Social media. A dead man for Instagram live

“I would kill to have more followers”. The inner desire of influencer it can lead to disaster because, as Santa Teresa said and Truman Capote confirmed, more tears are shed for answered prayers than for unanswered ones. In the followersthe Brazilian series that has just premiered on Paramount +, the ambitious Liv begins by celebrating her first hundred thousand followers but, inevitably: she wants more. And that leads her to crime. Fiercely parodic, it is a period black comedy in which unboxing consists no longer in opening a redemption gift, but in removing the butchered remains of a hater.

Sorry for so many anglicisms: it is the language of the internet. The web expresses itself with English as the dominant language and the social network, with the semantics of a sect: one has followers as pastors have. So how to increase the herd? Perhaps inspired by the Brazilian TV show about police cases that, with few murders, killed to get the exclusive on the crimes (this happened in reality), Liv channels the fury that a blockade or an unfavorable photo arouses with knives.

“It is easier to kill, dismember, transport, embalm, and hide a corpse than to go through internet court,” he laments: the risk is not so much that you go to jail but that your account is closed. In the followers some defects of these times are revealed: the life of the influencer organized around a product in exchange for a commercial mention, the fantasy of access to the intimacy of a public figure (blessed blue tick!) or the definitive cancellation of what can be said to “not hold up in an archive”. Written by Manuela Cantuária, the six-episode series updates the operating system of Serial Momthe movie that John Waters filmed in the 90s, with a similar bipolarity: the opposition and dependence between happy or goofy life and serial murder to keep the offspring happy (the children or the followers).

A cultural critic says that the social network is the Tamagotchi of today: a device that requires continuous feeding because it dies. If the ring of light, the camera and the microphone are confirmed as the essential elements of those who claim to have influence, the narrative of Instagram demands more: the only thing that is not tolerated or forgiven is boredom. In charge of the tutorial “how to clean the crime scene”, the influencer desperate she plays all likes: In his search for viewers, he appeals to the exact opposite of live.

LISTAMANÍA

Five words from the social media glossary

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