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Quibi Is Out, But Does Anybody Like It?
Quibi, the experimental short-form video platform created by Jeff Katzenberg, has been all the buzz over the past few months, as people have been waiting to see if the $1.75 billion gamble pays off or goes the way of platforms like Mastodon or ello, competitors to tech giants that barely made a dent. Quibi's selling point is all its content clocks in under 10 minutes, and it has some huge names attached, including Steven Spielberg, Kevin Hart, Jennifer Lopez, Naomi Watts, Chrissy Teigen, Idris Elba and more.
The platform released yesterday, and despite reportedly netting 300,000 launch day downloads, early responses have seemed lukewarm. For one, critics found the sub-10 minute episode series--or "Quibis," as the commercials tried to make a thing--of poor quality Variety wrote, "Just about every entry on this list sounds like a #30Rock joke come to life," and singled out "Dishmantled" as a particularly egregious example of poor programming.
Just about every entry on this list sounds like a #30Rock joke come to life, but none comes more perilously close than #Dishmantled, a show in which contestants try to recreate a dish after having it blasted at their faces via an explosive food cannon https://t.co/FEWk4F6cPI pic.twitter.com/qquBLkKktb
— Variety (@Variety) April 6, 2020
Twitter users also felt the timing of Quibi's launch was off: with many people social distancing, some felt it would be a better time to offer long-form content than experimenting with short-form content.
The thing about Quibi that is so, let’s say bold, is that its idea that 10ish minutes is the perfect runtime is in direct opposition to everything I have seen. People either want to watch something in a minute or less and keep scrolling, or put something on for 20 min or more.
— Defunctland (@Defunctland) April 7, 2020
At first I thought quarantine would be a godsend for Quibi, but now I’m not convinced. It’s an untested format and meant for on-the-go. Stuck at home, we all want as much longform content as possible 🤦🏻♀️
— Chelse Hensley (@ChelseHensley) April 6, 2020
Others noticed the show Memory Hole, which focuses on silly and bizarre home videos, was essentially the same show as Everything Is Terrible.
Looks like @Quibi made a show that presents crazy found footage clips and called it MEMORY HOLE (of all the things you could have called it… seriously?). It’s also deeply disappointing to see our logo from 10+ years ago completely ripped off as the look for the entire show. pic.twitter.com/fmduCXkb8M
— Everything Is Terrible! (@E_I_T) April 6, 2020
Oh shit! @Quibi show just absolutely stole this. How in the world does this place with a billion dollars decide this is ok? It's difficult to believe that anyone who edited or worked on this show in Los Angeles hadn't heard of EIT!'s Memory Hole before. https://t.co/LK3mQvMSK1
— April Wolfe (@AWolfeful) April 6, 2020
The good folks at Everything Is Terrible do not deserve this. @Quibi needs to fix this immediately. https://t.co/H6eATigdTO
— Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) April 6, 2020
Others were simply sick of the word "Quibi" and reveled in its (apparent) imminent failure.
soooo I made a thing!!! it’s called quibi. I’m the one who gave a billion dollars and it’s the best $ I ever spent…. besides my real estate investments LOL! anyway I hope you like it!! and some inside info is that quibi actually stands for quibillion dollars :) stay safe!!
— Nicole Silverberg (@nsilverberg) April 7, 2020
I don’t know what a quibi is but I’m done looking at the word
— Karl From Online (Karl Mode) (@HammerFist3) April 7, 2020
I’m sure it’s a good sign that we’ve started describing Quibi like it’s a bank heist cooked up by the loosest cannon in the crew. pic.twitter.com/zxuOmCzInd
— Robert Schultz (@_RobertSchultz) April 7, 2020
I keep seeing this word everywhere and it's annoying #quibi pic.twitter.com/z2MgYVWRGZ
— Amy Fly (@MchordDoc) April 6, 2020
Never in my life will I watch “Quibi” programming and thats a promise
— dasha (@nobody_stop_me) April 7, 2020
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