How To Be Indie is a Canadian Kid Com revolving around Indira 'Indie' Mehta and her two best friends Abigail 'Abi' Flores and Marlon Parks as they make it through junior high and Indie tries to get through life even with her strict Indo-Canadian parents. She also likes to occasionally speak to the audience.
Has nothing to do with indie rock or indie games.
Tropes:
- Acquired Error at the Printer: The Thanksgiving episode had the printers leave a decimal point out of the price on a poster, advertising a lunch that costs hundreds of dollars.
- Alpha Bitch: Evil Cousin Rubi: the daughter of Jyoti's sister who is very self-absorbed and loves to torment Indie by showing that she's better than her at everything.
- Asian and Nerdy: Abi, who is Filipina, is highly intelligent - incidentally, the smartest student at Rexdale Junior High - and can usually predict a problem before it happens.
- Bollywood Nerd: AJ is Indie's older brother. He is a geek in many ways, shown by such things as his knack for technology and few friends. He prefers to be referred to as a "geek" with "two 3s".
- Asian Store-Owner: Indie's best friend is Abi Flores: a Filipina whose parents have owned the Happy Breezy Food Hut since she was 5 years old.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Indie would always talk to the audience in every episode.
- The Bully: Carlos Martinelli is a short-tempered student who loves to victimize other students who get in his way. He keeps a list of those he plans to humiliate.
- Childish Pillow Fight: According to "How To Keep Your Cool In A Heat Wave", Evil Cousin Rubi takes these very seriously. She even has a hand-tooled fighting pillow.
- Clashing Cousins: Indie's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis is her 'evil cousin' Rubi, who is constantly one-upping her.
- Department of Redundancy Department:Chandra: Your funeral... of death.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "How To Pass The Smell Test", Indie's joining of Carlos' crew is treated like an alcohol addiction, complete with 'I can quit anytime I want!' from Indie.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Carlos failed a paper on protein based adhesives so the science teacher glued him to the ceiling by his feet.
- Double-Meaning Title: How to be a girl nicknamed Indie, as well as how to be a girl that is Indian.
- Egg Sitting: The class gets an egg sitting assignment in "How to Get Gotten". Indie tries to dodge the assignment by volunteering to escort a seventh grader who is being trialled in the eighth grade for a week instead. Abi and Marlon have to parent an egg together - a disaster in the making.
- Establishing Shot: The show uses idiosyncratic establishing shots formed of what look like cardboard cutouts of the relevant buildings that rise up to show the transition to a new location.
- The Ghost: Marlon is being raised by his single mother, who gets discussed frequently, but is the only one of the main characters' parents to never appear on screen.
- Has Two Thumbs and...: Ram in episode "How to Have Your Samosa and Eat It Too":Who has two thumbs and some of the best cooking in the world? This guy!
- Hollywood Hacking: The Shadowkings, they can write computer code using their minds!
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: "How To (begin an episode title)."
- I Have This Friend: In "How to be Mehta", Indie gets an F in gym. She uses this phrase when she tries to ask her siblings how she should break the news to their parents. They are not fooled for a second.
- Insistent Terminology: Indie never refers to her cousin Rubi without calling her "Evil Cousin Rubi".
- Instructional Title: How to be Indie. Additionally, the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming means that every episode is titled "How To (do peculiar thing relevant to the episode)".
- Line-of-Sight Alias: Gary Sugar-Thing, the president of a fake country. Yes, Marlon didn't even know the name of the object he was plucking his line-of-sight name from.
- Little Miss Badass: Indie can take out her brother who’s in the wrestling club.
- Naughty Birdwatching: In "How to Get on Carlos Martinelli's Capital 'L' List, and Live", Indie thinks AJ is doing this when she walks in on him using his telescope, but he is actually just trying to observe an eclipse of the moon. However, when his friend Chuck learns that AJ has a view of their Hot Teacher's house (and that AJ has seen her in a Modesty Towel), Chuck plays it straight (and gets busted by the teacher).
- Sick Episode: Chandra and AJ both get ill in one episode. Their mother makes them eat (or bathe) in wacky antidotes.
- Shout-OutCarlos: Curses! Foiled again!
Abbi: And you would have gotten away with it, too.
Marlon:
If it weren't for us meddling kids.
- Token White: Marlon is the token white in the Two Girls and a Guy trio with Indie (Indian) and Abi (Filipina).
- X Called; They Want Their Y Back: In "How to Put Your Best Foot Forward", Indy is wearing her brother's AJ's hand-me-down shirt that is way too big for her. Marlon says "The Western hemisphere called. It wants its shirt back".
