LOVEWEB is an animated web series created by French animator Shadok which focuses on the internet. It started in July 2020 and is available to watch on both YouTube here
and on Newgrounds here.
The series revolves around two hosts, a cheerful and naive cat named Manon and their more grounded and cynical unicorn co-host Cybermare, as Manon teaches the viewers about the internet, usually memes or other phenomena from the older days of the web.
LOVEWEB contains examples of:
- Character Blog: Manon has their own YouTube channel, Twitter account and Tumblr blog.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The pilot features Manon and Cybermare being voiced by AI voices of Pinkie Pie and GLaDOS respectively, before being swapped to voice models of Sweetie Belle and Maud Pie in the following episode and up until proper voice actors were given to the duo in the ninth episode.
- Ham and Deadpan Duo: Manon is enthusiastic and prone to rambling while Cybermare is more cynical and tends to talk less than them.
- The Internet Is for Porn: Discussed in "Rules of the Internet Explained" as part of Rule 34.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Cybermare only agrees to the idea of covering the rules in episode seven when she remembers Rule 34, calling it "based" and "the only rule that matters". When the video gets to that point, she tries to look up LOVEWEB on the Rule 34 site only to find no results... which leads to her remembering Rule 35* and telling the audience to get to work on LOVEWEB porn, much to Manon's dismay and Cybermare's teasing.
- Shout-Out: The show's theme is a cover of the tune from The Kids Guide to the Internet. Cybermare's design is also directly inspired by My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
- In "The Web has lost its Soul", when Manon sees Cybermare hypnotized by the YouTube Shorts algorithm, they fall to the floor crying and clutching their legs exactly like the level transitions in The Binding of Isaac.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Whenever Cybermare swears, there's usually a Windows error sound to cover it up. These are uncensored in the Newgrounds uploads of the episodes, as pointed out by Cybermare herself in the Newgrounds uploads' unique pre-intro opening.Cybermare: The fucking uncensored version, bitch!
- Synthetic Voice Actor: The show started off with Manon and Cybermare being voiced by AI voice models, however, the AI voices would be swapped out for proper voice actors starting with "The Web has lost its Soul" due to Shadok's discomfort with the ethics of using the AI voices over the years.
