The Antisocial Network movie review: New Netflix shock-doc exposes the thin line between online toxicity and full-blown anarchy

The Antisocial Network movie review: New Netflix shock-doc exposes the thin line between online toxicity and full-blown anarchy

For a film that shines the spotlight on a group of people that often found it chemically impossible to adhere to the rules of civilised society, Netflix’s The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem is a little too straight-laced for its own good. It sticks to the streamer’s set template for narrative non-fiction with the sort of intensity that would make you wonder if there’s punishment in store for projects that don’t. This is ironic, because the subject that the movie explores across 90-odd minutes is positively anarchic. A propulsive, glossy, and altogether uneasy watch nonetheless, The Antisocial Network draws a clear line between random internet mischief in the mid-2000s to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

Sobering as this observation might be, it doesn’t take a scholar to identify the direct lineage between Rickrolling and actual riots. And fortunately for us all, no scholars are involved in this film. But The Antisocial Network does feature the founding fathers of 4chan, members of the hacker group Anonymous, and several journalists that have closely followed online culture for decades.

There’s an anthropological study just waiting to be performed about the internet’s origins as a utopian ideal, and it’s subsequent disintegration into a cesspit of capitalism and corruption. The founders of 4chan, a website that is widely regarded as one of the most rancid corners of the internet, started it as a forum for fans of Japanese culture to find like-minded people. The Antisocial Network revisits this relatively innocent period in recent history, which saw the birth of meme-culture and the concept of ‘trolling’. This was when outcasts and misfits would congregate on platforms like 4chan — all under the cloak of anonymity, of course — and engage in a Darwinian battle to create the most engaging response to an ongoing real-life event. But the dopamine hit of an upvote and the immunity of being invisible pushed those with a tendency for chaos to the dark side.

And that was when the infamous hacker group known as Anonymous — the folks who, at the peak of their power, sent shivers down the FBI’s spine — was formed. The Antisocial Network features several past members, who reminisce about the coups they pulled off. One man, who goes by Kirtaner, boasts that he once accessed Donald Trump’s Twitter password. You get the sense that he brags about this every chance that he gets. But what began as a socially conscious movement against racists and bigots — most prominently, intervention by Anonymous led to far-right commentator Hal Turner losing his website and his wife — created a particularly unhinged offshoot known as the QAnon. These are the folks that bought into conspiracy theories about a cabal of liberal elites operating a child sex trafficking ring.

Several old members of Anonymous admit in the movie that they were mainly in it for the kicks, and that very few of them actually believed in causes such as the Occupy Wall Street Movement, or the global protests that they orchestrated against the Church of Scientology. The Antisocial Network lets them all off the hook, even though the authorities didn’t; at least a couple of them were arrested by the feds. One guy actually went on the run for months. They actively participated in targeted online harassment, caused hurt to hundreds if not thousands, but the movie thinks at a half-hearted shrug of indifference is enough to absolve them of all this. A part of it looks up to these characters, and presents them not as the socially awkward outcasts that they were, but as rebels and rock stars.

But more egregiously, the film doesn’t really point any fingers at the complicity of platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp — both are now under the Meta umbrella — in the dissemination of misinformation. By comparison, 4chan is an easier target, and the website remains relatively fringe to this day. But the role that Facebook has played in influencing elections has been reported on massively; but all this is mostly brushed under the rug by the movie. Alex Jones, however, isn’t spared. Now is as good a time as any to recommend the fabulous HBO documentary The Truth vs Alex Jones, perhaps the most satisfying instance of real-life comeuppance ever filmed.

Directed by Giorgio Angelini and Arthur Jones, The Antisocial Network is the second movie this week to actively use animated interludes to enhance its visual appeal. The act of hacking is perhaps one of the least cinematic things to replicate on screen, but The Antisocial Network taps into the anime-adjacent obsessions of its subjects and jazzes these sequences up via cartoons. The rest of the time, it falls back on tried and tested shock-doc tactics. It isn’t the most memorable movie of its kind, but it isn’t easily dismissed either.

The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem

Directors – Giorgio Angelini, Arthur Jones

Rating – 3/5

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