![]() So now you’re just three clicks of separation away from being a celebrity yourself (or something). You’re a follower he responded to your message. Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise, Lady Gaga - forget it! Their fans, it seems, never felt connected to them in the total way that fans do to their social-media-driven influencer gods.īut this is all a hyped-up way of saying that in the age of aspirational diversion, where the only way anyone feels like they have a chance to make it into the one percent (and therefore, you know, have a solid and secure life) is if they are somehow able to get famous, a figure like David Dobrik represents the illusion of proximity to fame. The movie presents all kinds of testimony about how the nature of fame that a YouTuber like Dobrik enjoys is more intense, more personal, more blah blah blah than the fame that defines traditional stars. We see clips of Dobrik on “Jimmy Fallon” and “GMA,” or horsing around in his vlogs with the likes of Justin Bieber, Kevin Hart, and Borat, and there’s a ton of footage of his appearances on campuses and other places, where he’s greeted like the early Beatles (though they never inspired signs that said things like “Look My TITS”). Dobrik was the guy who tried it all at home - his videos were “Jackass” gone DIY, full of stunts and pranks and naughty sitcom sketches held together by a self-adoring yes-you- can-do-this! bluster that might have been part of some sociopathic prankster hazing revue. The “Jackass” TV episodes and movies always come with a disclaimer that says, Don’t try this at home. He posted his first vlog on July 31, 2015, when he was 19, and within a few years, after posting hundreds of vlogs with the dissolute rat pack of young jokers he called the Vlog Squad, he’d become a celebrity with 18 million ardent followers on YouTube, who were addicted to the promise that in a David Dobrik video, you never knew what you were going to see next. The fame part of Dobrik’s rise was based on how he made himself into the new king of Most Insane Home Videos Nation. (You’re a vérité advertising spokesperson.) “Influencer” is a toxically insidious term, since it sounds cool and lofty and important but what it means is: someone who became famous enough on social media to get paid the big bucks for pushing video games, wine coolers, and Chipotle. ![]() “ Under the Influence” is a very absorbing, very disquieting, very meaningful-for-our-time documentary, directed by Casey Neistat (a YouTube personality himself), that charts Dobrik’s rise into becoming the buzziest and most infamous influencer of his generation. David Dobrik, in short, is a dude who looks a lot like America. ![]()
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