By: Judymarie Gaps, Poetry Reviewer
Gabbie Hanna is a notable comedian and vlogger, known for her Youtube channel “The Gabbie Show,” which has millions of subscribers on YouTube. Her humorous one-liners and nonchalant demeanor appeal to an audience ranging from young teens to twenty-somethings. Besides her Youtube channel, she has delved down the many avenues of a professional content creator, amassing 2.3 million listeners on Spotify with her musical pursuits, and surprisingly, becoming a bestselling poet. Her writer’s journey began in 2017, when Hanna joined the many Youtubers who have turned to poetry as a creative outlet. Gabbie Hanna decided to add “professional writer” to her repertoire and released her first poetry book, Adultolescence—a combination of “adult” and “adolescence,” the subjects of her writing—in 2017 to rave reviews from her fans. While I was excited to start Hanna’s book, I was disappointed to find that the acclaim I’d heard came from a biased, vocal group blinded by their devotion to a YouTube celebrity, rather than a commitment to uplifting good writing.
Adultolescense is an amalgamation of shower thoughts and notebook doodles bound and mass-produced by Simon and Schuster. Her project displays a base understanding of modernist poetry with nothing more to attract the bored reader. Given the quality of the collection, it goes without saying that anyone of lesser notoriety would have never gotten this book into the hands of an editor, much less onto the shelves of their local Barnes and Noble. However, Gabbie Hanna’s mass YouTube following affords her privileges not provided to better (but less well-known) poets. That being said, her book did sell in droves when it was first released, reaching #3 on the New York Times Bestseller List. Clearly, Simon and Schuster profited off this exploit, but after reading, I’m not so sure the readers did.
One of the major issues with Adultolescance is that it lacks depth. Every poem was a 25-word ramble where nothing tangible was resolved or established. The level of writing would be expected from familial letters or teenage journal rants, not a popular book. For example, a few of Hanna’s poems are entitled “Advice [number]…” and then a small piece of advice is inserted. These pieces include thoughts such as “beware of the power of persuasion one time i / convinced an entire table of ppl that a piece of / chocolate pie tasted like mac & cheese like they all / agreed it was nuts anyways dont believe everything u / hear be ur own person think 4 urself”. While this might be an objectively decent piece of advice, it is something one might expect from a sixth grader, not someone with years of lived experience. Additionally, the phrasing encourages the reader to sink further into the anti-intellectualist poetry trend, rather than implementing any amount of critical thinking.
Another qualm that has been heavily discussed by fellow reviewers is that even as a parody, the book falls short. In the dedication, Gabbie Hanna says that she drew inspiration from fellow Youtuber, comedian, and artist Bo Burnham for the book. This implies that the poems are meant to be a parody and slightly unserious, but, even with this implication, the book is still bad. The poems are unfunny and lack the depth to be a Bo Burnham-worthy joke. Hanna would make quips such as, “if you eat an entire pizza by yourself in the woods, / and no one’s around to see it, / do the calories count?” then expect canned laughter to erupt from the pages in rapid succession. The phrasing, riding the thematic curtails of “Waving Through a Window” from the musical Dear Evan Hansen, is more akin to a grainy Facebook meme than anything Tony (or any other award) worthy. Sadly, not even basic comedic props could not save Hanna’s poetry: nothing can save a book of “poetry” that reads like a drunk Tumblr blog.
Overall, the good poems in this book can be counted on one hand. Gabbie Hanna’s attempt at poetry is not good, regardless of what lens or filter a reader puts on it. It is not a modernist breakthrough, nor is it a witty parody. Gabbie Hanna takes what is sacred about poetry, sets it on fire, and then sells the ashes to the highest bidder. The entire endeavor left me (and likely other readers) wondering where the Simon and Schuster editor assigned to this piece was during the making of this. Perhaps they were sleeping on the cash advance that the company undoubtedly dished out beforehand. The only good that could have come out of this trainwreck is if Hanna learned her lesson and never wrote poetry again. Alas, Gabbie Hanna released another book of poetry in 2020, further proving that sales are of the utmost importance to companies. Creativity, talent, and passion be damned.