I Saw The Internet Glow Internet Subcultures And The Films Of Jane Schoenbrun

3 9月 2024

This article features unmarked spoilers for the following Jane Schoenbrun's movies: A Self-Induced Hallucination, We're All Going to the World's Fair, and I Saw the TV Glow.

If trans is not identified as either/or, but depends on the “angle” of the subject’s gaze emerging in different contexts, then the slight modifications of gender could be likened to the nuanced space of the shimmer.

There's something queer about the internet.

I don't think I'm describing a particular lived experience when I say something like that. You don't have to identify as queer -- you could be a transphobe for all I care -- to realize that surfing the web does something very strange to you: you could be anyone with an anime avatar, you could surf the web and just listen to what people are saying without feeling like you're intruding, you can quite easily explore the ambiguous and liminal spaces to your heart's content.

The internet can be described as a safe place where danger lurks, but I think it would be more accurate to describe it as a place where you are allowed to step out of your body and be something else for a little while. People often joke in Discord conversations that they don't really see people like themselves typing in conversations; instead, they imagine the anime and furry avatars typing. Even if you take a selfie picture or record your voice saying something very silly, the "characters" in my head will always be your avatar -- when you change avatars, you almost become someone else entirely. I also think my personality changes a lot when I change avatars, and I don't know what to make of that.

But these experiences, when I write them down, sound rather silly and untrue. Imagine talking to someone who is offline: they might think you are describing an extraterrestrial experience and approve or reject it depending on his preferences. Whatever they think, it's an experience they're not likely to have.

That's a part of the issue of describing anything queer. At the beginning of Shimmering Images, Eliza Steinbock admits that not everyone might agree that there is a trans theory of being at all, that it might be that it might be "false or unintelligible". In fact, the films I'm going to examine in detail are often criticized for being vague, incomprehensible, pretentious, and so on.

But I think Jane Schoenbrun's movies are compelling descriptions of a developing queer and trans aesthetic because it indulges in this ambiguity, this vagueness, and this aura that everything feels so concrete and abstract at the same time. I am not interested in convincing the haters, the disaffected, or anyone else of the artistic merit of these films; what I am interested in is why I find these films strangely authentic to my own internet experience, despite having very few ties to the communities to which Schoenbrun belongs.

And I believe it has something to do with how critical it is about the experience of consuming the internet.

The Internet as Self-Induced Hallucinations

I find it fascinating that the first movie to have Schoenbrun's name as a director is A Self-Induced Hallucination, a documentary about Slenderman and the impact it has had on the internet and in real life. But instead of a good old-fashioned video essay with original and poorly cited research on YouTube, we watch a movie composed of other YouTube videos, large and small, about the Slenderman subculture.

There are no auditory or visual changes to the footage in A Self-Induced Hallucination as far as I can tell. Only videos debunking the mythology, kids reacting viscerally to the spooky man, Jenny Nicholson explaining the communal aspects of creepypasta, news reports of the Slenderman stabbings that sent the world to chaos, and tulpas. We can only grasp the meaning of the film through the cuts and transitions to other clips; there is no interstitial or narrative voice that organizes the clips into an ordered nature. It's up to us to make sense of this essayistic movie and understand what it's trying to say about the online communities we find ourselves in.

The structure of this film forces the audience to sort things out, perhaps similar to how one might investigate a creepypasta like Slenderman. We are a captive audience, in the shoes of these internet sleuths, watching clips to make sense of this phenomenon. I originally thought it would be silly and boring to watch this documentary, but as I watched it more and more, I found myself in a fugue state like everyone else watching it. I found myself hypnotized by the movie, not sure how deep the rabbit hole was, but still crawling down it.

It reminds me of a time when I was bored out of my mind and decided to read the lore behind Five Nights at Freddy's. I realized it was a waste of time, but I got caught up in discovering the mystical powers of Golden Freddy and the amount of speculation people had. It was, for lack of a better word, pornographic: I consumed, consumed, and consumed to see more people discussing what they thought of the work. I never saw myself in the community, but somehow I felt that if I were younger, I would be a participant in the subculture. It's not that I cared about the lore at all, but I was already deep enough that I should feel like giving my two cents on the subject.

Perhaps, this is how I got into a lot of online subcultures. I lurked so much that I absorbed enough information to feel like I should say something. It didn't matter how pointless it was; I just wanted to say something and see what other people thought.

But the Slenderman subculture is different from online subcultures like FNaF and Goncharov: the stabbings ruptured this illusion that this might be safe. The second half of the video is all about understanding if this creepypasta subculture is harmful or if the burden is on the perpetrator. While the documentary talks about how people think it's all about mental illness and hallucinations, it concludes with a rather long video log of an army brat who developed a tulpa and was perfectly normal and functional. His psychiatrist even defended him to his parents because he was perfectly normal.

As the movie draws to a close, the title of the movie becomes clearer to me. For Jane Schoenbrun, internet subcultures like Slenderman are self-induced hallucinations. We give ourselves nightmarish visions of Slenderman or Golden Freddy or whoever. But the documentary never demonizes the internet or the people who use it: the documentary is in a sense a celebration of the internet communities for their insightful thoughts and commentary, and that they should be seen as something worthy of being shown at international film festivals.

The film invites us to reflect on the artistic and creative efforts people have made to create this hallucination. There are comics, animations, and even original songs dedicated to this character, born out of a shitpost on the SomethingAwful forums. They deserve anthropological readings that explicate the anxiety and intrigue within the community. This is what many people are growing up with, and I suspect that many more internet communities of this kind will soon follow.

Still, the film's message is ambiguous. While it tries to be as empathetic as possible, it seems to be uncomfortable with the way we watch and create content on YouTube. We mindlessly watch videos as if on autoplay, with no real control over what the narrative should be. The content just rains down on our faces, and here I am trying to justify how I spent my 67 minutes of my life.

I feel like I'm watching a movie about how I watch YouTube videos.

We're All Performing for the World's Fair

The Slenderman creepypasta has a lot of baggage that makes it productive to talk about, but it can be quite distracting if one wants to focus on a specific theme. I suppose this is why Schoenbrun decided to create a fictional creepypasta subculture in We're All Going to the World's Fair.

Much of the detail is left vague: we first see Casey induct herself into the subculture through a long, uncomfortable shot from the POV of her webcam by pricking her finger. There are creative endeavors similar to the Slenderman subculture, but the lore seems deliberately hidden. Instead, the film directs us to the production of internet creepypasta and the parasociality of it all.

The film shows how the production and consumption of creepypasta material are one and the same. Casey watches other people's videos, which often deviate from her own vlogging style. While she reflects on how she's a horror movie fan and wants something exciting to happen to her in the subculture, other people seem to be more creative: music videos, plastic costumes, etc. flood her viewing history. After each video is played, the moviegoer is greeted with the "replay" icon.

The replay icon haunts the entire movie. There's something surreal about buying a 10GBP ticket to see a critically acclaimed movie, only to have the replay icon stare at me. What's the difference between me watching a video essay, the movie itself, and the creepypasta Casey's watching? I don't know. That must have been the point of A Self-Induced Hallucination too: it must have been alienating to watch YouTube content on the silver screen.

Placing our ordinary internet interactions on the pedestal of cinematic art does several things: it defamiliarizes our activities and makes them worthy of contemplation. We watch, perhaps horrified, as Casey makes an internet friend with an old guy who calls himself JLB. JLB considers himself an expert on the World's Fair subculture and only interacts with people he deems serious. It's unclear if he's attracted to this young teenager or just a fan of this little creator, but they talk on Skype anyway.

I see JLB as a mirror of us voyeuristic viewers. He seems successful enough to own a two-story house, he watches videos of Casey and comments on how creepy they are, and he seems to think he has a friendly relationship with her. While we sit quietly and content watching Casey make YouTube videos, he takes the next step and tries to connect with her as a person.

In that sense, there's not much difference between us and him, as much as I hate to admit it. Casey's videos are becoming more and more sensational, even though the views aren't going up. But even though we're not talking to her, we're participating in her attempt to play with the algorithm. She wants to go viral, and we are her serious fans. It is a symbiotic, toxic relationship.

We have to deal with the dilemma created by the blurring between Casey's performance and Casey as a person. Even though we have the cinematic gaze, we don't really know Casey. We think we do, just like JLB, but she's a teenager exploring and developing her philosophy.

The deep irony, of course, is that these same parasocial relationships are responsible for creating such vibrant internet subcultures. Think of the fancams that terrorize social media, or people like me using oshi icons to indicate who we're a fan of: this contradictory space allows for very interesting games like HoloCure. It's not just the Caseys of the world, the JLBs also play the role of a fan spreading the word.

The ending plays with that idea: JLB tells a story that he and Casey made up after a feud, Casey is now studying theater in New York, and they met for the first time before Casey said she'd been to the World's Fair.

The veracity of his claims is questionable. The movie shows Casey living in the mountains, perhaps in a mountainous state like Colorado, and that seems far too neat an ending. It is up to the viewer to believe him or not. I don't believe in his fantasy myself.

But it doesn't matter. What's more important is this: he is telling a story, a piece of lore that contributes to the history of the subculture. Like Casey, JLB is a weaver of tales, and the yarn he spins is part of his repertoire. He has narrativized his encounter with Casey into something meaningful, into a novel form of creepypasta. In this scene, there is no distinction between fan and creator in internet subcultures; everyone is participating in a communal form of storytelling that may or may not be preserved for generations to come.

The audience is a recipient of this new lore, and I'm writing my own take on this lore that may or may not go viral. The cycle continues.

We Did Nothing When We Saw the Cinema Glow

The tragic passivity of the audience is in full bloom in Schoenbrun's latest movie, I Saw the TV Glow. Owen is a fan of a fictional TV show stylized after Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Adventures of Pete and Pete, and he learned about it from Maddy. More than half of the movie is told in an extended flashback in which Owen, as an adult, reflects on his childhood and teenage life revolving around this TV show.

We watch their friendship grow as they become more and more invested in the show. Owen can't watch the TV show ("Isn't that a girl's show?", his white father says) because it's too late at night, so she records the show for him and leaves it in the dark room where she develops her photos. The relationship was rocky at first; he apologized to Maddy for not knowing all the lore, but Maddy says never to apologize. We also learn that Maddy sees herself in one of the two characters, and there are glimpses of Owen doing the same with the other character.

When I first saw it, without any context of Schoenbrun's other films and on a daylong plane trip to Heathrow, I thought I was watching a cute young adult coming-of-age movie. It was fun to see Owen connect with the protagonist of the series and wonder if he could be like her. But I also thought it was a tame movie so far -- in retrospect, I wonder if the movie would be more successful and popular if it stayed that tame.

But the movie takes a turn: the entire setting of the movie is inverted, and the movie is actually not an allegory. The TV show they're watching is real, and the reality they're in is a hallucination that pacifies the protagonists as they slowly suffocate to death underground. Maddy gives the call to action: Owen must bury himself underground so he can return to the real world and fight the TV show's antagonist in the originally canceled sixth season.

This revelation is reminiscent of the opening sequence of The Matrix where Neo Anderson has to take the red pill and see the Matrix as a fake. But the Anderson of this movie refuses: he thinks Maddie is delusional, and he continues his life in this bland "reality".

The film returns to Owen in the present: he has a nuclear family that we never see, but he insists he loves them very much; he streams his favorite childhood show and is disillusioned by how cheesy it is on his LG Smart TV; and he works the rest of his life as a sickly employee in an arcade.

Near the end, his exhaustion is at its limit and he screams in the middle of the kid's birthday party. Everyone but him suddenly stops moving, finally confirming this "reality" is the blue pill. In the bathroom, he opens his body in front of a mirror and sees something glowing inside him.

I remember thinking this was the trans coming of age I was waiting for. Owen finally realizes he has dysphoria and he's going to learn how beautiful he actually is.

But the movie ends with him coming out of the bathroom and apologizing to everyone, breaking Maddy's rule of never apologizing.

I didn't know what to make of the movie. I felt uncomfortable with the whole ordeal. It was probably the most confusing plane ride I've ever been on. I had to talk to someone about it as soon as I got off the plane.

When I watched it for the second time, this time in the theater, I knew what I was watching: the audience.

The film antagonizes the audience in the same way that it forces Owen into uncomfortable situations. The phantastical images that are supposed to soothe our aesthetic sensibilities haunt us: after Owen watches the last episode of the TV show and learns that he is trapped in the Matrix, he opens the door to his house and sees two grown men standing before him; they are the adult actors of the titular characters from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. If the previous films use creepypasta subcultures and online interactions to haunt audiences, I Saw the TV Glow uses childhood shows and nostalgia to terrorize us about the stagnation we possess as cinema aficionados.

When my partner and I came out of the theater (their first time watching it, my second time), our thoughts immediately went to Bertolt Brecht who once said that "art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it." It was the closest thing we had to a call to action.

This could be our future if we do nothing. Just watching queer cinema does not make us queer. The cinematic dreams could haunt us just as the childhood TV shows haunted Owen.

Conclusion: Subcultures as Ghost Stories

Internet subcultures are a fixture of my life. I wander between them, taking in the sights and sounds of what people have managed to create. I write about them for free and dream of the utopian possibilities that internet subcultures inspire in me.

But I also fear the comfort these subcultures instill in me. I don't have the same gender dysphoria that Owen has in the end of I Saw the TV Glow, but I do understand the anxiety he faced: what if we're actually doing nothing, despite all the effort we've put in?

Owen worked a long life to get where he was. He achieved the textbook American Dream. And yet, he lived an unfulfilled life where all he could do was yell.

The chalk drawings also haunt the screen: there is still time, they say. There is, but it is also frightening: the refrain represents all the broken dreams he could have had, and time is ticking away. It is as uncomfortable as a memento mori.

In the philosophy of I Saw the TV Glow, my favorite subculture media that influenced me as a person can appear as phantoms to remind me that I could be a better person, and I chose not to be. We're All Going to the World's Fair tells me I'm losing myself in my parasocial interactions as a fan and creator. And A Self-Induced Hallucination laments that I will consume another parade of content and talk about the value of subcultures into the void.

I don't know what to do, and I think that's the point of Schoenbrun's films so far: to make us painfully aware of our paradoxical approach to the internet. It gives us hope and even avenues for change, but it also prevents us from making change: subcultures become simulacra, like The Matrix, and I'm stuck in them -- what a horrible thought.

There are no solutions presented in these films. All they can do is present different angles on what it means to be queer within subcultures, and that's it. We can only modify it so much before reality stops us.

Perhaps, queerness is a synonym for alienation from one's own body and surroundings. That's why I don't think you have to identify as queer to recognize that using the internet is a queer activity we enact on ourselves: you are constantly socializing in disembodied forms and interfacing everything abstractly.

I used to take comfort in acknowledging my alienation and queerness. I look for arguments for alienation like those found in the Xenofeminist Manifesto:

XF seizes alienation as an impetus to generate new worlds. We are all alienated – but have we ever been otherwise? It is through, and not despite, our alienated condition that we can free ourselves from the muck of immediacy. Freedom is not a given–and it’s certainly not given by anything ‘natural’. The construction of freedom involves not less but more alienation; alienation is the labour of freedom’s construction.

I like the rhetoric of this and I believe there is some truth to it, but now I wonder if I should approach alienation and the web differently. It scares me that I dream about the shimmer of the internet sometimes.

All I can do now is click the "Post Now" button and wait. Wait for what? For something to happen. The internet is full of possibilities after all.