I finished Don't F*** With Cats, so here's my $0.02: At the beginning of the first episode, an amateur internet detective talks about there being two kinds of internet - the kind internet, where you go for a happy place, for pictures of kids being adorable and catching up with friends, and the cruel internet, where anything goes in terms of degenerate content because it's all for the lulz; just don't f*ck with cats. But by now we all know that there's no such division - the nice internet is always getting interrupted by the nasty internet, and there's never been all that many rules keeping the two apart, just layers and layers of outrage and contra-outrage. DFWCs is about an internet vigilante group, told mostly from within the group, based around videos of animal abuse posted online. There's enough of the videos shown, and described, to make anyone reach for the nearest pitchfork. Viewers sensitive to animal abuse should give it a swerve, because it doesn't really let up over the three episodes. There's two stories here: one is the crime story, which is properly cued and delivered, and has real tension and suspense. The other is what one narrator refers to the as "internet hoo-ha" element. TV/film doesn't tend to do great at showing how the internet works on screen, and there is an assload of telling-not-showing going on here. If you were lucky enough not to know what a "sockpuppet" is, this will tell ya. There's many shots of hyperpixellated facebook icons. Animated Likes piles up. It's a subtle as a 4chan meme, but slightly more tasteful (slightly). Without spoiling anything, the intersection of the crime story and the internet story is mostly deftly handled, and I thought it would be allowed to stay in the shades of grey that something as complex and batsh*t as this story warrants. Nope, the filmmakers decide to wag their fingers at the audience in the most on-the-nose way possible.
All that aside - if you can bear the subject manner, and find the intersection of online personas, scammers, criminals, and obsessive community-driven behaviour (plus sheer weirdness) interesting, this is quite the watch. Could do with less of the shrieking violins though.
Now I've actually listened to the episode, I've not seen Dark Tourist but can recommend his documentary Tickled as a considerably less-squeamish Strange Internet Stuff true crime tale, compared to DFWC. And if you want more in the doofy NZers travelling about genre, recent podcast Snowball (which I think EB reviewed?) hits the mark. Yours, a doofy NZer
I finished Don't F*** With Cats, so here's my $0.02: At the beginning of the first episode, an amateur internet detective talks about there being two kinds of internet - the kind internet, where you go for a happy place, for pictures of kids being adorable and catching up with friends, and the cruel internet, where anything goes in terms of degenerate content because it's all for the lulz; just don't f*ck with cats. But by now we all know that there's no such division - the nice internet is always getting interrupted by the nasty internet, and there's never been all that many rules keeping the two apart, just layers and layers of outrage and contra-outrage. DFWCs is about an internet vigilante group, told mostly from within the group, based around videos of animal abuse posted online. There's enough of the videos shown, and described, to make anyone reach for the nearest pitchfork. Viewers sensitive to animal abuse should give it a swerve, because it doesn't really let up over the three episodes. There's two stories here: one is the crime story, which is properly cued and delivered, and has real tension and suspense. The other is what one narrator refers to the as "internet hoo-ha" element. TV/film doesn't tend to do great at showing how the internet works on screen, and there is an assload of telling-not-showing going on here. If you were lucky enough not to know what a "sockpuppet" is, this will tell ya. There's many shots of hyperpixellated facebook icons. Animated Likes piles up. It's a subtle as a 4chan meme, but slightly more tasteful (slightly). Without spoiling anything, the intersection of the crime story and the internet story is mostly deftly handled, and I thought it would be allowed to stay in the shades of grey that something as complex and batsh*t as this story warrants. Nope, the filmmakers decide to wag their fingers at the audience in the most on-the-nose way possible.
All that aside - if you can bear the subject manner, and find the intersection of online personas, scammers, criminals, and obsessive community-driven behaviour (plus sheer weirdness) interesting, this is quite the watch. Could do with less of the shrieking violins though.
Now I've actually listened to the episode, I've not seen Dark Tourist but can recommend his documentary Tickled as a considerably less-squeamish Strange Internet Stuff true crime tale, compared to DFWC. And if you want more in the doofy NZers travelling about genre, recent podcast Snowball (which I think EB reviewed?) hits the mark. Yours, a doofy NZer