✦ It’s not me, it’s definitely you. ✦

Heading into the fourth season of You’re the Worst, fans didn’t know the relationship status of the show’s dysfunctional on-again, off-again main couple. (But when one person leaves the other stranded at a romantic vista moments after popping the question, it’s safe to assume things aren’t good.)

We knew one thing for sure—no one would do a breakup quite like these two, so we leaned into the show’s snarky tone to imagine all the ways they might revel in causing each other pain. This played out across a series of special shoot teasers that were initially intended for social but ended up being used on air to announce the new season. All those things you only wish you could say to your ex? Well, these characters actually would.

We leaned into the highly relatable (and very shareable) theme of breakups for the full campaign, which came to life with social content, a microsite, and even a Facebook Live involving live turtles (yes, you read that right).

For the premiere, we wanted to create an experience that would recap the show’s previous three seasons in a way that was entertaining for new and existing fans alike. Enter: baby turtles.

We’d noticed that the most successful Facebook Lives seemed to be cute + interactive + a little bizarre, so we cast two adorable turtles as Gretchen and Jimmy to reenact some of the show’s most memorable moments, complete with turtle-scale sets and props (built by yours truly). We also opened up sections of the 15-minute broadcast for fans to vote on, like the very important decision of whether to feed our “actors” a mini salad or tiny fruit. It all paid off, with the broadcast reaching 100k+ views in 24 hours and fans letting us know how happy they were in the comments.

On social, our pre-season campaign celebrated the good, bad, and ugly of breakups through original illustrations, in-world character content, and special shoot pieces designed to be relatable while offering the show’s unique perspective.