Social Media Apocalypse

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05/05/2019 As technology and social media become more and more prevalent, more critics of their use seem to come out of the woodwork. Social Media Apocalypse (dir. Michael Long, 2019), the seventy-minute "documentary," is just one example of this trend. This film, which more closely resembles a video essay on YouTube than a well-researched documentary, tries to present its ideas as revolutionary but falls flat on 2019 ears. Everything in this video, from the low-energy visuals to repetitive, under-researched claims, leads me to believe that not much time or effort was put into it. Although the cover of the DVD and tone of the movies might be highly dramatic, the content never delivers the punch that it intended. In Social Media Apocalypse, many subjects are brought, some of which include social media, journalism, bullying, surveillance, personal relationships, the objectification of the human body, and more. While those may sound like many potentially interesting topics, the large majority of the movie is spent discussing social media and how technology in general affects individuals. The film argues that those who use modern technology, like social media, are comparable to zombies. The main purpose of the film is to inform people of how social media strips them of what makes them human ï¿ 1/2 1/2" their sympathy ï¿ 1/2 1/2" and their uniqueness. Unfortunately, those who wrote this thought they were shining a light on something new and dangerous ï¿ 1/2 1/2" when, of course, they are not ï¿ 1/2 1/2" which leads me to believe this film is geared toward the older generation who does not understand the complexities of social media and what benefits it has. One subject that I was actually excited to hear about was journalism. Since we have talked about social media news, Twitter, quick-fire headlines, etc. in class, I wanted to hear about what the film-makers had to say. Unfortunately, this section was just as disappointing as the others. While I will confess that I was, and still am, hesitant to believe news I see on social media for fear of fake news, I do not agree with the film that fake news is popular because of its real threat to credible information. What I do believe is that fake news is trending because President Trump had made it into a joke by saying it so much. It is sad to say, but I think the filmmakers and audience of this movie are the exact people Benton was writing about when he said. "Those who have negative opinions of the news media are less likely to spot a fake headline, less likely to differentiate between news and opinion ï¿ 1/2 1/2" but more confident in their ability to find the information they need online." As aforementioned, this movie presents itself like a YouTube video essay. For one, the writing is very poor. Because there are no characters, not even professionals in the field of computer-mediated communication, and no plot, the movie is essentially a series of stock videos that are edited together. The audience can tell this is the case because many of the visuals do not match the narration. For instance, there are many times when the narration is describing how social media makes people unsatisfied with their own lives while a woman is shown smiling at her phone. These visuals are also problematic because the women are often wearing lingerie in their bed, which ironically juxtaposes another claim that is made ï¿ 1/2 1/2" that women objectify themselves, rather than being objectified by men. In addition, the people in these stock videos, when negative, are very overdramatic. The irony continues when you notice that the people who look unhappy are those who do not have their phones beside them, while those that do have their phones with them seem to be enjoying themselves. Not only did the makers of Social Media Apocalypse not hire any actors or have conversations with real people about their experiences, but they did not even find clips that would work with the narration. Furthermore, no literary techniques are used, the music sounds as if it is from an old computer games, and the production value is incredibly low. In the last example of irony, the makers of this film date themselves, not just in their commentary, but in the film aspects alone. While watching the film, I kept wondering when they would address a solution to all of the issues discussed, but they never did. In the end, the movie was not at all revolutionary; the dangers, whether real or not, are nothing new. It is shocking to me that this came out in 2019. I would be willing to excuse this fact if there had been more logos, or facts, included or solutions brought up, but I was let down in this regard. Worse, even, is the superior tone that the narrator takes, saying things like, "Humans are that stupid." For a documentary, I, as an audience member, do not have much reason to believe anything that is said in this film, which is why my rating is so low. Social Media Apocalypse is a horrible documentary and an insult to people who actually study computer-mediated communication. See more 05/05/2019 This film can best be described as a stock photo slideshow with a voiceover that talks about the dangers of social media for a full 70 minutes. The idea behind the title is that we are all living zombies who are glued to our technology, letting it slowly kill us in the process. The main purpose of this film is to educate the viewers of how dangerous social media is. They want the world to know that social media is destroying innocent people and we must be prepared for all of the damage it will do to us. Humanity is changing for the worst with social media involved in our lives. The issues raised are basically the same as what I have discussed before. The issues being that we are slaves to social media, we don't recognize that, and we are going to be controlled by all of it eventually. The quality of the film was horrendous. There was little to no actual acting, and if there was any acting, it was basically like a moving stock picture that had nothing to do with the voiceover. At one point, during a discussion about the #MeToo movement, there was a clip of a woman in lingerie, in bed. That makes no sense. At another time, they were talking about police brutality while showing a white man being arrested. This also makes no sense. At a lot of negative discussions or talks of illegal doings, there were black men shown. The narrator would discuss how terrible it is to be on social media, but then there would be pictures of girls giggling and happy while staring at their phones. The music that played the whole time in the background was something out of a cheap horror film. Most of the time, the music did not match the scenes playing during the film. However, it did match the vibe of what the narrator was discussing because all he was talking about was the evil behind social media and how it's slowly killing us...frightening. If any type of person would enjoy this film, it would be a very boring person, who also happens to hate social media. See more Read all reviews

Social Media Apocalypse

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