Apparently we have exhausted every past crime that is worth making a documentary about, because this is not one of those.
Don't get me wrong, stalking is something horrible to experience for the victims and we should totally challenge social media platforms for their role in it.
But this documentary was just not gripping or exciting at all. It wasn't even a mystery who the perpetrator was or how he was caught. It just sort of happened, he was caught, had matching pictures on his phone with the fake accounts, was sentenced and that was it.
The makers had to dramatize the sent messages with a stupid "creepy" voiceover, because apparently the whole story with only text messages was not exciting enough otherwise and they had to make it seem like the perpetrator sent those voice messages. There was so little original footage, they had to repeat a few animated scenes (the stupid phone lines) and smiley faces over and over.
I don't really want to go into detail about how the victims handled it. "Just block the contact" etc. Seems like an easy solution, but I'd think in excessive stalking it's often much more complicated than that. If someone really impersonates you and writes messages on your behalf, you'd likely get stressed out aswell. So no, the victims didn't handle it perfectly, but I'd give them the benefit of the doubt here.
But still, it was just not exciting or "mystery" enough to make a two hour documentary about.
Don't get me wrong, stalking is something horrible to experience for the victims and we should totally challenge social media platforms for their role in it.
But this documentary was just not gripping or exciting at all. It wasn't even a mystery who the perpetrator was or how he was caught. It just sort of happened, he was caught, had matching pictures on his phone with the fake accounts, was sentenced and that was it.
The makers had to dramatize the sent messages with a stupid "creepy" voiceover, because apparently the whole story with only text messages was not exciting enough otherwise and they had to make it seem like the perpetrator sent those voice messages. There was so little original footage, they had to repeat a few animated scenes (the stupid phone lines) and smiley faces over and over.
I don't really want to go into detail about how the victims handled it. "Just block the contact" etc. Seems like an easy solution, but I'd think in excessive stalking it's often much more complicated than that. If someone really impersonates you and writes messages on your behalf, you'd likely get stressed out aswell. So no, the victims didn't handle it perfectly, but I'd give them the benefit of the doubt here.
But still, it was just not exciting or "mystery" enough to make a two hour documentary about.