![]() Furlan laments the response to her videos, but the gross, insensitive clips Marcus shows offer proof that the criticism was warranted. The film completely glosses over the fact that much of the blowback they’ve received comes from the fact that the content they produced was often blatantly racist and misogynistic. Missed Opportunities: There’s pathos in Furlan and Bichutsky’s stories, but only so much. That you’ve grown out of it is irrelevant. He occasionally speaks about pivoting into another form of content, but the resignation in his voice speaks to the futility of such an endeavor. He spends a majority of the film hungover, and speaks at length about his suicidal thoughts and how fucked up it is that his online persona has begun to infect the person he is in real life. And though he doesn’t seem repentant about his attitude, he certainly seems to grasp that what he’s doing carries no intrinsic value to society. A photographer who achieved online fame by first cataloging, and then spurring on, nightclub debauchery, the “Slut Whisperer” produces blatantly misogynist and fat-phobic content that’s undeniably exploitative. Themes of thirstiness and loneliness arise time and again in the documentary, and though there are plenty of canned denials from the film’s more unreliable subjects (though, to be fair, all of these people are unreliable narrators to some degree), Furlan and Bichutsky confront some downright existential struggles that they continue to face.īichutsky especially emerges as the film’s most fascinating personality. FAT JEW MEME CREATOR APP FULLThe Internet is Dark and Full of Terrors: The American Meme, a documentary that suffers from its relative toothlessness (more on that below), surprises most in the candor it culls from both Furlan and Bichutsky, who use their online fame as a lens through which to discuss their struggles with mental illness. Consider it a 101 course in the topic, one that would benefit anyone trying to grasp the earliest touchstones of how our culture came to be so Extremely Online. The American Meme does a better job of demonstrating Hilton’s influence on the monetizing power of personality, as well as how her fame helped usher in a new era of corporate sponsorship. That said, the now-defunct Vine plays a major role in Furlan’s story, just as it did in the rise of numerous current influencers the film offers a smidge of insight into the platform’s power, but never digs deep enough into its collapse to truly contextualize the social media landscape of the early 2010s. As such, the reach and breadth of social media celebrity is only scratched upon, the focus more or less being built around Instagrammers of various shades rather than YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, or Facebook celebrities. DJ Khaled, Hailey Baldwin, and Emily Ratajkowski, all of whom dominate feeds to this day, also swing by with their thoughts.įor Posterity: The American Meme is by no means comprehensive, with filmmaker Bert Marcus opting for a character-based approach rather than a cultural one. Hilton speaks candidly about her years spent unwittingly spawning the phenomenon, while Josh “ The Fat Jew” Ostrovsky, onetime Vine star Brittany Furlan, and “Slut Whisperer” Kirill Bichutsky also open up about their rise in the online world and how it’s changed since they first cultivated their platforms. The American Meme - a new Netflix documentary that, despite its title, is not about Pepe the Frog - is a personality-focused chronicle of some of the earliest, most trailblazing celebrities in this field, with Paris Hilton posited as the business model’s Alpha and Omega. Influencers, the eye-rolling name bestowed upon the most followed of online personalities, can make or break a person, a product, or a platform with one post. The Pitch: Like it or not, the word “influencer” matters. ![]()
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