STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful
In 2018, a group of young Instagram models found themselves targeted by a mysterious cyber-stalker, who was able to hack their accounts and gain access to their private details and wreck havoc in their personal and public lives. This waged on for a considerable period of time, until the authorities spotted a pattern in the timeline of offending and eventually brought the perpetrator to justice.
Netflix uncovers another new shocking, true life tale to bring to the screen, in this succinct, two part series that proved something of a ratings winner earlier this year. In the modern age when people can make names for themselves overnight (in some cases) just by flaunting their lives on social media, the dark side is just ebbing on the surface, ready to strike at any given moment, and this was certainly a case in point that just proves how careful everyone needs to be.
While the central story itself is certainly shocking enough, the revelation regarding the perpetrator was certainly more unsettling on a personal level for me. As someone with Autism/Asperger's, who's always been very secretive and guarded about it throughout my adult life, while I could never condone the actions of the perpetrator and understand the devastation his actions caused, I do understand the isolation and loneliness that could sow the seeds that could set someone down that path. I was very encouraged by the autistic psychiatrist, who disliked him using his diagnosis as a defence, because it '...re-enforces the stereotypes of autistic people having no empathy and not caring', before stating that there's a big difference between '...maybe missing social cues' and something like this, which is something that needed to be said.
While it's arguably not as in depth as it could have been, and as such doesn't explore the wider social issues it reveals, it's still an engaging and efficient true life horror tale for modern times. ****
In 2018, a group of young Instagram models found themselves targeted by a mysterious cyber-stalker, who was able to hack their accounts and gain access to their private details and wreck havoc in their personal and public lives. This waged on for a considerable period of time, until the authorities spotted a pattern in the timeline of offending and eventually brought the perpetrator to justice.
Netflix uncovers another new shocking, true life tale to bring to the screen, in this succinct, two part series that proved something of a ratings winner earlier this year. In the modern age when people can make names for themselves overnight (in some cases) just by flaunting their lives on social media, the dark side is just ebbing on the surface, ready to strike at any given moment, and this was certainly a case in point that just proves how careful everyone needs to be.
While the central story itself is certainly shocking enough, the revelation regarding the perpetrator was certainly more unsettling on a personal level for me. As someone with Autism/Asperger's, who's always been very secretive and guarded about it throughout my adult life, while I could never condone the actions of the perpetrator and understand the devastation his actions caused, I do understand the isolation and loneliness that could sow the seeds that could set someone down that path. I was very encouraged by the autistic psychiatrist, who disliked him using his diagnosis as a defence, because it '...re-enforces the stereotypes of autistic people having no empathy and not caring', before stating that there's a big difference between '...maybe missing social cues' and something like this, which is something that needed to be said.
While it's arguably not as in depth as it could have been, and as such doesn't explore the wider social issues it reveals, it's still an engaging and efficient true life horror tale for modern times. ****