‘Nekci Menij Show’ Parodies Pop Stars With Crude Animations

"The Nekci Menij Show," a sharp parody of pop music, began in Microsoft Paint and depicts today's biggest pop stars as crudely drawn ducks and blobs.

The YouTube series has earned a devoted following and spawned a multi-tiered web presence, including a stable of intricate parody Twitter accounts. The series is a biting, yet adoring look at female entertainers such as Madonna (Medoner), Lady Gaga (Gags), Katy Perry (Kety Purr) and Nicki Minaj (Nekci Menij).

While inspired by "The Uncle Dolan Show," "The Nekci Menij Show" has evolved into its own self-contained universe. Characters are extremely self-referential and love to trash talk their competition.

In this episode of the YouTube series, Ke@$h£r's throws a house party for the other characters. The rest of the 10 episodes follow. (Disclaimer: The videos feature language and content that may be offensive to some.)

The show was created by 19-year-old British student David Monger, who is surprised that the 10 episodes of "The Necki Menij" show (and a few bonus videos) have racked up more than 600,000 views on YouTube.

The series started as a inside joke between Monger and friend Amy Taylor — who are both Nicki Minaj fans.

"I thought I'd make one show just literally for us to watch," Monger told Mashable

On a birthday card for Taylor, Monger had drawn Minaj in the style of Dolan, a comic series with badly drawn Disney characters who mingled via speech bubbles with misspelled words. Monger then decided to turn the doodle into a video with additional characters. "One day I woke up and immediately had this idea of other characters like Gags and Rhenna (Rihanna)."

"Originally it was a two episode show," Monger explains. The look of the first batch of characters was directly inspired by 'The Uncle Dolan Show' — with Nekci, Beyonse and Medoner looking like ducks and Gags unflatteringly reminiscent of the Dolan-style Spider-Man.

As the show grew, Monger moved toward a new look for additional characters. "I didnt expect to have more characters so it wasn't an issue at first." New characters were created using a combination of Microsoft Paint (so they wouldn't "look too good") and Photoshop.

The process of creating the videos turned out to be quite lengthy. Monger, who is a full-time student, spends roughly 16 hours creating a single 5-minute episode — though he's gotten quicker. The videos are created using Paint, Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Audacity and free voice-simulating programs. Monger has never had any training in multimedia production — he taught himself how to use all of the software used to create the show.

The look of "The Nekci Menij Show," is only half of its charm — the Siri-like automated voices of the characters also play an important role. "It's more of an art than some people realize, talking in spam while being funny," Monger says of the recording process. "It takes a while and you have to say them aloud because it sometimes surprises you how written things translate when the voices say them."

The universe of Nekci Menij has taken on a vocabulary of its own. For example, characters say "flim" instead of "film" and all proper grammar rules are exchanged for new ones. Yet, even with stiff robotic voices, anyone who follows pop music will be able to readily identify which stars are being a parodied.

Online fanbases are notorious for being protective of their favorite singers. However, Monger has received almost no hatred for his parody — even fans of the stars can see the even-handed humor in the show.

In addition to the episodes of the show, there are bonus videos, including this very accurate parody of Nicki Minaj's music video for "I Am Your Leader" — profanity-laced lyrics and all. (Here's Nicki Minaj's original video for comparison.)

Fans have also used tumblr and Twitter to make the show come to life. Fans have created active Twitter accounts for all the characters in the show — along with some characters who aren't in the show yet.

The fact that these accounts (with the exception of Nekci) are all run by fans, not Monger, speaks to the connection fans have felt to the show. "Nobody I personally know runs any, which is great really. Some people put so much work into them."

The characters interact with each other — often parodying the way that the real pop stars behave on social media. The characters make fun Rihanna's overuse of Instagram hashtags and Lady Gaga's hyper-active social media presence.

Since the show uses copyrighted music, Monger can't legally make any money from the series, "But thats fine. It's better for the show." As far as long term goals, Monger is currently just enjoying the series and the online community that has come from it. "I don't exactly have a career path in mind, I never have. It's strange — the show has been the first thing I've felt I could do for a living."

Monger is working on season two of the series, and is releasing more bonus videos in the meantime.

While the show definitely pokes fun at all of these stars, it is important for Monger to note that it is all in good fun. "There's a fine line," Monger says of the way celebrities are talked about online. "A lot of people take it too far." Monger sees the hateful comments posted about these singers on social media and wanted to find a way to portray all of them equally — in a way that only a true fan could.

"A lot of people seem to forget that they wouldn't like to be judged the way they judge famous people, and they wouldnt dream of saying the same things about people they really knew. They're human beings at the end of the day."