Why are people so hungry for a bratty, sarcastic version of Abigail Williams? Maybe because she is essentially the reason for the Salem Witch Trials.

Joe Hegyes has gained a following for his Gen-Z version of the character, first portraying her in an online sketch in August 2020. He donned a black, blunt bobbed wig, a Puritan dress, while Abigail told her followers that she “is not trying to start drama,” but she just wanted to make sure they knew she saw Goody Proctor dancing in the woods with the devil — a.k.a. the plot of Arthur Miller’s 1953 play “The Crucible.”

It quickly gained 1.5 million views on TikTok, “And all I thought was ‘Well, this is the rest of my life,’” Hegyes tells USA TODAY. Since then, he’s portrayed the character while parodizing popular video formats such as Vogue’s “My Life in Looks” series and Vanity Fair’s “Lie Detector Test.” Hegyes also continues to captivate audiences with his idiosyncratic series in which figures like Marie Antoinette, E.T., the Minions, and yes, Abigail Williams, say their piece in faux “true crime documentaries.”

But the Williams videos have been especially popular, bringing in over 27 million views on Instagram and 14 million on TikTok – which was perfect because he “won’t let go of a joke in a way that’s scary.”

Now, starting Aug. 14, he’s releasing a web series called “Abigail’s Divine Comedy,” that he wrote, directed, and produced, with new episodes on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram every Friday through Oct. 9. It stars a whole host of well-known influencers, including his childhood best friend and former “Good Children” podcast co-host Andrew Muscarella, plus Zachariah Porter, Grant Gibbs and Ashley Gill (of “A Twink and a Redhead” fame), Grace O’Malley, Jordan Snyder, Saidah Belo-Osagie, and Richard Perez.

The New York City-based Hegyes spoke with USA TODAY about how he was inspired to make this web series in hopes of it getting picked up by a studio, à la “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” which became “Insecure” on HBO, or “Broad City,” which found a new audience at Comedy Central. (This interview was edited for clarity and length.)

Question: How did you come up with the idea to make videos as Abigail Williams?

Answer: I always wanted to make content, and one day during the pandemic I bought a bunch of costumes, including the Abigail Williams costume. I put it on one day and actually filmed a Snapchat that I posted to TikTok, and that video blew up.

From there, I got reached out to by a rep at United Talent Agency who asked me if I had a pilot for the Abigail Williams sketch. At that time, I was 24, working a corporate job, and had never in a million years considered doing entertainment, but I did go to school for it. So I told him that I could write one for him that weekend, and so I did.

Over six years, I workshopped a show, but I took a few years off to do [“Good Children”] and then started doing sketch comedy about two years ago as Abigail. I feel like my true form is making Puritan content and playing the devil.

So, did you pitch the show out to studios? How did that go?

I kept trying to sell a script; that was my goal. I took a lot of general meetings.

I would get so frustrated because the responses for my script were always, ‘Well, it’s gonna be really hard to sell you playing a 16-year-old girl and the devil as the leads in a TV series that’s a period-piece comedy.” And I would say, ‘I don’t think it’s that hard,’ and it took until this year, when I said to myself that all I wanted to see was the finished product, and I could do that by myself.

Hopefully, by the end of it, I can put together a deck where I can say there are this many views and this many follows, and this many comments, and this is the want people have for this project. Please, someone, produce it.

Because you’re putting your own money into this, right?

It’s like really independently produced in a crazy way.

In what way?

Once I became a full-blown content creator, obviously, brand deals are amazing. I always knew if I was gonna make money from the internet, I was gonna like put it back into projects.

This was pretty low budget; I got very lucky. I got to use the exact living history museum I wanted. They said yes to me for an incredibly low price, and they let us do whatever we wanted, which was crazy. And I only paid my videographer and my production assistant; everyone else did it as a favor to me.

What was the living history museum called?

It’s called Old Bethpage. I went when I was in second grade. I vividly remember it was after a speech therapy event in the auditorium. So I was late to the field trip, very devastated about that. My mother drove me. I made it in time, and I remember seeing people in period costumes and these old houses, and being obsessed from that moment forward.

I was like begging my parents to take me to Colonial Williamsburg as a kid; I told them we didn’t need to go to Disney again and to focus on the priorities. I’ve always loved history and historical fiction, so I would continually go back to that place and bring my friends.

If studios were originally giving you trouble, why don’t you keep it as an internet web series?

Honestly, I think it’s wish fulfillment at this point. I know micro dramas and internet series are the future for a lot of people. And in terms of viewership, I can get more viewers on my Instagram than a streamer can. But for me, it’s like all of my dreams as a kid and all of my obsessions as a teen and into my 20s: “Sex and the City,” “Girls,” “Insecure,” the Ryan Murphy Universe. There’s a lot of just, like, tone and visual language that you can’t get on a vertical screen.

I’m really grateful that when I was 24, I didn’t sell this TV show and try to make it somehow, because I think I wouldn’t even be working again. The stress and the pressure of that seem unfathomable.

A lot of my past, like six years, have been a lot of impatience and frustration with my career and where it’s going and how much, like, I have to publicly humiliate myself, like with sketch comedy day in and day out, three times a week minimum on Instagram. Now I can humiliate myself and feel like there’s a greater purpose behind it.

So where do you see this series going?

An HBO Max original series. “Abigail’s Divine Comedy” is a prequel to the actual scripted series “Divine,” which is a lot more directly referencing the actual events of the Salem Witch Trials and Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” I have like four seasons planned out. We go to Versailles. We go to a pirate ship. We go to New Orleans as it’s being built. I really have spent years in my head planning this world, and my goal is to get gorgeous, beautiful television money and keep incredible, talented, funny internet people at the center of this. I’ll bring on, like, one A-list celebrity – Whichever one wants to be involved.