Like so many issues that the web poisons, 4chan began innocently sufficient, a neighborhood for individuals with shared pursuits to come back collectively. One of many attention-grabbing tidbits realized in “The Delinquent Community” is how this method basically adopted one other down the rabbit gap to toxicity as 2chan had been became a political nightmare in Japan. The early days of 4chan are virtually lovingly memorialized, a time when individuals had been fascinated by a web-based presence named “moot,” aka Christopher Poole, who would go on to grow to be the Mark Zuckerberg of this group. Seeing the early in-person conferences is fascinating, as is watching the teams fracture as an increasing number of individuals wished to make an offline impression by means of the pranks that in the end developed into the work of Nameless and the QAnon conspiracy nuts. There’s a cautionary story within the inherent flaws that are available this type of shitposting and trolling by way of escalation. When the trolls of 4chan, a few of whom are interviewed right here, acquired away with one factor then it might solely result in the will to do one thing extra impactful or crazier sooner or later.
For higher or worse, “The Delinquent Community” appears reticent to level fingers, virtually taking the stance that the sort of unchecked energy that was held by 4chan was destined to deprave and so we should not actually blame any of the individuals caught on this spider internet. It generally looks like a number of individuals, together with one being interviewed, are let off the hook by way of private duty in a means that may be irritating. These of us nonetheless did make selections. And, whereas the reality is that a lot of the exercise on 4chan could not have created the large riffs in society in 2024, it positive didn’t assist, amplifying rubbish like PizzaGate into the precise nationwide dialog. Sure, Nameless introduced consideration to points like privateness and revenue inequity, however the cavalcade of conspiracy theories and flat-out mendacity to get clicks have dumbed down your entire nation as a result of nobody is aware of what’s true anymore in a world the place so many individuals imagine that Q is actual.
At its finest, this level is embedded in “The Delinquent Community,” pulling again the curtain on a lot of the bullshit of the final decade and revealing it to be only a bunch of people that tugged on the strings of nationwide nervousness for the lulz. The movie generally is a huge weighed down by way of hyperactive modifying, however that’s as a result of it’s attempting to inform bits and items of so many tales, chopping between interviews in regards to the sensible historical past of 4chan and trying to convey its worldwide impression on the identical time. In an period during which Netflix normally turns all the pieces right into a multi-episode sequence to pull it out for the viewing hours, it’s virtually humorous {that a} true story that might have justified extra time will get shoved right into a feature-length field that makes a few of it really feel shallow.
With all of its unpacked tragedies, “The Delinquent Community” matches fairly snugly into the “Web Unhealthy” class of documentaries, nevertheless it’s higher than most due to how deftly it chronicles the way it broke that means within the first place.
This assessment was filed from the SXSW Movie Competition. It premieres on Netflix on April 5th.