Christina Faith talks 'Single and Anxious,' giving Philadelphia some love & Christianity onscreen (EXCLUSIVE)

Society often dismisses the problems of millennials as trivial and not worth noting -- as if the trials and tribulations of life only bare down on us in our more advanced year. With her stellar web series Single and Anxious, creator, writer, and director Christina Faith brings the lives of twenty-somethings into the forefront, allowing her characters to grow, expand and be their authentic selves. Single and Anxious follows a group of friends, Karissa (Milaya S. Gregory) and her drug-dealing boyfriend T (Branden Brook). Amaya (Daarinah Saafir) and her cousin Tasha (Fann Sanders), Sebastian (Don Cephas) who is struggling with his Christianity, Santos (Jerrick Medrano) and Je’Kob (Brandon J McLean).

Described as Girlfriends meets A Different World with just a hint of The Wire, Single and Anxious which just dropped its second season earlier this fall is Faith's brainchild. “When I think about anxiety, I don't think about anxiety from the perspective of, 'I just want to be in a relationship'," she explained to me. “My thing is, anxiety comes from being in relationships with people that may not be the best fit for us -- or at the wrong time. Single and Anxious came from my singleness when I was single and bothered me all the time. I got tired of writing about singleness from the biblical perspective, and I thought, ‘Let's just make some characters.’ So the book and the show both have the same name, but they approach anxiety from a different perspective. Karissa is anxious to keep the perfect life you see from the first season. Then, in the second season, you see she's anxious from the perspective of, 'I don't want the perfect life. I just want to do what I want to do.' So it's just a play on words."

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7 dope web series to dive into before the New Year

We all watched Issa Rae change the game when it came to content creation with Awkward Black Girl, and since her meteoric rise from the internet to HBO, folks have been putting out amazing web series left and right. Though Rae isn't the first writer/director/producer triple threat to get her talent out there, she did help light a spark for Black content creators who were having trouble getting mainstream studios and audiences to pay attention to their stories. Since we live in a time when the world is literally at our fingertips, it seems like everybody and their mama has a show for us to check out. With so many options to choose from here are just seven of our favorite web series currently streaming for your binging pleasure.

Giants

We’re all out here trying to live our best lives, but Malachi (James Bland), Journee (Vanessa Baden), and Ade (Sean Samuels) are determined to do so no matter what it cost them. Raised as a devout Christian, Malachi is questioning everything as he approaches thirty. His soul searching leads him to uproot his life, quit his corporate job, and move to Los Angeles. Malachi’s BFF and roommate Journee struggles to keep a job since her chronic depression makes it difficult for her to get out of bed each day. Then there is Ade; a former engineering grad student turned dancer who has decided to be his true self no matter what anyone thinks.

Giants is captivating because the series tackles topics not often seen on mainstream television including homophobia in the Black community and mental illness.

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Brutally honest and witty, 'A Whole New Irving' gives young Black men room to express themselves

Millennials have a bad rap. We’ve been called lazy, entitled and so forth – but in reality, I think most of us are exhausted. We’re trying to wade our way through life using rules that rusted over a generation ago, and when we get stuck – which many of us do especially coming right out of college -- things seem hopeless. We get angry, and perhaps we wallow and sink into what we feel is the injustice of it all. After all, it isn’t as if we haven’t done the work. In his brutally honest and witty debut web series, A Whole New Irving, LA-based producer-director Terry Dawson examines the post-grad struggle from the perspective of a Black young man. Irving (Chase Anthony) is a recent grad who is submerged in debt and barely holding on to his job at a local health food store in Venice Beach. He lives every day trying not to let the bitterness and angst that he feels consume him.

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Exclusive: Watch the season finale of 'Keloid'

In the season finale of The Black TV & Film Collective’s supernatural web-series, Keloid — Keloid (David Nixon) discovers a devastating secret that shocks him to his core. With a tracker on his tail and his past resurfacing to haunt him, Keloid must race against time before his mother Marielle (Aba Woodruff)  goes into hibernation. Desperate to uncover the mysteries of his lineage and the reasons behind his superhuman gifts, Marielle reveals something that will change Keloid's perspective forever. Watch the season finale of Keloid exclusively on Shadow and Act, before it goes live to the public on Thursday, Aug. 24. You can also peep our coverage of the series overall here.

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