It was directed by Ondi Timoner, who also directed Dig! which is one of my favorite documentaries. I thought the film was very engaging and somewhat terrifying. The subject of the film was John Harris, a dot com millionaire from the early 1990's. He streamlined a bunch of ideas that are currently being used in today's technology such as video blogs, online television and an early idea of reality tv shows like The Real World with constant surveillance. I usually enjoy documentary films that are focused on one character, but I was worried that he might be a dull. I realized I was clearly wrong very early on into the film. Timoner is fantastic at finding characters that people enjoy watching crash, as she also did in Dig!. Although Harris' ideas were revolutionary and really did change the world he produced them before the world was ready and simultaneously drove himself insane.
So the reason I found this film terrifying is because the things that Harris thought up exist on a normal basis in today's world. People are dependent on technology and are looking for anyway to put themselves out there (such as blogging!). I've always loved technology and the power it has to bring people together but I don't want what happened to Harris to become normal. He was so obsessed with his world in technology that he completely destroyed every real life relationship he had. I don't want the world to come to online relationships with no personal contact.
Hopefully Harris was just mentally unstable and that is what led to his downfall. Hopefully the majority of the world will not end up like him. Although he has created a new life living in Ethiopia free of technology. I hope we can live in a world where we can benefit from technology but not lose our real lives in the process.
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