Hulu’s dark comedyNot Okaybegs the question: what has come with the boom of social media? There are more memes, more laughs, and more opportunities for connections (when did making online friends become so normal?) but there’s also the culture shift. For years, studies have stressed that the more time people spend on social media, the more likely they are to develop mental health problems.
Social media has been linked to low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, and this isn’t just a Gen Z problem. Adults, more than ever, have been using social media, with recent studies pointing that roughly80.9 percentof the total U.S. population is on social media. Those 19.1 percenters are probably suffering from major FOMO. All this being said, what happens when these accounts become monetized and self-descriptors like “branding” become intertwined in our language? What happens during the celebritification of influencers? Being on social media becomes a hunt for fame, rather than a place to digitally connect.
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Written and directed by Quinn Shephard,Not Okayfollows aspiring writer Danni Sanders (Zoey Deutch) who has bigger problems than having no social media followers. She is so dangerously out-of-touch with the world that she expresses her jealousy of minorities (because they get “parades”) and those who experienced 9/11, citing an article from The Cut that dubbed the terrorist attack a core memory. Big bummer she was out on vacation that day! Danni is a photo editor for the fictional New York City-based outlet Depravity, and the editor and editorial team want nothing to do with her.
For clout, the friendless wannabe fakes a Paris vacation, under the guise of a writer’s retreat. Danni uses her wicked photoshop skills to edit pictures of herself against the background of City of Light’s most Instagrammable scenes, creating a social media presence that’s likeEmily on Parison crack. This causes her social media to blow up and gathers the attention of her crush-slash-coworker influencer Colin, played by an underutilizedDylan O’Brien.
Things quickly come crashing down as Danni posts a picture of herself at a landmark that is struck by a terrorist bombing moments later. Given the time change, she falls asleep and is off the radar for hours (2AM in NYC is 8AM in Paris) and wakes up to the concern of her friends, family, followers, and most importantly, Colin. As the social media nightmare continues, Danni becomes worse and worse and exploits the pain of those around her for attention. She climbs the social ladder without any fear of being exposed as a fraud and her careless behavior leaves her without a single ally.
Deutch gives an entertaining performance, but seems unchallenged in the role, perhaps a victim of the movie’s simple script, predictable storyline, and maximalist aesthetic. She is drowned out by sick needle drops and orchestra tunes, and outperformed by her character’s guinea pig Guinea Weasley and her costarMia Isaacwho plays trauma survivor-turned-activist Rowan.
Captivating from her first appearance on the screen, Isaac’s Rowan meets Danni at a trauma support group and the two bond over being the youngest ones there. The young advocate uses her platform to preach for gun control, following a shooting that killed her sister. Danni co-opts Rowan’s trauma and turns her 1-on-1 advice into an oped column and Instagram captions, and tries to spark a half-baked revolution called #IAmNotOkay.
It is when things start going haywire that the movie begins to lose itself. With its short and sweet runtime, clocking in at an hour and 40 minutes, the unabashed chaos of the plot is enough to keep its viewers entertained, laughing, and maybe a bit scared. It’s an emotional rollercoaster with no stakes, as it warns you from the beginning: this movie contains anunlikeable female protagonist. There are a few ups and downs as the movie wastes time on whatever is going on between Danni and Colin, and Danni’s guilt is documented by slight delusions that are never explored beyond its surface, but the movie’s worst flaw is the inclusion of C-lister Caroline Calloway.
Calloway is a real-life social media influencer, who doesn’t do much influencing. She started her Instagram account in 2012, posting long captions about her life experiences, college, and such. She didn’t become the name on everybody’s tongue until 2017 when she wasaccused of scamming her followersthrough her advertised creativity workshop. As she grew in popularity, so did her sketchy behavior, which she continued to profit from. Her newfound popularity unearthed her tumultuous friendship with writer Natalie Beach (who was her ghostwriter), her never-finished writing endeavors (a literary agent said Calloway was more obsessed with “being seen as an author than being an author”), and most recently, her lawsuit with her landlord who is suing her for not paying rent.
Desperate to get the last (cheap) laugh, Calloway stars as herself inNot Okay, where she leads a workshop for those who have been burned online. She makes two appearances throughout the movie which instantly poses the question:Is this satire? And if it’s not satire, is the movie funny? It is a cameo that is guaranteed to turn a few heads, but was it worth the risk? Calloway is hardly a household name and to those who will recognize her, it changes the entire takeaway from the movie. Don’t worry, Danni, you may be canceled now, but Hulu might be looking at you (and paying you) to cameo in their next movie.
Not Okaypremieres July 29 on Hulu.
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Not Okay
Not Okay is a 2022 Black Comedy and Drama film that satirizes social media and online fame. Written and directed by Quinn Shephard, the film features Zoey Deutch as a woman who wants nothing more than to be famous online. She ends up captivating the masses when she pretends to be a survivor of a heinous bombing attack.
