Pls Like, series 3 review: nearly as annoying as the hipster-Instagrammers it sets out to skewer

Internet influencer culture is arguably beyond parody. But that hasn’t stopped comedian Liam Williams doing his best to satirise it with his faux-documentary series, Pls Like (BBC Three). Vapid vloggers and idiotic Instagrammers are once again the target as the show returns for a third season of six bite-sized episodes (each with a running time of around 20 minutes).

The problem is that Williams has perhaps too accurately transposed to the screen this hyper-irritating world of laptop narcissists and plugged-in airheads. Consequently Pls Like is frequently as annoying as the hipsters-Instagramming-their-avocados milieu it sets out to skewer. Far from a refuge from that inane universe lurking inside our phones, Pls Like seems to be trying to unleash it, like an invasive species, onto our TV schedules.

A thinly sketched plot sees Williams running a gauntlet of influencer challengers in order to become a “mega-star” internet brand and scoop a cash prize (which he can plough into his passion project: a time travel movie called “Squad Coals”). Tasks include pulling a virtual Gordon Ramsay by using his social media skills to revive an ailing restaurant. Williams also accidentally creates a viral video chronicling the tedium of life during lockdown.

The point Pls Like is making is that all of these undertakings essentially boil down to self-promotion and being performatively fatuous online. But is it really devastatingly insightful point out that social media is an idiots’s playground?

Williams gives himself the thankless part of miserable straight man. The zingers largely go to Tim Key’s “Influencer Tsar” James Wirm, a slimy internet entrepreneur who has downloaded his personality from old episodes of David Brent in The Office. There is also a return of Zoella-like vlogger Millipede (Emma Sidi), who’s acquired a Grimes-esque TikTok-conquering sidekick named Honeydew (Eleanor Nawal, who has a small part in Netflix’s Bridgerton).

There are a few twists. Honeydew, for instance, seemingly has an affair with a down-with-the-kids politician (Graham Dickson). The pandemic is acknowledged, too. Williams prods people with a one-metre ruler if they encroach in his personal space. And an entire episode revolves around a theatrical performance staged for a socially distanced audience of approximately six.

However, the central joke that the internet is a paddling pool for shallow imbeciles feels played out before the action even begins. A gag involving a restaurant serving foods on iPads, for instance, could have beamed in straight from Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris’s 2005 anti-hipster epic Nathan Barley (even allowing for the fact that Nathan Barley pre-dated iPads). If Pls Like was a YouTube video, you might watch the first 30 seconds before clicking on something more interesting.