AS IS TRUE with many internet personalities and content creators, you either know exactly who Alix Earle is, or you haven’t a breeze.

Alix is in fact a 25-year-old American content creator who first made her name doing GRWM (get ready with me) videos on TikTok while at the University of Miami. In 2023, she started presenting the podcast Hot Mess with Alix Earle, which was part of the Unwell network, co-owned by Alex Cooper (32), who presents the hugely popular podcast Call Her Daddy.

But within a few years the two women had fallen out and Hot Mess was no longer on the Unwell network. Allegations are still flying around about what caused the split. 

Alongside this drama, Alix featured on Dancing With the Stars, kept posting about her life on TikTok, started a skincare brand and became a big enough public figure that she now has her own reality show.

Earle Meets World has the familiar format we’ve come to expect from reality TV. There’s the ever-present, slick filmmaking of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the intense, AI-sounding pop music favoured by shows like Love is Blind and Selling Sunset, and the positioning of a glamorous life as the ultimate ideal (see all the above). 

But does Alix Earle have an interesting enough life to warrant a nine-part show about her? Sure, there are plenty of details that pique interest: Alix’s beef with Alex Cooper and the fact she’s so young with such a high-profile career. Plus, her stepmother is Ashley Dupré, a former callgirl who was involved in the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal in 2008. (Spitzer was the Governor of New York at the time, and had to resign from his role.)

Making the latter even more juicy was that Alix’s father, who is also her manager, had an affair with Dupré. They’re now married with three children, and seem to have a hard-fought-for harmonious relationship with Alix’s mother Alisa and her partner. 

The family dynamic plays a large role in the show – which is good as it pads out what might otherwise be pretty lean fare.

Glare of the spotlight

Ashley Earle and Alix Earle

The show feels startlingly surface at times. That’s not to say it doesn’t touch on tough topics. It just doesn’t always bother to dig much into them. 

For example, one of the more troubling aspects – though certainly normalised in today’s culture – is that Earle’s three young step-siblings are often present on camera. This in itself is indicative of the world that Earle lives in, where to grow up in the glare of the spotlight is the norm.

Not only this, but the youngsters seem to be aiming towards being content creators themselves. One of the older step-siblings, Izabel (aged 13), is seen making GRWM videos, talking about ‘clout chasing’ and saying she feels they’re all ‘flopping as a family’.

There are references to the fact that the family are aware that living in the public eye is unusual, but it’s not exactly interrogated for what it really means. The impact seems to be fine once it’s served alongside a dollop of success.

At one family dinner, their mother references feeling like she has ‘lost connection’ with her daughters, yet not much else is said about it in the moment. There is a trend in reality shows to tease the viewer with conversational mic-drops and cliffhangers, but this just feels odd rather than dramatic.

Wearying

Alix Earle and Sally Carden Netflix Netflix

The family are frank about certain things, particularly cosmetic work. Earle’s father tells us he paid for half of her breast augmentation one Christmas. Botox abounds, which is fair enough until you think about the fact the Earle sisters are in their mid-twenties. 

The family members all seem nice, and they’re respectful towards each other. There are moments of friction, but it doesn’t feel like it warrants a TV camera pointed at it.

Overall, there’s something wearying about watching Earle Meets World. After my third or fourth sigh during an episode, I wondered if I’d ever sighed so much watching a show before.

Perhaps part of this is because much of it is kind of confounding. Alix’s friends talk about how hard-working she is, but it’s hard at first to figure out what this ‘work’ is. For a lot of the series it appears to be doing Pilates, unboxing videos, talking about cosmetic work, trying on clothes, making videos and keeping up her public appearance.

Put together, this does, I suppose, make up the job of a content creator. But for those of us who would see that as a holiday from our real jobs, it feels a bit hard to take any complaints seriously.

When Earle does do what qualifies as recognisable work, it’s at her skincare brand Reale Actives (part of her early success was because she spoke openly about having acne). But sitting in the conference room, she doesn’t quite give off the air of a CEO. As she’s 25, this is understandable. But it would be great to really get under the hood of how you start a skincare business, which we don’t quite get. (Instead, we get told about how excited Alix is about being allowed to ‘get her boobs out in the office’.)

How does someone go from content creator to owning their own business at 25? Don’t depend on this show to fill you in on this impressive achievement. Though having the attitude that you can and should do it must certainly help.

Real world?

Ashtin Earle, Alisa Earle, Alix Earle

A side plot is how Alix has broken up with a long-term boyfriend, Braxton Berrios, at the beginning of the series, and is interested in dating again. Within a few weeks she is pictured dancing with sports star Tom Brady – to the apparent surprise of her family, who see the videos online. In fact, quite often on this show family members find things out about each other through TikTok videos. 

In the third episode, a ‘dramatic’ moment hinges on Berrios replying to a late-night text from Earle. This must definitely have been meaningful for her, but given we’ve seen approximately one still image of Berrios so far and have no sense of his actual relationship dynamic with Earle, it’s hard for newcomers to their story to care.

The name of the show suggests that Earle is going out to embrace the real world. But really it’s World, Meet Alix Earle, a person living in a self-constructed world of her own. Unfortunately, this world might have its moments of interest, but there’s little here that feels of depth or truly interesting.

Alix and her family are pleasant, and have some interesting dynamics. It’s impressive to be so successful at just 25. But there’s not much here to warrant so many episodes of a reality show.

Those with an existing interest in Alix will enjoy getting to see a little more of her everyday life. But if you don’t know much about her, this might be better as a background show. Or if you’ve some hair-washing to do, maybe do that instead.

Earle Meets World is streaming on Netflix now.