The world’s first Arabic web series, ‘Shankaboot’, about
a 15-year-old boy and his motorcycle, is raising
awareness of social issues in Lebanon and beyond

Craving a gritty slice of social reality packaged into charmingly byte-sized episodes? Shankaboot’s your answer. The Emmy award-winning Lebanese drama is the world’s first Arabic language web series. Pioneering a style that melds networked interaction with a kinetic neo- realism, it is fast redefining the web series format.

Last year, when the British Broadcasting Corporation’s charitable arm, the World Services Trust (WST) approached Lebanese producer Katia Saleh of Batoota Films to do a web series, they wanted to raise awareness about social issues across the region while making use of new media’s highly interactive potential. Shankaboot more than delivered, with a series that bewitches and delights by turn, even as it provokes fierce debates online.

The plot follows the misadventures of Suleiman, a 15-year- old street-urchin-turned-delivery boy, and Shankaboot, his flame-decaled white moped. His posse includes 19-year-old runaway Ruwaida, a would-be chanteuse, and Chadi, his tall, dark and mysterious best friend. The trio’s escapades are uploaded to the website roughly every week; Beirut’s sidestreets and rooftops provide the backdrop.

The series, now in its fourth season, is something of a love letter to the Lebanese capital. Beirut is not romanticised, but portrayed with honesty – pocked walls and all. In taking this approach, Shankaboot taps into our often complicated relationships with our cities. ‘We want to be a bit critical and we want to say, “stop pretending everything is fine”, the way other TV dramas and films are portraying Beirut,’ says Saleh. ‘It’s trying to portray what is beautiful and what is ugly at the same time, the way we all love and hate our cities.’

Yet the Shankaboot team didn’t want to just rehearse the same old tired sectarian tropes. ‘People know Lebanon because of the news: because of the wars, conflict and political issues. We think the issue is the problems that came out as a consequence of the war.

Unemployment, gun culture, domestic violence, frustration, corruption. We wanted to show a new face of Lebanon. Point out the problems, but at the same time, portray characters that are lovely and funny. People who do not want to accept these problems anymore, and want to try and change them.’ When a village storekeeper questions Suleiman whether he is Muslim or Christian, his answer is simply ‘I’m Shankabooti.’

The addictively more-ish series keeps Lebanon’s temperamental internet connection in mind, averaging only five minutes an episode. It takes narrative cues primarily from Italian and Iranian neo-realist cinema, with its focus on the stories of the young urban poor. Shooting on location and working with non-professional actors are further nods to the genre. Saleh enthuses, this was ‘very much something that I always dreamt of doing. Working with amateurs, discovering new talents and casting people from the street.’ Finding the teenage protagonists was, however, a formidable task. Emphasizing this, she says: ‘To get someone who can act and has the talent at that age who’s not necessarily known was very, very hard. We wanted to have someone close to the streets; we tried to cast real delivery boys.’

Unlike its languorous, neo-realist influences, Shankaboot’s pace is snappy and dynamic. Writing for the smaller screen – and shorter attention spans – however, brings its own challenges. Through collaborative sessions, the team came up with a few key adaptive principles. ‘We said it’s got to be quirky and fast; it’s got to start with a very appealling scene and end with suspense. It’s hard to hook people in five minutes.’ To this end Saleh sought out Amin Dora, who has a background in TV commercials and music videos, to direct the series. Shankaboot also retains the multiple entwined shorelines and cliffhanger endings of Turkish soaps, while avoiding their melodrama.

Since winning an International Digital Emmy in April, Shankaboot has become wildly popular, sidling into the hearts and vocabularies of viewers the world over. Its title has even spawned a plethora of ‘shankabooti’ slang, from ‘shanktastic’ (adj) to ‘shanking’ (verb). While especially beloved in Beirut, web stats reveal viewers all over the Arab world. Abroad, it is most popular in the US, Canada, France, UK, and Brazil – Saleh believes this is largely due to Lebanon’s widespread diaspora population.

Emigration is just one of the social issues addressed by the community portal Shankactive, which invites multimedia responses from fans. Piling into a painted yellow minivan, the team thus visits local schools to hold competitions and workshops themed around social issues. Students are equipped with important citizen-journalistic skills, like how to film videos and document abuses on their mobile phones. ‘We didn’t want to lecture people and say, well, domestic violence is bad; don’t do this at home. We just want to say that this is our interpretation, what about yours?’

Certainly, by any rubric, Shankaboot has filled WST’s mandate. But Saleh adds, ‘If I want to be a little bit critical, Western countries think they want to play a part in the big D-word. Democracy. In 50 years’ time it’s going to be written in history that the Brits had a hand in this thing that won an Emmy, mobilised the youth in the Arab world and made them speak. Of course they want to mobilise people to media, but politically there is a little bit more than that.’ Speaking more broadly, she traces these investment patterns to countries wanting to mitigate sense of imperial guilt. ‘They have so many guilty feelings that they want to do something constructive and develop new sorts of ways of freedom. Most of the films in the Middle East and Africa are funded by former colonisers, and unfortunately few Arabs invest in these things – art and media are still considered a nonprofit sort of machine.’

Shankaboot’s greatest success then lies in its embrace of interactive social media technologies and their small-d participatory potential. Empowering and communicating with viewers and incorporating their feedback is a major priority. Saleh gives the example of when, at the end of season two, many fans were disgruntled at a plot twist. As the team couldn’t film, they immediately commissioned someone to produce an animated response clarifying their choices and thought processes. Saleh opines, ‘I think that’s something that differentiates Shankaboot from other web dramas. The people have a big, big say in the way the story is going.’

And as the word spreads, Shankaboot is changing the way Lebanese youth consume entertainment. ‘One of our aims was to drag the youth to the internet to watch something more useful than they see on YouTube, something much more intelligent and a bit entertaining.’ Saleh continues to describe Shankaboot’s two audience types, ‘There are the internet addicts and there are people who find out about it through their schoolmates or even in the ghettos of Beirut, in the refugee camps or in the suburbs. They find out about it and then they go on the internet deliberately to see it.’

Since the Emmys, rumours have swirled about a possible feature film. While it is still on the cards, Saleh demurs laughingly that ‘making a film is not like sipping a cup of tea! It takes time. As long as we don’t have a good story idea for the film we’re not going to make the film.’ Immediate plans include expanding the series into a global, transmedia project that runs on multiple platforms – mobile apps, games and DVDs among them – to drive traffic to the site. Even as they branch out to other media, however, they are careful to stay true to their online roots. ‘Whether they watch it on DVD or TV, they have to come back to the website. We shouldn’t forget it’s a web project.’ As their Twitter catchphrase goes, watch it, #shank it, share it!

With thanks to Shankaboot for the images.