• Nature Lewis

'Follow This' didn't leave me behind

According to their website, "BuzzFeed is a place for you to discover, share, and track everything awesome that is happening on the Internet as soon as it happens." The website is full of user created blogs discussing every topic from sex to cooking to politics to reviews of goods. So it seemed a no-brainer that Netflix, with a wide range of different content by different creators and Buzzfeed, with the inside view of trending topics, team up to produce a series that attempts to dive deeper into the internet abyss.

I am a faithful Netflix watcher and a follower of all things television so it was a little concerning to me that this series alluded me until part 3. Considering I didn't hear anything about this on my social media or come upon it on my recommendation list, I decided to browse the description of each episode and pick the issues that interest me (awww I see what you did there Buzzfeed)

I'm glad I made that decision.

These episodes feel like a video blog in that you receive just enough information to wet your mouth, all while the creator is receiving money for your time, but you leave with no tangible knowledge. Old school encyclopedias provided more knowledge than these episodes.

Still you must watch!! This is how we begin research.

Some of us are not thirsty until we taste that first drop

Here are three of my favorites:

Part: 1

Title: Black Survivalists

Reporter: Bim Adewunmi

Image Courtesy of Afrovivalist.com

Review: Excellent episode. I learned something new. Adewunmi asked important questions like, "what is the difference between a white survivalist and a survivalist of color". Although the answer was very short and uninformative, Adewunmi attempted to answer this throughout the 16 minute episode. Great job.

Research: This episode led me to various sites. After this research, I decided to get my gun license and learn how to grow veggies indoors. Unfortunately, there are very little black survivalist doing something different than white survivalist. If you want to learn how to survive in the apocalypse, I don't think race should matter.

Part: 2

Title: A Deadly Prank

Reporter: Ahmed Ali Akbar

Image Courtesy of By U.S. Army Materiel Command - Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Review: I was blown away by this episode. As a mother of 5 kids that play video games online, I could not imagine that people are doing this in this country. Akbar did a great job interviewing the police, a victim's family and showing examples of 'swatters' online. The best part happened with Akbar found and interviewed a 'swatter'. His story was incredible. This is a must watch!!

Research: The constitution requires one to obtain a warrant before entering someone's home, except in an emergency situation. I remember in my criminal procedure class, that Judges required corroborated information before signing off on a warrant. Swatters work around this by indicating on the call that it is an emergency and the emergency does not require a warrant.

Part: 3

Title: SexBots

Reporter: Scaachi Koul

Image courtesy of youtube

Review: I was turned off by the obvious man vs. woman theme of this episode. The purpose of the investigation is to determine how sexbots will affect women. Determining how men plan to use the sexbots is one way to answer this question but certaintly not the only way. In addition, not finding women that don't agree with the narrative that these sexbots will turn regular men into rapist or increase sex trafficking is an injustice and defines this reporter more as a blogger and less as an investigator. Bloggers, generally, give you one side; the narrative they choose to convey. Reporters investigate and give you facts that allow you to draw your own conclusion. This episode was too one sided.

Research: After researching sexbots, I learned that this industry is growing fast and can be lucrative. Check out an article regarding investments in the sexbot industry

This series is definitely worth a watch.

'Follow this' is brought to you by the following producers, according to IMDB:

Josh Ricks...line producer (20 episodes, 2018)

Kara Rozansky...production executive (20 episodes, 2018)

Jessica Harrop...executive producer (1 episode, 2018)

Shani O. Hilton...executive producer (1 episode, 2018)

Persephone Whiteside McFadden...associate producer (1 episode, 2018)

Lisa Nishimura...executive producer (1 episode, 2018)

John Pappas...producer (1 episode, 2018)

Jason Spingarn-Koff...executive producer (1 episode, 2018)

Kate Townsend...executive producer (1 episode, 2018)

Linzee Troubh...executive producer (1 episode, 2018)

Cindy Vanegas...executive producer (1 episode, 2018)

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