If YouTube could kill, would you still watch its videos? In an ever-growing era of sitting in front of a screen, eyes glued as the radiation practically drips from its depths into the pits of our eyes, it is hard not to look away. Juxtaposed with the factual evidence that technology has improved our healthcare system as well as made parts of our lives more efficient, what else does it hide behind its blank stare of pixilation? The horror film Death of a Vlogger is a weird watch, one that only lasts an hour and thirty minutes but one that peels your eyes open throughout its entirety, preventing you from looking away. In an age where most of our young people (me included perhaps) have watched YouTube at least once, this film takes on a unique perspective through the camera lens of Graham, a young YouTube influencer who is striving to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by becoming an overnight YouTube sensation. Not only do we get an inside investigation into Graham’s life behind the camera lens (one that perhaps is not as glamorous as he presents on camera) we as the audience are introduced to the realization that this film is indeed a documentary, one that is interviewing those closest to Graham to find any answers that could lead to Graham’s dead body. The documentary seeks to bring the final, melodramatic act of Death of a Vlogger to an end, no matter how many grisly details may be uncovered.

Graham’s supposed friends sit in the room, each nervously looking at the documentary filming crew as they interrogate them with questions. His girlfriend Erin sits nervously, as she keeps grinning from ear to ear and then quickly changes her whole disposition to uneasiness whenever Graham’s name is mentioned. According to her, she was just the supportive girlfriend, who is just as confused as everyone else being interviewed on what happened to Graham. Next, the documentary team interviews Steve, who displays an interesting outfit choice of brightly colored button up shirts and provides constant references to him having very successful YouTube channels and “oh by the way, did I tell you I have over 10,000 subscribers?” When Graham’s disappearance is mentioned, Steve puts on a tough face and talks about him like he was a pre-pubescent YouTuber and Steve his supportive mentor, but then turned foe when Graham apparently wanted nothing to do with him anymore when he hit YouTube puberty and gained popularity. Lastly, a collective of fans were interviewed, voicing their confusion at Graham’s videos as well as attesting to the weird phenomena that would take place in the background. They would also voice their anger at Graham for not being authentic. But does YouTube present authenticity? Is it an accurate reflection of reality? Death of a Vlogger is interesting because when trying to answer this important question, someone ended up dead.

As the film goes on and we as the audience become more acquainted with the members of the documentary being interviewed, we watch their lives play out through the camera as the events creep up to Graham’s fatal hiatus. Suspense comes in many forms, but one avenue of suspense that this film demonstrates very well is keeping the audience questioning what is happening, and who is responsible. The prominent usage of the story being shown as a YouTube video, and we the subscribers, breaks the third wall and involves us directly as it keeps going back and forth between Graham’s increasingly odd videos and then the documentary discussing his disappearance. When Graham and Erin start uploading videos that show them screaming in fear and running from a supposed uninvited paranormal guest in their apartment, we come to the realization that Graham may just have uploaded not only a sensational video but proof that ghosts are real. Instantly his vlog becomes famous overnight, and we watch as he begins to gloat in the Internet fame he seemed to gain from a very real instance of fear.

As the audience, we then watch as he teams up with Steve, the paranormal-hunting guru who has one too many tricks up his sleeve in terms of presenting a good show on the Internet and being someone completely different otherwise. Playing as a supposed YouTube subscriber of Graham’s, we get a betrayal scene where Graham and Steve meet up behind camera (or so they think) to find out what is happening in Graham’s apartment; the two discuss how they can get twice as much fame, twice as many subscribers, if they use their “ghost-hunting abilities” to become a team. As a member of the audience, the element of suspense with both displaying jovial people telling a story but then secretly lying to the audience is a true art: I have not seen many films that demonstrate this masterfully, and perhaps the element of having this film shown solely through the format of a YouTube video and a documentary makes it even more terrifying.  More so, we eventually meet Alice, a cynical journalist whose sole job is to debunk the crazy ghost-hunting videos Steve and Graham are posting. Through her perspective, we learn that the whole scene with Steve, Graham, and Erin experiencing a potential ghost attack is completely faked: Alice writes an article talking about how there were obvious opaque strings attached to the cups to make them appear to be moving on their own, and how the apparent, pale arm that busts through the wall to grab Graham around his neck had Erin’s opal ring on its index finger, a ring Erin was wearing earlier that day. As a member of the audience this gave me a betrayed feeling thinking Graham and Steve were phonies! As Alice the journalist points out in the documentary, they only cared about their views and fame on the Internet…. but this wasn’t the end for the suspense that this film so masterfully weaves together. 

After Graham’s big mishap with all his followers finding out he posts staged ghost sightings, the suspense only climbs back up the rollercoaster hill to cascade down again. I began to slowly see Graham lose his grasp on his own mental health as well as reality; as he uploads more videos by himself in his apartment, we watch with intense fear as the picture behind him moves all by itself….no opaque strings were there, and no cynical Alice the journalist to point them out either. Perhaps one of the most terrifying and suspenseful moments in the movie is where Graham sits in front of the camera, his eyes darkened from nights of restless sleep, tossing and turning over the fact that all his YouTube subscribers hate him and now his Internet presence is ruined. He yet again sits in front of the camera, apologizing profusely of how he faked everything and wanting all his YouTube family to “understand that his intentions were not to cause harm.” The suspense of how the Internet itself was obviously digging its digital claws in to Graham’s brain, controlling his every move, letting all his actions solely rest on what online people said about him, was in of itself terrifying for me to witness. An all too real theme of today’s society, social media can consume if not used with discretion.  As Graham spills out apology after apology, we see a white blanket in the background rise up into the air, an obvious human figure underneath it. It inches closer, and as Graham catches sight of it in the camera lens reflection, he jumps and turns around, only for the blanket to fall to the ground. The film so tastefully demonstrates the art of suspenseful guessing, as we see Graham grapple with this terrifying presence in his apartment through the background of his solo YouTube uploads, and yet everyone still says the hauntings are fake because Graham’s viral video turned out to be fraudulent.  I was on the edge of my seat the entire movie, and the hour and thirty minutes seemed like thirty as time flew by, I was whisked in to the loud yet secretly sinister world of YouTube. 

The main theme of the film, however, is what sticks with me the most. Can YouTube and social media kill? We often forget its power when we get off work for the day, grab our favorite snack, and drop limp upon the couch as we scroll through post after post on Instagram, the hours of the day getting sucked into the phone’s blank yet addictive stare. This film is not a happy one, but a contemplative investigation into an element of our society that is so prevalent today, one that often times goes unnoticed. I am guilty as charged when it comes to time spent on social media, but after watching this film it really made me question how it affects our culture as a whole: if we were to reassess how we used it, how it shapes the thought processes of our young people, could we perhaps bring peace to the disrupted corners of society? This film makes you question what is real, and what isn’t; when viewing someone’s vlog on YouTube, how can we have assurance that they are in fact telling the truth? Or even showing their real selves? Through the videos of Graham, we can see this isn’t always the case. He starts out as happy young YouTuber with an optimistic future, but then slowly his secret personality begins to seep through the screen for the audience to see that he is deceitful and vulnerable, willing to let the whims of the audience sway his life decisions. He lets the opinions of the Internet consume him as they call him a fake, but then is certain the hauntings in his apartment really are real. It drives him to a point where he becomes unrecognizable to his girlfriend and cuts everyone else important out of his life. Social media had devoured him whole, his worth gripped tightly in bondage between its digital claws. When we think that he has finally recovered from his social media addiction when he’s released from the hospital and isn’t using it anymore, we watch with utter dismay as he breaks his fast by uploading one more YouTube video, to prove that the ghost in his apartment is real. It ends with his death, and thus the grim but illuminating reality that social media can indeed kill, it creates a false perception of validation and assurance that if fed to long, can grow gluttonous with fluffy poison that suffocates until you grow limp and breathe no more. 

The story of a vlogger losing his grip over reality by believing the false bizarro world of the Internet is one that shows the factual evidence of social media’s potential harmful effects when it goes unchecked today; and to think of how many young people scroll through its depths, one must consider if a change needs to be made. Death of a Vlogger gave me a new perspective on not only my own social media usage and its potential addictive nature, but of how it has negatively impacted those around me as well. Far too often, I have seen people I once knew as healthy grow consumed with how their image is presented online and the feedback they receive from Internet strangers; far too often, I see how they slowly lose their grip on reality and that becomes all that they know. Like Graham, they lose themselves and those closest to them, and it is unfortunate to think of how much more content we would be if we held our feet on solid ground and not be swept up into the digital arms of social media. How much healthier would we be if our main desire was to feel the warmth of the real sun, our feet to touch real grass? Our hands to hold real hands? If we heed the warnings present within Death of a Vlogger, I believe we would be healthier indeed.