Creator / Tess Masazza

Something terrible has just happened

Tess Masazza is a French journalist, YouTuber, screenwriter, actress and speaker, living and working in Italy.

Her first videos were uploaded in 2014 and parodied the stereotypical antics of the Italian equivalent of the American Valley Girl. They quickly gained more than one million views each and evolved into a Webseries, Insopportabilmente Donna ^note  literally “A woman, unbearably…”., which deals with the daily problems of young women living and trying to build a career (and find love) in a big town of the Italian North.

She has also made and starred into videos that parody tropes used in movies.

She has since become a familiar presence in Italian Radio and Television and in 2017 has gotten her first part in a movie. In 2019 her webseries was adapted into a theatrical play.

Her YouTube channel is here, but more of her videos can also be found here, here and here. Note that all videos are in Italian with no subtitles.

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Tropes which apply to (and are usually exaggerated for comedic effect by) Tess Masazza and her videos:

• A-Cup Angst: To the point that the only silver lining that she can find in her extreme PMS is that her boobs become bigger (and she can immediately start shooting selfies in her bathroom).
• All Periods Are PMS: According to her videos, the poor girl seems to suffer all the effects usually associated with PMS in works of fiction to the extreme, much to her and her friends’ chagrin.
• All Women Are Lustful: This may depend by the fact that she is often depicted as desperately in search for her soulmate, but she clearly appreciates the ah.emh… physical implications of the man-woman relationship and does not hesitate to openly chase men.
  • When a huge Hunk ask her for the time, she immediately professes that she loves him.
  • In a video that parodies horror flicks like Paranormal Activity she tells a friend that she has placed a camera to catch the poltergeist that haunts her house during the night. Then, she hands him over the camera so that he can see it for himself. Unfortunately, she shows him by mistake a video that she made of a casual sex encounter that she had with “just a guy she knows”. Her friend even comments on how “bendable” she is…
  • When a very attractive guy mistakes her for his Blind Date, she does not clarify the misunderstanding and, when his real date appears, she immediately distracts him by flashing her boobs.
  • Later at the restaurant, she literally throws herself into the arms of the same guy at the end of the dinner. Bonus points for politely moving out of the way everything on the table before.
  • During a (much needed) cooking lesson, she starts fantasizing about having sex with the handsome teacher.
  • Among her possessions there is apparently a bullwhip. You Do NOT Want To Know.
  • She seems quite willing to fulfil her boyfriend’s sexual fantasies, even if she is quite perplexed by the fact that he asks her to dress as a pea pod and she is definitively pissed off when she discovers that one of those fantasies is being tied up to her back to back fully clothed, while she wears a blonde wig, especially because of the blonde wig:
  Tess: Nicola, would you mind to tell me why are we doing this? We cannot do anything tied up like this. What kind of sexual fantasy is this? And what about the blonde wig? [beat] Do you like blondes?
  Nicola: [panicky] No, I...
  Tess: [screaming, very angry] Do you want me blonde? You prefer blondes! I do not like this by any means! [starts screaming incoherently, while violently wriggling]
• All Women Love Shoes: Her character loves shoes to the point of purchasing several pairs that are considerably smaller than her size, just to own them.
• Berserk Button:
  • Eliminating her favourite contestant in the Italian version of the British The X Factor throws her into a fit of rage so powerful that she races to the studio and physically assaults the judge.
  • Mock her friends and you will face her Unstoppable Rage.
  • And, more than everything else, do not ask her to wear a tacky blonde wig as part of a bizarre sexual fantasy.
• Binge Montage: She goes through one when she goes out clubbing with her friends.
• Blind Date: One of her most hilarious videos describe three different blind dates, with similar disastrous outcomes.
• The Cameo: Other Italian actresses, bloggers and youtubers regularly appear in her videos and she returns the favour in kind.
• Canine Companion: She owns a little adorable pug named Zoë, whom she treats as a children of her own.
• Cat Fight: While lacking the most basic fighting skills, she has no qualms about engaging in a fight with other girls, especially if they hit on the guy she is infatuated with or they crash into the back of her car.
• Comical Overreacting:
  • When her credit card maxes out during a shopping spree and the shop assistant informs her that she must leave back some of the items she wants to purchase, this is enough to cause a panic attack and she has to be literally dragged away from the shop by her feet, while screaming and crying.
  • When a boy she has a huge crash on likes one of her photos on Face Book, she starts jumping up and down in joy and orders champagne for all the patrons of a bar.
  • During a flight home, she is very nervous because of her intense fear of flying. The flight assistant tries to calm her down by pointing out that, if the “fasten your seat belts” sign is off, everything is fine. Naturally, the sign immediately turns on and she starts screaming in terror.
  • She completely spazzes out at the mere sight of her hairdresser picking up an hair clipper, until he assures her that he has no intention of using it on her.
• Crazy-Prepared
  • When she goes camping with her friends, she brings with her what she self-describes as only a stock of the most essential supplies, which includes a rope, a flashlight, batteries for the flashlight, a candle should the batteries not work, a can of pepper spray, a sound repellent device for wolves, an amulet for protection against ghosts, a book to read should she become bored (which she knows she will), an incredible amount of medicines (including a kit to make orthopaedic casts)…
  • When she visits a theme park, her backpack is so full of supplies that she tips over when she put it on.
  • She has apparently an entire wardrobe in her car, just in case she has to quickly change her clothes before going out clubbing with her friends after work.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: While she is very cute and she seems to be (fundamentally) nice and good-natured, she is also completely unable to perform the easiest daily chores, such as buying household products, cooking a meal or cleaning the house. She might sometimes exaggerate her clumsiness to lead other people into helping her, though.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Whenever she suffers a disappointment or something bad (or perceived as such) happens to her, the video turns into black and white and a sad song (usually, Adele’s “Hello”) starts to play.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Meeting the guy she has a huge crush on when she has taken her dog out in her pyjamas, while she is picking up the puppy’s poop.
  • Also meeting by chance her ex with his new girlfriend and learning that (i) they are going to get married soon, (ii) she is pregnant with his daughter and (iii) they are moving to live in New York City
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: It happens during a Blind Date at a restaurant with a very attractive man
  Tess’s date: Is there something you would fancy?
  Tess: I would like to make babies with you. [beat] I was thinking out loud, wasn’t I?
• Dirty Coward: She flees at the first hint that her new house might perhaps be haunted.
• Double Vision: In her first videos she often played multiple roles at once.
• Drama Queen: And what!!!!!!
• Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Sometimes Zoë looks genuinely perplexed by its owner’s behaviour.
• Fake Boobs: She stuffs her bra with whatever comes handy, including another bra top and her socks, especially when the police pulls her over for running a red light and she wants to seduce the copper to avoid a ticket. It doesn’t work.
• Fangirl: She is a huge fan of Ryan Gosling and apparently of Robbie Williams. When the latter intervened at the most important Italian music festival, she is even shown sneaking in his room to have sex with him. Things did not go as planned, though, as another Williams’s fan – much, much, much older than her suddenly appears with the same intention and they end up drinking champagne and partying together.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Completely averted. Tess’s friends panic at the mere sight of her picking up a knife to help them preparing a meal and immediately send her to buy some food at the farthest away supermarket.
• Five Stages of Grief: She goes through a variation of this trope when she spends Valentine's Day alone as a single woman. Emphasis is placed on anger.
• Genki Girl: Just bring her to a waterpark, if you dare.
• Girls Love Chocolate: She often gobbles incredible amounts of chocolate sweets, especially Nutella.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: She comes out as one in the video “Women in a discotheque”.
• Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Partially subverted. She actually uses chocolate as a natural antidepressant to cope with romantic disappointments. But she loves chocolate to the point that one cannot help but wonder if she is using her love issues as an excuse to just eat as much of the stuff as she wants.
• Horrible Camping Trip: An entire video is dedicated to one. At least in her view.
• Hypocrite:
  • When she meets another girl while taking a stroll, their Inner Monologue reveals that they mutually dislike and even despise each other, but when they meet face to face they act as if they were the best of friends and incredibly happy to see each other.
  • At a gym she is talking about men with another girl making the point that she does not like too muscular ones, taking a trainer nearby as an example. But when the guy approaches, she immediately starts flirting with him.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Nobody but her can laugh at her clumsy friends!
• Killer Rabbit: According to this video, mocking Zoë for its diminutive size is a bad, bad idea.
• Leit Motif: Capashen's Secret In Their Eyes.
• Lipstick-and-Load Montage: The video “Women and makeup” consists of a long montage of Tess applying makeup and of everything that can go wrong when you do it.
• The Load: Let’s just say that, despite her apparent crazy-preparedness (or maybe also because of it, as she is carrying around too much stuff to be comfortable), she does not seem to be the more useful member of a group going outdoor camping.
• Maurice Chevalier Accent: In the first videos her French accent is quite prominent. Over time she improved to the point that she jokingly says that her French friends say that she does not sound as a native French speaker anymore, but as an Italian who speaks very good French. Remarkably, she never used Gratuitous French.
• Ms. Fanservice: While never gratuitous, she is more than willing to show some skin in her videos. However, frontal nude scenes are always avoided by use of variants of the Modesty Bedsheet or pixelated.
• Nostril Shot: There is one that – needless to say – parodies the famous scene of The Blair Witch Project. It is a last message to her parents and friends where she begs forgiveness for “having agreed to this madness”. The “madness” being an outdoor camping trip.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: When her best friend says that she is going to dine at her parents’ house, Tess immediately starts looking at her with those until the other girl spontaneously invite her to come along.
• Sexy Coat Flashing: To get her ex-boyfriend back she appeared at his apartment’s door dressed only with a black trenchcoat, handed him a red rose and stripped to the music of Marilyn Monroe ‘s “I wanna be loved by you”. This might have worked had his new girlfriend not been at home…
• Show Some Leg: Tess tries this trick with her boyfriend when she destroys his new car and forgets to pick up his mother at the railway station.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Especially in her first videos, she is often shown at the desperate research of the right man (or, as the Italian idiomatic expression says, of her own “Prince Charming”). More recently, she seems to be in a more or less stable relationship with a guy called Nicola.
• Television Geography: The video about women and outdoor camping, supposedly taking place in the Wild Wilderness, is clearly shot in one of the municipal parks of the Milan metropolitan area. If you carefully look at the background, you can even see the cars running on the avenue that delimits the park.
• Wakeup Makeup:
  • Completely averted. Tess’s videos (iper)realistically show how bad a makeup becomes after a good night sleep and, more generally, that every makeup needs to be refreshed from time to time.
  • Parodied in a video that shows that she wakes up way before her man so that she can go through her Morning Routine and be in perfect conditions when he wakes up and look at her.
• What Did I Do Last Night?: She wakes up after having too many martinis the evening before, realizing to her horror that she has compulsively texted her ex all night with love declarations and death threats.