UT alumni Giorgio Angelini premiered his Netflix-debut documentary, “The Antisocial Network,” on Sunday at SXSW. Angelini co-directed and produced the film which focuses on how the creators of 4Chan.org communities unintentionally created an online environment fostering conspiracy and distress. The documentary releases on April 5 as a follow-up to the film’s creators’ 2020 Sundance Award-winning documentary “Feels Good Man.” The Daily Texan spoke to Angelini about the new film after its premiere.
The Daily Texan: How did it feel to premiere such a big project back in Austin, where you began filmmaking?
Giorgio Angelini: It’s a rare opportunity to have these perfect homecoming moments. When I was in college, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but that’s such an abstract concept. There’s not really a very clear path on how to be a filmmaker. … I worked at the Continental Club in college, and we had our premiere party there last night. They were like my family away from home, and it was lovely to bring it back full circle.
DT: “Feels Good Man” was more tightly focused on a singular meme, so what was it like zooming out and elaborating on a broader story about 4Chan?
GA: Honestly, it was really difficult. … Because (“The Antisocial Network”) was such a big story (and) there were so many characters involved, we really struggled to figure out how to keep the film along a unified narrative path. Instead of having a singular character, we had … multiple personalities where they’re all the same person in a way, and they’re all us in a way, and all expressions of our own ego online.
DT: Aside from there being multiple characters in the documentary, how was it overwhelming in general to follow-up a Sundance Award-winning film like “Feels Good Man”?
GA: It was an exciting process, and we were more concerned with how to tell this story in a way people will care about. There’s such absurd moments in the story. It was funny going through the edit(ing) process with the Netflix crew and them being like, “Do we have to keep this about a hotel raid in there?” and (us) being like, “Yeah, … it’s a really important part of the story.” (We were) navigating between the absolutely, utterly absurd (moments) as a service of understanding a really important and vital story. That was the biggest challenge — trying to crack that nut without it all falling apart and people losing interest and (not understanding).
DT: The story of 4Chan gets kind of dark, so beyond that, what do you hope the impact of your being able to shed light on that story in the film is?
GA: For the 4chan-people who are lost in that world, I hope they can watch it and have some catharsis and self-awareness and understand trolling is often a sign of depression — it’s a way to find your agency, power and control in incredibly toxic ways because you don’t feel you have that in your real life. The characters in the film provide that cautionary tale. But, I’m not delusional. … The (4Chan users) we’re talking about here tend to be a group of people who are so consumed, and it’s hard to know how they’ll break out of that. The good thing is people tend to age out of (that). … Eventually, the rage becomes so exhausting that, for a lot of people, there just comes a point where they see the light, they see the futility of it or they find agency in their life that replaces the false hope that social media gives them.
