Rating: NR | Runtime: 99 minutes
Release Date: July 7th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Drafthouse Films
Director(s): Alex Winter
Writer(s): Alex Winter

We’re going to lose what it means to be human.

Regardless of how desperate Google and other Big Tech companies are to deflect from their complicity in helping ignite our society’s devolution since the widespread proliferation and commodification of the internet and social media, they cannot in good conscience deny the fact that most alt-right radicals and terrorists admit their rhetoric and hate was learned from platforms like YouTube.

It’s undeniable, and directly traceable to “related content” algorithms that were intentionally (and successfully) built to ensure raising shareholder profits was the main goal since doing so is every publicly traded corporation’s legal obligation. That’s how an ingenious startup sold for 1.65 billion dollars after one year of operation (to a chorus of laughter, no less) can haul in 50+ billion dollars a year in revenue just over fifteen years later. That trajectory is only possible with a clear, conscious manipulation of a knowingly prone-to-addiction consumer-base.

The YouTube Effect director Alex Winter depicts this linear evolution through interviews with YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, content creators like Anthony Padilla (Smosh) and Natalie Wynn (ContraPoints), admitted victims of the algorithm like Caleb Cain, and a handful of talking head experts on tech and ethics. Every step forward is introduced by an interstitial labeled with the year, annual views, and annual profits to show just how exponential the growth increases with the installation of the algorithm and subsequent political and social unrest.

What started as a forum for goofy videos soon shifted to a venue for parasocial relationships. Both Google (who purchased YouTube in 2006) and vloggers recognized the patterns of its use and profitability, leveraging that knowledge to build and exploit new infrastructure for even bigger gains—all while pretending a robust attempt to curb misinformation, abuse, and indoctrination somehow absolved them from that which still snuck through.

It’s a nightmarish descent. And while this particular film focuses on YouTube (with good reason considering it’s the second most-visited site behind Google itself), it doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Facebook started earlier (with Twitter following in 2006), but its crazy (and deceitful) pivot to “video” that helped expand its reach was obviously a byproduct of YouTube’s success. While it’s one thing to make random teenagers into millionaires for doing stupid things, however, it’s another to let fringe thinkers steeped in hate speech hijack that conduit towards celebrity and brainwash huge swaths of the public without any real threat of repercussion.

Suddenly a site that allowed you to see yourself depicted on the internet or give you a voice to be seen and heard yourself became a haven for “self-help” communities operating in bad faith. We see its destruction without those actors’ involvement because Padilla’s acknowledgement (and ultimate rejection) of that shift proves the Ben Shapiros and Alex Joneses of the world conversely embraced it.

Don’t presume this film is going to change minds, though. Winter presents a well-researched and contextual timeline of facts that showcases how those who need to understand already blindly and vehemently disbelieve it. That’s why accounts like Cain’s are crucial as someone who fell prey to the psychological conditioning utilized by the alt-right before waking up. And why feel-good stories like young Ryan Kaji must be viewed from a position that doesn’t allow you to pretend his parents aren’t pulling the strings (maliciously or not) to mold their son into what they need for success.

Add Brianna Wu’s insight into Gamergate death threats, Wojcicki’s unwavering party-line deflection, and more for an expansive look at how damaging technological growth on an unprecedented scale proves when put in the hands of cutthroat opportunists left to police themselves so a largely apathetic (and ignorant) government can willingly reap the benefits of letting them.

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An image from Alex Winter’s THE YOUTUBE EFFECT.