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sunshowerdandelionI watched the film! SPOILERS I'm an absolute sucker for bildungsroman or growing-up stories of any sort and this one hit especially close to home. I spent most of my high school haunting creepypasta blogs (back before there were big wikis of them) and ghost-stories blogs (Saya in Underworld, Personal Ghost Stories), and would post reviews and make my own. I became a fixture on at least one site, with the site-owner saying that they always waited for my reviews. I then moved on to various roleplay forums before disappearing into fic-writing, so I'm very familiar with the webcam/ARG aesthetic of the late 2000s - early 2010s. I still remember being absolutely terrified by EverymanHYBRID because at the time I wasn't sure if it was real or not.
This is the state evoked by this movie. All those ARGs, those roleplay forums (esp the more freewheeling ones) - the blurring between 'the game' and reality. I really think the reviewers (fortunately only a few) who've cleft the film between "Oh, Casey was in on the ARG" and "Oh, Casey was totally unaware it was an ARG" are missing that it could have been both for her at the same time.
See, in my experience, when you join a RP or ARG-adjacent forum, you're buying a license to unmoor yourself - sort of like in the film, where there's a ritual and everything for it, and actual tickets. Your characters are definitely not you, usually, but you do resemble you in some senses, just more free. I think this is definitely a function of anonymity and the internet, but also a function of (I think) the dramaturgy of playing a character almost constantly. You can express things through your character you wouldn't normally express 'IRL', as Casey does (via her dancing, her frustration, her suicidal ideation), but at the same time you're aware that that's not really you, you have that essential distance afforded by your handle or the fact that you're RP-ing. You're wearing a mask, and you do you stuff while wearing the mask, but at the same time you are aware you're wearing a mask and thus not 'actually' you.
I think this is a sort of demi-irony that only exists in these online spaces. It's the same thing, I think, that allows otherwise 'normal' people to be extremely racist: in their heads, this space is inconsequential, not real, doesn't count, and so you're not held to the same standards of consistency as normal. You can try new yous. You suspend the normal rules of reality and consistency. So it's not only that the internet makes people anonymously mean: it's that these spaces tolerate a sort of 'non-binary' approach to reality and identity, where contradictory things can be true at once.
You can definitely get lost in the thickets of your own invented identity.
I think this demi-irony collapses at the end, due to JLB's intrusion. Casey is and isn't expressing hatred at her dad: the ARG affords her the freedom to hedge, to try both Caseys, and she trusts JLB at first to keep up the masquerade. It is and isn't real: It could become real in a flash - she could murder her father, but even then I think she'd do so in the spirit of this irreality. When JLB says definitely that it isn't real, he's ruining the game. He's vanishing that space of demi-irony where Casey exists. It's not a comfortable space: It might even have been the right thing to do, dragging Casey out like that. However this firmly brings in 'real world' standards - notice how Casey is visibly agitated at the mention of police, and how her tone completely changes, and how right after, she accuses JLB of being a pedophile. The real world rushes in when that space collapses.
See, JLB definitely exemplifies a type of RP and forum user: The Lore Lawyer. He's trying to take the reins of Casey's narrative (he frequently alludes to 'lore' and 'history' Casey hasn't read about - a roundabout, very internet way of saying "I know more trivia than you, so submit to my interpretation of the story"), and Casey knows this and tries to deal with him using the tools available to her (the Tarot scene). In the end, he still positions himself as the one who knows it all and even tries to override Casey's disappearance with an icky feel-good New York meetup with him as the hero. I don't think his version is true. He's playing the game all wrong, and he's not invited to the world's fair.
Anyway yes this is a good movie, don't listen to people who say it's horror. It's a bildungsroman about early 2010s ARGs.
This is the state evoked by this movie. All those ARGs, those roleplay forums (esp the more freewheeling ones) - the blurring between 'the game' and reality. I really think the reviewers (fortunately only a few) who've cleft the film between "Oh, Casey was in on the ARG" and "Oh, Casey was totally unaware it was an ARG" are missing that it could have been both for her at the same time.
See, in my experience, when you join a RP or ARG-adjacent forum, you're buying a license to unmoor yourself - sort of like in the film, where there's a ritual and everything for it, and actual tickets. Your characters are definitely not you, usually, but you do resemble you in some senses, just more free. I think this is definitely a function of anonymity and the internet, but also a function of (I think) the dramaturgy of playing a character almost constantly. You can express things through your character you wouldn't normally express 'IRL', as Casey does (via her dancing, her frustration, her suicidal ideation), but at the same time you're aware that that's not really you, you have that essential distance afforded by your handle or the fact that you're RP-ing. You're wearing a mask, and you do you stuff while wearing the mask, but at the same time you are aware you're wearing a mask and thus not 'actually' you.
I think this is a sort of demi-irony that only exists in these online spaces. It's the same thing, I think, that allows otherwise 'normal' people to be extremely racist: in their heads, this space is inconsequential, not real, doesn't count, and so you're not held to the same standards of consistency as normal. You can try new yous. You suspend the normal rules of reality and consistency. So it's not only that the internet makes people anonymously mean: it's that these spaces tolerate a sort of 'non-binary' approach to reality and identity, where contradictory things can be true at once.
You can definitely get lost in the thickets of your own invented identity.
I think this demi-irony collapses at the end, due to JLB's intrusion. Casey is and isn't expressing hatred at her dad: the ARG affords her the freedom to hedge, to try both Caseys, and she trusts JLB at first to keep up the masquerade. It is and isn't real: It could become real in a flash - she could murder her father, but even then I think she'd do so in the spirit of this irreality. When JLB says definitely that it isn't real, he's ruining the game. He's vanishing that space of demi-irony where Casey exists. It's not a comfortable space: It might even have been the right thing to do, dragging Casey out like that. However this firmly brings in 'real world' standards - notice how Casey is visibly agitated at the mention of police, and how her tone completely changes, and how right after, she accuses JLB of being a pedophile. The real world rushes in when that space collapses.
See, JLB definitely exemplifies a type of RP and forum user: The Lore Lawyer. He's trying to take the reins of Casey's narrative (he frequently alludes to 'lore' and 'history' Casey hasn't read about - a roundabout, very internet way of saying "I know more trivia than you, so submit to my interpretation of the story"), and Casey knows this and tries to deal with him using the tools available to her (the Tarot scene). In the end, he still positions himself as the one who knows it all and even tries to override Casey's disappearance with an icky feel-good New York meetup with him as the hero. I don't think his version is true. He's playing the game all wrong, and he's not invited to the world's fair.
Anyway yes this is a good movie, don't listen to people who say it's horror. It's a bildungsroman about early 2010s ARGs.
