The Social Dilemma is the most cringey shit ever. You know those bits in The Big Short, where the scene shifts to Selena Gomez or Anthony Bourdain or someone like that, because they think you as a viewer are too fucking stupid to understand what they're saying and need some sort of "imagine you're running a lemonade stand"-type analogy? It's waaay worse than that. They explain how feed recommendations work by channeling Inside Out and using Vincent Kartheiser with a green screen "inside the computer" (Pete from Mad Men).
There's also this dramatisation of this family getting ripped apart by social media. The son loses interest in pussy because he only wants to watch Wank Dad videos, his younger sister feels self conscious all because some girl on Facebook said her ears are too big (they're not), the mom keeps buying useless shit from Amazon, and the older sister struggles with basically being the only normal one (she was kind of a nag though).
In this fictitious universe the Wank Dads that the kid is interested in are described as being part of the "Extreme Center". They are clearly a stand in for "alt-right" and their politics seem to be that voting is pointless. The reason the documentary does this is because they don't want to appear partisan and shit on half the audience. It also lets them skip over the fact that every coin has it's obverse, FOX has CNN, The Rubin Report has The Majority Report, or The Young Turks, or whatever. If you want to scoop up a bunch of dimwits so you can sell them copies of your book, or brain powder, or just because you think you're a hot-shit genius and everyone ought to know, there's a niche from all political angles. This shouldn't be news to anyone. The fact that it probably is makes me want to weep for our youth.
Anyway my friend just told me he watched this movie and was like "wow my eyes are open now, I know when we grab lunch you keep telling me not to use my phone while driving, but I swear i'll do it now". It's a shame because part of me was hoping he would die, just not when I was in the car. So now I *really* hate this documentary.
