Filmmaker Statement

This is a satire about the radicalization of America, told from the point of view of a sheltered, well-intentioned teenager who experiences a pervasive type of apophenia that he interprets as metaphysical visions. Encouraged by online misinformation, his visions provide him with an inflated sense of significance and help assuage his guilt over forbidden sexual desire and feelings of inadequacy in a world that doesn’t value him as much as he believes it should. It is an indictment of our collective naiveté regarding the internet, specifically with conservative media that pushes mentally vulnerable individuals to hatred and tragic acts of violence. It was important to me to satirize the magical thinking that drives the anti-intellectual movement, while acknowledging its roots in our cultural stories, but more importantly, to portray a human character and dramatize not just the dangers of indulging in alternative-facts, but the danger of abandoning people who are being misled by them.