If there’s one thing Overcompensating wants you to know upfront, it’s that subtlety is overrated. Created by internet darling turned television provocateur Benito Skinner, the show barrels into the cultural conversation with all the finesse of a beer-soaked fraternity hazing ritual—one teetering between satire and sincerity, performative masculinity and tender truth.

The series, set to premiere on May 15 on Prime Video, is Skinner’s self-authored, self-produced, and self-starring debut, a semi-autobiographical comedy that gleefully demolishes tropes about jocks, queerness, repression, and the college “American Dream.” If you ever wondered what would happen if John Waters directed American Pie in a TikTok-powered universe, you’re getting close to the territory Overcompensating dares to claim.

And if that wasn’t enough, Charli XCX—pop’s reigning chaotic muse—joins the cast in a much-hyped appearance, signaling her long-rumored cinematic crossover is finally in full swing. With a starry ensemble including Kaia Gerber, Kyle MacLachlan, Adam DiMarco, and Wally Baram, this isn’t just a vanity project. It’s an acid-drenched, heartfelt, semi-literal fever dream with something to prove.

A “Homecoming King” Hiding in Plain Sight

Skinner plays Benny, a closeted former high school football hero and homecoming king from Idaho who now finds himself stumbling through college life. Unlike the hyper-confident gay archetype that often dominates media, Benny is awkward, anxious, and—in a refreshingly raw twist—completely unsure how to exist outside his straight-coded persona.

The premise unfolds like a confessional smuggled inside a frat party. Benny drinks. Benny lies. Benny overperforms. Hence the title: Overcompensating. It’s not just a diagnosis—it’s a lifestyle. Skinner has spoken in interviews about growing up deeply closeted in Idaho, performing heterosexuality with Olympic precision before ever figuring out what queerness meant on his own terms.

This show is the comedic exorcism of that period—a love letter to lost identities and a middle finger to the systems that forced them underground.

Toilet Seats, Tension, and Teen Angst

From the outset, Overcompensating signals its refusal to play by conventional rules. There’s a literal toilet seat worn as a crown in one of the teaser’s opening scenes, frat brothers doing body shots off garden gnomes, and enough sweaty testosterone to fog the dorm mirrors. But under the raunch is a beating heart—a sense of emotional misalignment and longing that drives the chaos.

The cast is composed of college-age characters that range from hypermasculine sports bros to hyper-artsy gender-fluid roommates, all colliding with each other in various states of self-discovery. While Skinner draws from familiar college party culture, he infuses the tropes with deeply personal stakes.

There’s a palpable yearning beneath the gags: for connection, for touch, for release. That’s what makes the series more than just another Gen Z comedy. It’s a cultural unzipping—where laughter becomes a survival tactic.

Charli XCX: Pop’s Party Girl Turns Scene-Stealer

Of course, no fever dream is complete without a muse, and Charli XCX steps into the Overcompensating universe as its glittery, tongue-in-cheek wildcard. Known for her electro-clash anthems and digital-age pop chaos, Charli brings a different kind of heat to the screen: a post-ironic charisma that plays perfectly into Skinner’s genre-defying world.

While full details of her role remain under wraps, the teaser offers glimpses of Charli strutting through the show’s neon-lit campus in various outrageous outfits, making declarations like “This place smells like testosterone and crushed dreams.” Whether she’s a pop star mentor, a hallucinatory figment of Benny’s psyche, or a chaotic sorority house president, one thing is clear: Charli is fully committed to the bit.

Her presence also signals a larger narrative crossover: the emerging intersection between internet fame, queer performance, and next-gen media storytelling. Charli’s foray into acting follows her recent creative ventures in fashion, visual art, and film—including roles in Sacrifice, The Gallerist, and Erupcja. But here, she’s not just another celebrity cameo. She’s the energy conduit, embodying the party-girl-on-the-verge archetype with as much bite as camp.

A Cast with Bite

Surrounding Skinner and Charli is a roster of faces that will turn plenty of heads. Kaia Gerber, in a role that promises to stretch her beyond fashion’s front row, plays a whip-smart film major with a penchant for psychoanalysis and sabotage. Adam DiMarco—fresh off The White Lotus—brings his awkward charm to a character trapped between ambition and shame. And Kyle MacLachlan, television’s most surreal father figure, returns as a dean whose self-help obsession masks a deeper paternal crisis.

Wally Baram, featured in Wonderland Spring 2025, is another standout—a queer comedian who plays Benny’s best friend, foil, and reluctant therapist. Her dry humor undercuts the show’s more chaotic moments, giving viewers a compass in the storm.

But the real glue is Skinner himself. As writer, lead, and co-producer, he navigates this cast with the confidence of someone who’s been shaping characters for years online—and is now scaling those sketches into something larger, messier, and infinitely more human.

Satire with Substance

What sets Overcompensating apart from other queer comedies is that it never seeks validation from straight audiences. It refuses to center respectability politics. The jokes are for the girls, the gays, and the thems. The discomfort, too.

Yes, there’s slapstick. Yes, there’s nudity. But nestled in between is a sharp critique of masculinity, repression, and the absurd performance of normalcy. Skinner’s writing is at its best when it refuses to apologize—when it lets Benny spiral without softening the edges.

In one scene, Benny attempts to hook up with a girl just to prove a point—to himself, to his roommates, to the void. The moment isn’t played for titillation, but for tension: a body resisting its own story. It’s moments like this where the series veers into the profound.

Prime Video and the Queer Streaming Boom

Overcompensating joins a growing roster of bold, genre-blurring shows greenlit by Prime Video, a platform that’s rapidly becoming a home for riskier, indie-rooted narratives. In the wake of Swarm, I’m A Virgo, and The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon has leaned into youth culture and queer voices with increasing confidence.

What makes Overcompensating different, though, is that it feels less like a polished studio pitch and more like a DIY rebellion that made it to the big leagues. It carries the chaos of early YouTube, the grit of 2000s MTV, and the emotional depth of 2020s storytelling—all while refusing to clean itself up for primetime.

Impression

Overcompensating is many things: crass, clever, occasionally grotesque, often deeply moving. It doesn’t aim to be a sanitized version of queer experience. It doesn’t tidy up trauma into digestible arcs. Instead, it celebrates the confusion, the contradiction, the comedy of being too much and not enough at the same time.

Benito Skinner may have built his brand on impressions and lip-syncs, but with this series, he proves he’s more than a digital comedian. He’s a generational storyteller with something urgent to say—and the guts to say it through toilet seats and awkward boners.

Come May 15, when Overcompensating drops on Prime Video, prepare to laugh, squirm, maybe cry—but most importantly, prepare to feel seen in all your messy, over-the-top glory.

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