Haters Back Off! is a Netflix original series created by Colleen Ballinger, based off her popular YouTube character Miranda Sings (and named after her Catchphrase, bred in response to online negativity), thus making it one of the first scripted series made by a YouTube personality. The series ran for two seasons in 2016 and 2017 before being cancelled.
The series follows Miranda's various hair-brained attempts to achieve fame. Egged on and guided by her Uncle Jim, supported by her caring mother Bethany, and much to the consternation of her sister Emily, Miranda stumbles her way through various attempts at achieving stardom.
Haters Back Off! provides examples of:
- Anti-Hero: Miranda is this, being portrayed as nothing short of an awful human being, the same going for her uncle. Both are ultimately self-centered in their own ways.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Miranda.
- Beauty Inversion: Collen Ballinger as Miranda and Angela Kinsey as Bethany.
- Cassandra Truth: Emily believes her mother is crying wolf when she finally tells Emily about her failing kidneys.
- Cerebus Syndrome: At first, Miranda's absurdity and ego are played for comedy, showing the amusement of people who think it's just an act. But by the second half of the 1st season, the negative consequences her behavior has on other people she loves are shown, and they're not pretty.
- Disappeared Dad: Emily and Miranda have one. He isn't seen in season 1, but in the final episode Emily calls him after Miranda ruins her art and asks if she can move in with him. He appears in person in season 2.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Patrick to Miranda.
- Downer Ending: By the first season's end, Miranda's behavior has driven everybody away. Returning to her computer she finds she has finally gone viral and sits at her computer with everyone else having left the household, refreshing the page to watch her views go up in a dark room.
- Ill Girl: How Bethany likes to view herself, going to pains to convince others she is this. It turns out Keith has a fetish for sick women, which is why he falls for her.[[spoiler When she is later diagnosed with failing kidneys, she does what she can convince herself and others that she is healthy, driving Keith away.]]
- Inherited Illiteracy Title: Each episode's title features Miranda's trademark bad spelling.
- It Runs in the Family: Miranda's selfish, arrogant personality comes from her father Kelly. Though she seems to be too stupid to realize the world doesn't revolve around her, Kelly is simply a reprehensible slimeball.
- It's All About Me: The show.
- Never My Fault: Miranda refuses to take responsibility for anything. No matter how horribly she acts, no matter how obvious it is that her misfortunes are solely her own fault, she blames everyone else. Turns out she gets it from her father, who manages to be even worse.
- Only Sane Man: Played with in that the family has its only sane woman in Miranda's sister Emily, the only functional person in the household, but everyone outside the main character's family seem to be normal, highlighting just how insane and dysfunctional the family is.
- Parental Obliviousness: Bethany and Jim failed to even pay the lighting bill, having simply overlooked it. Emily must step up and take care of the household.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: None to be found. The only reasonable one, Emily, has no authority. Subverted in season 2 with Miranda and Emily's father Kelly, who at first seems like one but later turns out to be a scumbag.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Pretty much the basis for the series.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Much of the show runs on how the real world might react to a YouTube personality if they were real people.
