Amaratunga-Hitchcock