Netflix's new TV show, Clickbait, deals with a story so ingrained in modern-day living that many might assume it's really based on a true story. The series revolves around the disappearance of family man Nick Brewer, who is abducted by a mysterious online presence who threatens to reveal his unsavory secrets while police and Nick's family struggle to figure out who abducted him and how to get Nick back. Clickbait was released at the end of August and has been gaining popularity ever since, with the show in Netflix's Top 10 in several countries.
Netflix has not shied away from true crime shows and these stories are often released as documentary miniseries like Narcos, but most of those are also based on real-life figures and true stories, so there's reason to believe that Clickbait might be based on a real-life abduction. It certainly deals with relevant modern-day themes like raging online impulses in the age of social media and the fractures between online and real-life personas, adding to the idea it might have been ripped from a headline.
However, Clickbait is a work of fiction, though based on real-life phenomena that are growing in the age of social media, particularly catfishing and identity theft. Both can be defined as when a person pretends to be someone they're not, and both are prevalent in Clickbait. The show takes these instances a step further by including a murder mystery and unresolved problems dealing with infidelity that ends with Clickbait's twist ending that shocked viewers and unironically became a trending topic on social media.
The show will be ed as one which highlighted the dangers of an addiction to social media and did so in a way that is reminiscent of what made Black Mirror so popular. However, Clickbait's lack of connection to a real-life issue might hinder its long-term staying power in the minds of viewers. The exaggerated display of how social media can be used for crime is gripping, but eight long episodes make the show less cohesive than the aforementioned Black Mirror. Still, if someone is interested in the extreme possibilities of the dark side of social media then Clickbait will show them a thrilling time despite its lack of specific source material.
There is still a while to go before Clickbait can be ed fondly amongst Netflix's body of work - many are still discovering the show and forming opinions of their own - but thus far, the relevance of the topic has piqued audiences' interest. It may not be a direct adaptation of any one true crime story, but Netflix's attempt at creating a murder mystery that uncovers the dangerous capability of people to commit online larceny in the modern world has been a hit nonetheless.