By Bob Abelman 

This collection of observational essays by online musical theater parodist and insta-celebrity Randy Rainbow is a Birkin bag full of snarky social commentary about the most pressing issues facing the US, from dancing TikTok grandmas to Donald Jessica Trump.

Low-Hanging Fruit: Sparkling Whines, Champagne Problems, and Pressing Issues From My Gay Agenda by Randy Rainbow. St. Martin’s Press, 207 pp., $28 (to be released Oct. 8).

Randy Rainbow’s career as an online personality, musical theater parodist, and touring artist began in 2010 with his creation of videos of fake phone conversations with famous people, using actual edited audio clips of those celebrities. When the parodist posted his breakout video, “Randy Rainbow Is Dating Mel Gibson,” on YouTube, it garnered more than 60,000 views in one week.

Rainbow, who confesses to thinking in show tunes, gained a larger audience when he shifted focus during the 2016 American presidential campaign, drawing on his singing/songwriting skills to create a series of spoof interviews and musical parodies that skewered the election process in general and the GOP nominee — referred to then and now as Donald Jessica Trump — in particular. “I put on the TV and wait for Wolf Blitzer to give me my musical marching orders,” he said in an interview just prior to a sold-out “The Pink Glasses Tour” appearance in Providence.

Those not familiar with Rainbow’s satiric style should take a look at his recent effort “Grumpy Trumpy Felon From Jamaica in Queens!,” a version of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” inspired by Trump’s first indictment. Or view “Don’t Arraign on His Parade,” a Funny Girl parody that was provoked by the Georgia indictment.

Boston audiences first encountered Rainbow live during his 2017 national tour dates at the Boston Center for the Arts. The Boston Theater Critics Association named him the guest of honor at the 2018 Elliot Norton Awards, where he performed a song lampoon that probed Donald Trump Jr.’s questionable meeting with a Russian attorney to the tune of “The Room Where It Happens” from the Broadway musical Hamilton. Since then, the leader of the musical theater resistance to all things Trump has been particularly busy. And successful.

Starting in 2019, his online work has earned four consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Short-Form Variety Series. According to Tubular Labs (a social media tracking, measurement, and analytics resource) over 3 million people follow him across his various virtual platforms. In 2022, Rainbow authored the New York Times bestselling memoir Playing with Myself — a love letter to his younger, uncertain self that traces his depressed and closeted youth, teenage bouts with anorexia, and glamour-adjacent jobs, after dropping out of community college, which included being a maître d’ at Hooters.  In 2023, with the release of his critically admired debut studio album A Little Brains, A Little Talent, he joined the ranks of other song parodists like “Weird Al” Yankovic and Allan Sherman, to be nominated for a Grammy.

Now Rainbow has completed the most highly anticipated sequel since Top Gun: Maverick (his publicist’s words, not mine).

What is clear from the plethora of interview pieces and personality profiles that have surfaced of late is that Rainbow, 43, is a world-class complainer. He certainly has a passion and a gift for it, no doubt nurtured by the fact that he grew up in New York —  Jewish, bullied, and a flamboyant homosexual actually named Randy Rainbow. Thus this book boils down to a collection of comedic kvetches.

It opens with an intriguingly passive-aggressive note to Stupid People and ends with an epilogue that serves to explain his need to write such things. His explanation: living in a chronic state of aggravation coupled with ADHD and a queer eye for injustice. “I was raised to believe there are simply right and wrong ways to do just about everything,” he writes, noting that his way is, of course, the right way. “When people insist on choosing the wrong way — be it for lack of care, sheer laziness, nefarious intent, or any other reason — I take exception.” And through the creative freedom and control that the Internet has provided, he is compelled to share those exceptions with the world.

These bookend book chapters are jam-packed with the same smart signature sarcasm, endearing self-deprecation, and infectious humor found in the remaining 22 installments — along with the impressive verbal virtuosity that has found high-profile admirers among such fellow wordsmiths as Lin-Manuel Miranda and the late Stephen Sondheim.

The author is so self-deprecating that an entire chapter is devoted to an official “Declaration of Cancellation,” where Rainbow cancels himself for various misdeeds, including hoarding hand sanitizer during Covid, never seeing an entire episode of Glee, and once, at a party, stealing a plastic cup that Friends star David Schwimmer drank from. Another offers a Shakespearesque poem that laments his dearth of a derriere titled “Would That I Had an Ass.” Yet another, called “From the Peanut Gallery,” serves up his defensive replies to toxic online comments for his videos, including one from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), rejoinders that are obviously cathartic for him and hilarious for readers.

Balancing all that self-deprecation is no shortage of self-indulgence. In fact, both typically appear in the same sentence, with the latter making a brassy statement followed by the former serving as well-timed and effectively tempering comic relief. Case in point: “I myself am often classified as an ‘Internet personality’ or other similar title, like ‘YouTube celebrity’ or ‘social media star’ or ‘internationally renowned supermodel.’ (Fine, I took some creative license with that last one).” When reporting that a physician he dated told him that he was “classically handsome,” Rainbow then admits that “I was just so relieved to finally have a professional diagnosis for it.”

All of this cracking wise makes for a fast and fun read. Though be warned: Rainbow’s outsized personality and persistent complaining can grow tiresome, as can the too-often-repeated rhythm of overweening self-admiration with a deprecating chaser. And so, the best approach to consuming the chapters in Low-Hanging Fruit is the same employed when watching the author’s viral musical comedy videos — with a respite in between, to catch your breath and give yourself time to marvel at the mischief and magnificence of one before moving on to the next.

But consume you should. Particularly if you lean left and are in need of a good, hopeful laugh. These days, the two seem to go hand in hand.

Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. He covers the Providence theater scene for the Boston Globe.