Bobbi Summers is a Toronto-based comedian, musician, and the writer, creator, and star of I Hate People, People Hate Me, the irreverent comedy series that made waves as a Canadian Screen Awards and Indie Series Awards winner following its premiere at Tribeca Film Festival. Known for his dark and twisted sense of humor, Summers unapologetically pushes boundaries with the six-episode I Hate People, People Hate Me, which is set to premiere globally on WOW Presents Plus on January 13.  

I Hate People, People Hate Me follows two friends – Jovi (played by Bobbi) and Tabitha (Lily Kazimiera) – as they navigate the local queer community of their hometown, Toronto, as despairing outsiders as they explore their identities from the sidelines of a world that feels to them increasingly mainstream and commodified.

We had a chance to chat with Bobbi about how this new series came about as well as the many hats he wears – comedian, musician and writer – in our exclusive interview.

So how did the idea for the show come about? 

You know, I write a lot. I had a lot of different scripts sort of on the stove and, basically, people were saying that all the scripts I was writing were too expensive. I was writing these epic blockbusters, and then the Canadian Broadcasting Company saw a script for a short film I had written. It was kind of something way more personal and twisted than anything I ever really anticipated.

I was surprised that the short film that eventually became I Hate People was the thing that the network gravitated towards. It wasn’t something that I was actively pitching as a TV show. They asked me to adapt this short film script into a TV show.

You know, I just wanted to make something. So as soon as someone gave me permission to start pitching anything like Jovi says, I opened the portal to my creativity and the floodgates were open. It was easy because for whatever reason, I felt complete permission and freedom to write exactly what I wanted and be almost humiliatingly honest.

I felt like I had nothing to lose at that point in my life. I was like, nobody knows who I am so if nobody watches it and it flops it’s not like it’s going to be this big public failure. It’s not like Beyoncé failing, so I figured I might as well do whatever the hell I want and make what would be my favorite TV show. I just gave myself total free reign and I have always gravitated towards a certain aesthetic, a certain vibe.

I’ve been in garage and basement bands my whole life. I was that suburban kid who took the band from the garage to getting signed to a major label. You know, I’m super inspired by music. My history as a songwriter was really what informed the ethos of I Hate People and I was able to put everything I’d ever done as a musician and a songwriter and a stand-up comedian and have it sort of culminate in one project. The show reeks of me. I wrote and recorded the soundtrack and I was sort of obnoxiously involved in every detail from the ground up and wrote the entire thing.

One of my friends was like, oh my God, it feels like I’m living in your brain when I watch it. And he was like, it’s very sad and weird. And I was like, I’ll take that as a compliment.  At least I created a universe. At least I created something. At least you felt something. Even if it was sad and weird. At least you weren’t bored.

Is there any autobiographical quality to the show? Is there any of you in your character on the show? 

Certainly, but I would never use the adjective autobiographical. I think I took very formative experiences from my life and I filtered them through a part of my brain that wants to make everything like a live action cartoon and punky and perverted and funny and strange and yeah, in the darker corners of my imagination, I concocted this very absurd retelling of my life as a failing songwriter and a depressive gaylord in Canada. 

You had mentioned that you did the music and you described your music in the show as “digi-grunge with post-punk accents.” Is that your musical style? 

It’s my character’s musical style. I have very much made these songs for the show. They’re not songs that I would put out on my own and be like, I think these are the coolest songs ever. They had to make sense for him and feel like someone who was kind of still rough around the edges in certain ways and was trying to sort of figure himself out and I was able to give it all a bit of a sloppiness that reflects the vibe of the show and that gives the soundtrack its own unique little stamp.

I’ve been making music just like for shits and giggles, like solo music. It’s definitely a lot more polished and modern sounding maybe than the I Hate People stuff, which is so blatantly retro fetishist, not shying away at all from the early 2000s bleeding into indie sleaze era kind of influence.

You come from the alt comedy scene. What is the scene like in Toronto? 

I’m obsessed with it. I mean, it gave me a place to exist in a sense of community when those things felt so out of reach. There are so many kind, supportive, creative, brilliant weirdos kind of keeping that whole scene really fresh and really interesting. And, it’s small. It’s obviously not New York. It’s small but mighty.

The best thing about making I Hate People was getting to bring people from that scene into the world of the show and write characters for them that really played to their strengths. I kind of pride myself on being able to spot someone who has that quality. That’s how my costar and I met. She was a comic too so, after the pilot was written and I was sort of thinking about who could play the role of Tabitha, I thought about it for like five seconds and I was like, obviously. It just made so much sense immediately and it turned into such a cool working relationship. I can’t wait to make more stuff and put other Toronto comedians in it because there are so many.

Was it hard for you to make the transition from being a comedian and a musician to doing scripted television?

No, I think that was always the goal. Somehow, I feel like in some part of my mind I always knew that that’s where I wanted the road to lead. And the experience of filming the series, wasn’t that different from the experience of being on stage for 40 minutes, because I do treat my stand-up comedy like I am sort of a character in a movie.  I’m not really a crowd work kind of comic. I’m sort of in my own world doing this sort of little one-man performance. So, yeah, I feel like the transition – or the evolution – was natural. It’s excellent. It was fun. 

The show is going to be airing here in the States on WOW Presents Plus. There’s a lot of Drag Race content and things like that so you’re going to get introduced to a new audience. What are you hoping that they will take away from the show? 

I hope they take anything, that would be awesome. As long as they don’t turn it off after five seconds and switch to Drag Race Thailand, then I consider myself successful. I’m aware that it’s not necessarily what people are used to seeing. It’s sort of divisive and that’s what’s exciting about it to me.

I hope that people see themselves in the characters, which is such a cliche thing to say. I do hope that that happens, but that’s really not why I wrote it or why I made it. I’m too self-involved. I wasn’t thinking about how the audience was going to react. I was just very much in competition with myself to see how funny it could be and how realized it could feel. Something that would stay with people in some way, you know, something that just didn’t feel like content that you swipe past, you know, it’s just sort of replaceable.

There are so many different feelings baked into the show. Honestly, when I wrote it, I just wanted it to be funny as hell. But for whatever reason – the way our performances turned out, the way we were sort of feeling on set, the place we were both at in our personal lives, the things we were feeling that informed the performances – the show ended up feeling kind of like a little more layered than just like a sort of set up punchline comedy kind of sitcom or whatever.

The thing I’m most excited about is to see what people say – even if they say like, this is disgusting or unsettling. It’s gotten such a wide range of reactions. I’ve had people say it was their favorite thing ever and I’ve had people say that they physically cannot watch it because it’s too depressing, so like, I don’t know. 

I Hate People, People Hate Me premieres on WOW Presents Plus on January 13. Follow Bobbi on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.