About the movie Spree

I have a confession to make. I’m a big sucker for satire and dark social commentary. These are not always the most spiritual movies. But I think that the movie has something important to tell us, that touches us on a spiritual level. I don’t believe that its cultural message is the important one. At least not the one that is most obvious: that social media makes us hunger for attention in a way that feeds our narcissistic tendencies (which people have been pointing out for a long time now). No, I think the real lessons here, are first that the movie interacts with the viewer in an interesting way. And also that it’s a cautionary tale about lack of authenticity.

So, I watched Spree, with Joe Keery from Stranger Things. In it, Joe Keery plays Kurt Kunkle, a rideshare driver that tries to make it as a social media influencer. But after ten years he still has no following. So he starts killing his clients and posts it on his YouTube channel. During the movie, we get to meet his victims, that also have their social media aspirations and hunger for the same attention as Kurt does.

The characters in the movie are very unpleasant, shallow and self-centered throughout. And even if I don’t know whether this was something that the creators intended, but I feel that I as a viewer am left with a choice. Do I look at these characters as despicable people, worthy of my contempt? Or do I see them as poor, lost people controlled by forces that they don’t understand? Do I maybe even turn my eyes on myself, to see if I can find uncomfortable similarities between my and those characters?

I can honestly say that I have some of this unhealthy craving to be seen. And honestly, I don’t really know how to deal with it. Because I put out a lot of content online. And I feel that I have something to say that other people might be interested in. But behind the things that I do, there is this longing for attention and significance. It is not the main motivating force for me. But it is there and I recognize it as a huge ego-trap. And looking back at my previous attempts at publishing content online, I've been guilty of the same type desperation as the mail character of the movie. Which is not something that I'm not particularly proud of.

In this way, I think the movie tells us something important about what our social media culture can do to us. If we approach it unconsciously. Because if we are turned into narcissists by our culture, it is because we let it by not thinking about the people we are and are becoming.