When it comes to the world of social media stars, well, it’s all happened so suddenly. Fifteen years ago, talk of influencers, vlogging, and the concept of “instafamous” would have raised eyebrows. Flash-forward to 2022, though, and monetizable social media platforms are integral to millennial culture. And their most famous users? They’re minor celebrities in their own right, with their online content a lucrative brand sought after by corporate sponsors. In their world, numbers and attention are everything. Whoever garners the most views, clicks, and subscribers gets a fast track to fame, money, connections, influence, and devoted fans. And in the social media echelon of TikTok, Twitch, and Instagram users, there’s none more profitable than the YouTuber, content creators who vlog videos to the masses and generate revenue through their channels.
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In “Under The Influence,” Casey Neistat, himself a vlogging personality, charts the career of one of YouTube’s most prominent stars, David Dobrik. Just take a look at Dobrik’s numbers: 11 million subscribers on YouTube, 7 million on Instagram, 3 million on Twitter. As for viewership? Early on, Neistat says the estimated total views of Dobrik’s videos off-camera: about 4 billion. So, in terms of numbers and attention, Dobrik has it made. But why is Dobrik such a big social media sensation? That’s due to his wildly popular vlogs with The Vlog Squad, Dobrik’s friend group who accompany him on pranks, stunts, and other assorted antics. Apparently, young people like to watch Dobrik and his revolving cast of cohorts goof around with gadgets and party wherever and whenever they can.
So, that’s it? What’s the appeal of this teen-friendly take on “Jackass,” and why does it deserve so much cultural bandwidth? In the words of one recurring member of the troupe, ex-Nickelodeon star Josh Peck, Dobrik’s success stems from him being “so wonderfully basic.” Dobrik’s lack of sophistication is part of his charm, and it helps him cater to the broadest popular teenage demographic. In Dobrik’s own words, his schtick is simple: “I make videos, I have fun, most of the time. I convince people I’m having fun.” And people have fun with Dobrik, too, whether it’s alongside him as he creates his videos or in front of their phones and laptops watching his vlogs. Dobrik and his friends know they produce clickbait that’s goofy, shallow, and occasionally dangerous, but the fun of it all validates his popularity. More importantly, for both him and the zeitgeist he caters to, this fun is also highly profitable, and he and his friends realize how lucky they are for this to be their life.
Of course, there’s more to The Vlog Squad than uploading fun to keep the profits rolling in. “Under The Influence” gets more interesting once the doc shifts focus from Dobrik’s rapid rise to fame to peel back the performative layers of his act. Neistat first began to film Dobrik in 2018 because, as he puts it in an intertitle, “I wanted to tell a story about the power of the platform [of YouTube] by following the fastest rising star.” And Neistat indeed catches this cultural moment in all of its vacuous, microcosmic glory. In the process, though, he also captures the controversies that Dobrik and his friends would rather pretend didn’t happen and the lapses in integrity they’re capable of as they capitalize on their success and diversify their personal brand beyond its original platform.
The dramatic crux of “Under The Influence” revolves around an article published by Insider digital culture reporter Kat Tenbarge in March 2021. The article reports that while filming a vlog about group sex in late 2018, then-Vlog Squad member Dom Zeglaitis, a high school friend of Dobrik’s, allegedly raped a drunk and unconsenting female college student. At the time of the incident, Dobrik corresponded with the accuser (under the pseudonym Hannah in the film) and agreed to take down the vlog from YouTube at her request. Dom also stopped appearing on Vlog Squad videos shortly afterward. However, Dobrik’s popularity continued to soar, and after the article’s publication last year, Dobrik’s response wasn’t as cordial as his initial one. He uploaded a short video to his podcast’s less popular YouTube channel that only indirectly referenced the article’s allegations, and the backlash began. In the weeks following, Dobrik lost thirteen sponsorships, backing from various venture capital firms, and YouTube demonetized his channel.
Tenbarge claims throughout the film that Dobrik encouraged Dom’s behavior for the sake of the vlog that night and continues to deny accountability for the incident. Since Dobrik’s entire livelihood depends on enabling his friends to do dumb shit for views, it’s fair to say Tenbarge is onto something. Coupled with another incident from June 2020, when another Vlog Squad member, Jeff Wittek, fractured his face in several places filming a stunt in Utah, it’s clear that Dobrik’s business model doesn’t consider the well-being and livelihood of those around him. In Dobrik’s worldview as a YouTube celebrity, it’s sensationalism over everything else because, by social media’s logic, that stuff equals views, and more views means more money. That’s the entire set-up of the Vlog Squad, really: the group performs amplified versions of themselves to grab a viewer’s attention. In return, those views generate a gigantic revenue stream. And why do people watch? Dobrik answers with a shrugging response, “you don’t really care; you’re just watching just to watch.” That statement alone speaks volumes about Dobrik and his friends’ lifestyle: frivolity over consequences, even if lives and reputations are at stake, for the sake of the vlog!
Let’s unpack this for a moment. Dobrik and his fellow vloggers are still relatively young (except Jason Nash, a comic nearing fifty). Little wonder, then, that they don’t consider the consequences of their actions in their bid for money and internet fame. It’s more complicated than that, though. Dobrik’s an entirely new kind of famous in a landscape that’s also new but also very volatile. Taylor Lorentz, an internet culture reporter for The New York Times, suggests that tech, media, and entertainment leaders still don’t know how to take this kind of influencer fame seriously. Moreover, since Dobrik and his troupe aren’t under contract with YouTube, they may do whatever they want on their uploads and reap the benefits of exposure in blue-chip brand deals and otherwise. In short, Dobrik and The Vlog Squad are pioneers in uncharted territory that’s essentially a cultural gold rush: there’s fame, money, and influence for them in this new landscape, but ethics and principles have yet to catch up.
This youthful carelessness with a lucrative cash flow proves a toxic combination without moral scrutiny alongside it. As Tenbarge says at one point, “no corporation would willingly…sign off on everything that was going on in these vlogs.” And no respecting company should want an affiliation with a celebrity that jokes about fivesomes, nearly kills his friends in various stunts, and films trashy party scenes on a private jet. There’s more to life for Dobrik and his friends to consider here than money, an avid fanbase, and viewership numbers, like dignity and personal reputation. Unfortunately, those things pale in importance for Dobrik next to manufacturing views through audacious content. What Dobrik needs to learn is that not all attention is good attention. Dobrik should have realized that in the aftermath of Tenbarge’s article, except he and The Vlog Squad learn nothing from their fall in the public’s eyes. They’re too insulated by money and relative fame for their selfish behavior to even register.
Ultimately, this is the domain of Dobrik and the Vlog Squad reside in, for all of their pretenses of authenticity and “keeping it completely real.” Nothing about Dobrik and his brand is authentic except his desire for more money and attention. By that same token, none of the Vlog Squad are genuine celebrities either, where their actions have formidable sway on society beyond their limited fanbases on social media. While Tenbarge wants her article to spark a #MeToo-esque reaction, the truth is, even if what happened to Hannah is accurate, not enough people know or care about who David Dobrik is to elicit that kind of cancel-culture response. Dobrik doesn’t have that kind of consequence because he, his friends, and his fans fail to understand what in life is truly consequential. In this sense, Dobrik’s self-serving retort to Tenbarge’s article at the film’s end is entirely on point. “This article,” he says, “was written because this place [Insider] wanted clicks…for the same reason that anyone makes a drama video on YouTube.” With “Under The Influence,” Neistat inadvertently uncovers that Dobrik and his ilk live and die not by the sword of the public, but by that need for clicks. In other words, they’re clickbait personified, an attention suck, and as a culture, we should try our best to divert our attention elsewhere. [B-]
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