Strobe ILY. Follow Me.
A dark teenage social media nightmare
Taylor Cohen’s film Strobe, a Vimeo Staff Pick, is a powerful and quietly horrifying tale. We are following the Twitter addiction of one teenage girl to feed another addiction, Strobe a techno DJ legend. Things start fairly creepy and just progress from there in a very quiet escalation.
The girl might say a few words through the whole story. It’s all about her painful obsession with Strobe and getting him to follow her on Twitter. We get a brief feeling of who Strobe is from his handle “strobeisdead,” a bit on the dark side, and the eerie glimpses we see of his back while performing. We see the girl dance to his music and she becomes mesmerized and totally carried away. Like a Manson follower, she is totally devoted to him. In desperation she plots to go to great lengths to get his attention via her Twitter images, words and with actions in her real life. She is willing to bring on a lot of pain to get his attention. Or, one might guess, anyone’s attention.
The combinations of her addictions and her neglect, there is no parent present only text messages from Mom, is symbolic of some of today’s youth. Taylor Cohen delivered a successfully disheartening message and story. The production quality is superb and the photography and editing perfect. Maia Mithchell plays “The Girl” perfectly.
