Spring 2023 ︎︎︎ SUNY Purchase College ︎︎︎ (DES4100) Community Design
What is Community? Video Series: The Cult of David Dobrik
Introduction
This is a video by Donna. Her channel was formerly called PsychIRL and is now called Internet Impact. I stopped getting her videos in my feed whenever this name change happened but can vouch her videos are good if you enjoy pretty thoughtful commentary on current “internet events” and drama. This one centers around David Dobrik. I don’t know him super well and have mostly seen people talk about him from an outside perspective. This video covers a lot of territory and balances drama, and “dramatizing” the content with the discussion of cults and their relationship to the internal tension of a group like Dobrik’s.
The Required Viewing
This video is ~1 hour long. And content warning if you can’t deal with the following: Incidentenal mentions of SA, Trisha Paytas, and Scientology being mentioned interchangably with the term cult.
Questions and Concepts to Consider
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What other internet communities do you observe (even macabrely) that might be considered “cult-like” by the standards set out in the video: family channels? shock jocks? Qanon supporters?
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Is or was David Dobrik someone that was or is charismatic or appealing to you?
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Have you had a parasocial relationship with a creator like David Dobrik?
- How might content like this shape the future of interpersonal relationships? Jobs? Life?