It's not YOU, It's all of us

I am one of those people who is crap with Netflix, I will scroll in a desperate search for something new to watch. Yet give up and resort to a crime docuseries or Rupaul's Drag Race.

So with friends and everyone online binging netflix series You I proceeded to delve in, the scariest bit besides psycho Joe is the accuracy in which we display all our lives on social media. Seeing the way he could easily access all of Beck’s information that quickly shocked me just a tad, more of an incentive to put more social media on private. We do give more of ourselves away on social media for fear of being left out of the online world and scrolling into an endless void.

We meet Joe Goldberg as the ideal man, a humble funny bookstore clerk with a passion for books with a handsome face to match that instantly lit a fire for the viewer as the perfect guy. To top it all off the compassion and kindness towards neighbour Paco a child who shares his passion for books and reading with a troubled home-life. Seeing Joe take care of him with food and shelter leads you to the false sense of rooting for this lovely man, who can do no wrong- oh until he goes full stalker mode and goes on a cold killing rampage.

But the internet has conflicted feelings towards our murdering man, as seen below tweets influxed actor Penn Badgley from requests to being kidnapped, to question why they are crushing on him. He himself is perplexed as to why the viewers are attracted to him…. we hail Joe as a charming man, on the other end of the spectrum we have Ron a drunk with violent tendencies to adorable little Paco’s mum Claudia. We dislike him for how he treats her, and her son. Besides Peaches, he is the only who truly sees Joe for what he is, he says from the jump, us viewers dislike this drunk problematic violent man.

Little sympathy is shown towards Beck’s character, who is quite frankly seen as a mess. The character in her 20’s is a women who aims and strives to be the perfect writer. Now as us creative types know, writing when the creative juices are flowing will produce endless pages of interesting content, and in our 20’s we tend to put pressure on ourselves to be the perfect women, combined with trying to look perfect, strive for acceptance from peers/friends we give ourselves a hard ole time. Well this girl is the same but for some reason Joe doesn't quite see that a lot of her situations she brings on herself.

I hate saying that as we all learn from our mistakes and take lessons from those, yet this girl does.not.learn. She gets so many chances on her ‘dream’ writing course and is putting off work, and even goes as far as saying “Thinking of writing, is part of the writing process.” Yes she cringes and realises how ridiculous she sounds, Joe gives her a job to help her out and she even RUINS that, there is so many chances you can give this girl. Which of course doesn't mean the ending she got was the correct one.

This leads to the debate/conflicting feeling of once again women being blamed/attacked on a TV show, Anne Hathaway highlighted this during Golden Globes with a challenge to Hollywood to try and go one year without harming woman in films and try a different story route and put them in a different character position or story line similar to men, why are women always the forefront of brutality?

You may be shouting ‘But It’s just a TV show’ however it is a hot talking point, of how we the viewer see certain characters when they aren't portrayed in a certain way. We must remember we only ever see this story and timeline of events from Joe’s POV who knows how it played to the other characters. Towards the end you don’t want Joe to get in trouble, caught or dare I say upset….even typing that I dislike myself.

We enjoy shows that get us riled up with conflicted feelings which results in one day binge marathons pining for the next season, of course the internet has realised the problematic tendencies to feeling some type of way about Joe Goldberg.

Actor Penn Badgley recently hit over 1 million on Instagram, in which he even called us out by saying all it took was for him to become a murderer. Why have we all gravitated towards someone who is essentially a cold blooded killer is a completely different psychological article altogether. But feel free to watch again and be ashamed of the guilt whilst watching. Season two has been confirmed so we know our sultry killer will return maybe it’s best to just crush on Penn Badgley instead over on social media…..oh and be careful how much of your life you share online, you never know who’s watching….