3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): American Sweatshop

2025, Uta Briesewitz (TV shows including Stranger Things, The Pitt) -- download

The Internet is full of vile, vitriolic, horrible shit. It always has been. It just seems that more, of late, is being thrown in our face. Part of the reason for that is that the platforms that dominate the Internet now, primarily Social Media, are shying away from proper content moderation. What is "proper" you ask? Valuing humans over dollars, if you ask me.

At the time of writing this, social media is buzzing with the latest example of how horrible people, and in particular, men can be. A porn website exists, upon it was a chat forum where men discussed the topic of drugging and raping their partners. CNN did a story investigating the site and its content. Social Media has gone wild and is more focused on the hyperbole of both sides of the conversation, rather than just addressing exactly how horrible the activity is. The conversation on the actual topic is derailed by hype & outrage because the latter gets clicks, views and impressions. 

Daisy (Lili Reinhart, Riverdale) works at Paladin, a YouTube analog, in the role of content moderation. Its a shit job, but someone has to do it. She's an aimless soul that abandoned becoming a nurse. She works with other similarly aimless souls, some more unhinged than others. Then she sees a video of a woman being nailed to a board. "Fake! Special Effects! Kink!" everyone decries. But Daisy believes it is real and she becomes obsessed with it, and begins to spiral.

I expected this to be a standard thriller, one where she sleuths her way to the truth of the video and its even more horrible than she could conceive. It would end in her confronting the maker, probably in a violent climax. Or a twist. So, it does end with her confronting someone connected to the video, but not in the way I expected.

The movie more so focuses on the effect it has on Daisy, and all of it is negative. Her company wants her to move on. Her friends don't believe it can be real. But she cannot get it out of her head. She tries alcohol & sex to escape, but only finds more anger & violence -- this time, from her. She tries researching the video and its creators, and is sent down a misleading rabbit hole. Nothing is working out, nothing is dismissing it from her mind. Again, another movie would have this as a brief act, and eventually leading to her gearing-up and doing something about it. But we get more a character study and a commentary on the impact not only this "content" has on its victims but also the way our generally apathetic approach to its existence makes us complicit.

That said, I guess I have to lump myself into the complicit because I just see it, frown and turn away, but don't do anything. And I wonder, what is there to do.

Daisy does something. The final bit of the final act does kind of turn things around, ending with Daisy's fourth-wall breaking stare at us, a challenge to follow her path.