Abbott Elementary

Submission 712

About

Abbott Elementary is an American mockumentary television sitcom created by and starring Quinta Brunson for ABC. The show follows a group of teachers at the poorly-funded Abbott Elementary, a fictional predominantly Black school in Philadelphia. The series premiered in December 2021, receiving a second season currently airing as of May 2023, with fans posting out of context clips and memes about the show on social media.

History

On December 7th, 2021, the first episode of Abbott Elementary aired on ABC. The Hollywood Reporter_^[1] reviewed the first episode, set in a perpetually cash-strapped public school, describing the series as "a cousin to both "_Parks and Recreation":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/parks-and-recreation and Superstore."

YouTube^[2] channel TV Promo 360 uploaded a trailer of the show on December 4th, 2021, receiving 8,100 views and 14 likes in two years (seen below).

Awards

On September 12th, 2022, the show amassed four awards during the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards. The series creator and star Quinta Brunson won the award for Writing for a Comedy Series. Her acceptance speech was uploaded on YouTube^[3] by @televisionacad, garnering 542,000 views and 10,000 likes in a year (seen below).

The ceremony also resulted in the Jimmy Kimmel Quinta Brunson Emmy Awards controversy, where the comedian played dead on the stage while actress Quinta Brunson accepted her first Emmy award.

Online Presence

Since its premiere in December 2021, the series holds an approval rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.^[4] Its growing fanbase constantly shares clips of the show on social media, especially TikTok, where the hashtag #abbottelementary has accumulated 1.1 billion views as of May 2023. For instance, TikToker^[5] @movies_life99 uploaded a scene (seen below, left) from the show's second season on April 24th, 2023, which garnered 47 million plays and 7.8 million likes in one month. Another clip was uploaded by TikToker^[6] @userminajcat on April 1st, 2022, and garnered 11 million plays and 2.5 million likes in a year.