“I Hate Being Single” Creator Shares Season 2 Secrets

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  • “I Hate Being Single,” the 2011 Bing Audience Choice Award-winning YouTube web series, is finally back in production for its second season and is just hours away from completing an Indiegogo campaign to fund it. The creator of the series, Rob Michael Hugel, said he plans to bring cable-quality comedic programming to YouTube, but not without the help of his fans.

    “I Hate Being Single” is a comedy web series revolving around Rob, just your average twenty-something living in Brooklyn, who wants to make a change in his routine. The first season of the series follows Rob after the end of a relationship that has become almost all he knows. Rob has a hard time fitting in, and we get to see him as a newly single man expanding his horizons and exploring the world around him, outside of his previous relationship. Hugel aims to make the series a “celebration of loneliness” in the most relatable way.

    For the inaugural season, Hugel looked to Kickstarter to fund a “grand finale” episode while the rest of the series was done for free by Hugel and his friends. This time around, Hugel is instead looking for support on the entire season.

    What’s Trending got to chat with Hugel about his Indiegogo campaign, what it’s like to be a YouTuber on the east coast, and what we can look forward to in the sophomore season of his highly praised web series.

    The first season of Hugel’s show took months just to shoot, so Rob is looking to shoot the new season in a shorter amount of time in order to get these new episodes in front of some eyeballs as soon as possible. That’s why he decided to run a campaign for the entire season, as opposed to select episodes. Hugel remarked that he was in awe of such successes as the “Video Game High School” web series crowd-funding campaign, which recently raised over $900,000. Big-time shows like VGHS have more than 6 million subscribers. Hugel’s channel has a dedicated, but small 5,300.

    “With that budget, I would fly YouTubers and friends from everywhere to make an appearance on our show,” he joked.

    Even with the sparse population of YouTubers on the east coast, as most migrated to Los Angeles, Hugel says we can look forward to a season full of guest appearances from familiar faces from both YouTube and mainstream television. So far the guest stars remain a secret, but Hugel did say we might see a bit of comedy vloggers Akilah Hughes and Nicola Foti (a.k.a. soundlyawake).

    When asked if he thinks that online series like his own are the future of television, Hugel said that the future of media is still unsure, but that television is definitely being influenced by the web. It would be ideal, he said, to sustain being an independent creator making content the way he wants, for the people he wants, with a bigger budget. But for now, he’ll hustle on.

    Smaller creators like Rob Michael Hugel being able to make an entire season of a web series all through the contributions of his friends, family, and viewers definitely makes a statement on where the future of media is headed. People want the content they want, when they want it, and are willing to contribute to make it happen.

    Hugel’s “I Hate Being Single” Indiegogo only runs until tomorrow so now’s the time to donate! Click here to help a small-time YouTuber keep making a quality series.

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