Clickbait

If nothing else, give credit to Clickbait for a perfectly apt title. Like the genre of internet article it’s named after, the Netflix miniseries tries to lure in audiences with the promise of juicy reveals and hot-button controversy — only to deliver, in the end, a shallow story about not much at all.Creators Tony Ayres and Christian White do begin with an interesting premise. Nick Brewer (Adrian Grenier), a seemingly kind and decent family man, disappears one morning on his way to work. Hours later, a mysterious video clip surfaces in which Nick admits, apparently under duress, to abusing women — and then indicates that he himself will be killed once the video reaches 5 million views.Clickbait Season 1 Download.

Could Nick really be guilty of the crimes he’s confessed to? If he is, does the punishment fit the crime? If he’s not, who’s framing him, and why? Can Nick’s family stop the video from reaching 5 million views? What does it say about the internet’s dark id that some people seem downright eager to see Nick torn apart? How complicit are all of us in a situation like this, one that requires the indifference or active participation of millions of total strangers?

Clickbait tries to address those questions, and many more that arise along the way, over eight episodes of 45-ish minutes, each of which focuses on a different individual connected to the case: Nick’s hot-headed sister, Pia (Zoe Kazan); his devoted wife, Sophie (Betty Gabriel); Roshan (Phoenix Raei), the ambitious detective assigned to the case; Ben (Abraham Lim), the ruthless journalist pursuing the story,  and so on. The structure theoretically allows for a more comprehensive view of not only the mystery and the people involved in it, but of the digital culture it’s steeped in.