The Danger of Mistaking Virality for Legacy in Modern Cinema
Let me ask you this: When was the last time a movie actually shook you? Not just scared you or made you cry, but fundamentally altered how you saw the world? The answer probably isn’t Obsession. Despite the deafening hype surrounding Curry Barker’s summer sensation, we’re witnessing a disturbing trend where algorithm-driven popularity gets mistaken for artistic immortality. This isn’t just about one film—it’s a symptom of how our digital age conflates virality with value.
What Even Makes a Classic Anyway?
Here’s the inconvenient truth: Classics aren’t born from box office records or TikTok reactions. They emerge when art collides with cultural consciousness in ways even the creators can’t predict. Take The Exorcist—it didn’t become a classic because audiences fainted (though that helped). It endured because it weaponized 1970s anxieties about faith, family, and female autonomy. Friedkin’s film wasn’t just horror; it was a societal Rorschach test.
Compare that to Obsession, which I’ll admit delivers slick thrills and a killer lead performance from Inde Navarrette. But beneath its parasocial panic lies a startling emptiness. Barker’s script gestures at digital-age romance like a tourist taking snapshots—superficially capturing the scenery without grasping its soul. When Bear’s wish spirals into chaos, the film fixates on gore shocks instead of exploring why we’re collectively addicted to curating fantasy relationships online.
The TikTokification of Film Criticism
What fascinates me most isn’t the film itself, but why Gen Z audiences are treating it like gospel. Let’s be honest: This generation grew up in a world where Instagram likes measure self-worth and OnlyFans intimacy is transactional. Obsession mirrors their reality back at them—distorted, but recognizable. Yet this resonance feels calculated, like a Spotify algorithm serving you the same hit remixes. True classics don’t just reflect culture; they refract it through a unique lens. Hereditary did this with grief. Get Out with racial paranoia. Obsession? It holds up a cracked mirror and calls it a manifesto.
Consider the marketing tactics: Night-vision audience reaction reels, TikTok duets of jump scares, and Reddit threads breathlessly declaring “This is our Exorcist.” It’s all so… engineered. Barker didn’t create a phenomenon; he reverse-engineered one using social media’s playbook. Contrast this with Jaws terrifying audiences in 1975 without a single digital ad. The real terror wasn’t in the theater—it was in the collective dread of swimming the next summer.
Why This Matters Beyond Movie Theaters
Here’s the deeper question none of us want to face: Are we losing the capacity for genuine artistic transcendence? When every film becomes a content drop and every review a hot take, we’re training audiences to crave instant gratification over lasting nourishment. Obsession isn’t bad—it’s just incomplete. Like a viral tweet that gets转发 10 million times but evaporates from memory by next Tuesday.
I keep thinking about The Social Network—a film that predicted our current digital dystopia while dissecting male insecurity. Aaron Sorkin didn’t just write about Facebook’s rise; he exposed the rot beneath Silicon Valley’s “disrupt or die” ethos. Obsession could’ve interrogated our obsession with curation—instead, it settles for slapping our wrists while we binge the next influencer’s story.
The Brutal Truth About Legacy
Let’s get personal for a moment. I’ll cop to watching Obsession twice—once in theaters, once on Peacock. Both times, I admired its technical chops but felt hollow afterward. Because great films shouldn’t just entertain; they should haunt, provoke, or terrify us in ways we can’t articulate. When I finished The Exorcist, I needed a walk to process existential dread. After Obsession? I just opened Instagram.
Time will be merciless here. In 2073, film students won’t dissect Nikki’s trauma alongside Linda Blair’s iconic performance—they’ll wonder why we ever compared them. True classics survive because they ask questions that mutate with each generation. Citizen Kane wasn’t about yellow journalism; it was about power’s corrupting void. Rear Window wasn’t voyeurism—it was about the moral rot of passive observation.
Obsession asked too little of its moment. And until filmmakers grasp that cultural legacy requires ambition beyond box office benchmarks or social media metrics, we’ll keep mistaking fireworks for sunlight. The next time you see a film touted as “this generation’s classic,” ask yourself: Does it reflect us, or just flatter us? Because in the end, art that doesn’t challenge won’t endure.
