The internet has blown up after season two of “YOU,” which debuted the day after Christmas. The star, Penn Badgely, portrays Joe Goldberg, a stalker-turned-murderer with a conscience.
Many people compare the story’s formula to the thriller series “Dexter.”
I think this shows social commentary has opened many people’s eyes as to how outsiders can peer into our lives, too easily.
Pay attention to where you’re geo-tagged, how often and on what social media sites.
Adding your location on posts might seem harmless, but I think it is slowly becoming an issue — especially for young women. I don’t hear about people stalking others at the same theatrical level as Joe Goldberg, but after seeing the possibilities, how could I not be on alert?
Personally, I think sharing locations with a family member is good safety practice, but not when done publicly. Snapchat maps are a good example of a bad practice. Who in their right mind is comfortable letting more than a few close friends “find them?”
I have yet to hear about people using the app to harm people, but the fact that it is possible induces anxiety.
I hope people are cautious with their personal information. I know, we’ve been hearing the same lecture our whole lives: “Be safe online!”
Today, it really is something we should take to heart.
It is well known how social media sites trade in our data and trends. Why are we playing into it? Do we have to be so addicted to sharing ourselves in every way?
The victim in the first season leaves herself virtually and digitally unprotected, and it’s easy to imagine something similar happening to me. The stalker is then able to find her wherever she is through the city, and form a pretty decent idea of her day-to-day.
Of course, viewers are aware the story is exaggerating real life. It still begs the question, how do I leave myself open?
The show’s formula leads viewers to side with the killer, highlighted as charming and logical. I think the creators found the perfect place to address the changes in today’s world with the same toxic trope. The serial killer genre was the perfect niche after the wave of “Bundy,” “Zodiac,”
and “The First 48.” The difference being, after the stories of living serial killers are told, the talk on social media stayed to the main ideas of “‘Bundy’ is hot” or “‘Zodiac’ is such a good thriller.”
These older serial killer thrillers evoked responses that were far different from the ones we saw after “YOU”. While all the stories shocked audiences to some degree, the memes that came from Zac Efron as Bundy stayed to the “He’s so hot, he can kill me anytime” type of jokes, people were less likely to see themselves in the story.
Something entirely different was born, in terms of memes, for “YOU.” Both men and women jumped in the conversation. Men mostly joked about the tragic story line and memed screencaps and quotes from the show.
Women joked about wanting to love Joe, and all his sociopathic tendencies, then started to actually consider the possibilities of meeting people like Joe in their everyday lives. My favorite post like this comes from Twitter.
Abby @ybbamcd said “A guy saw me by my car struggling to carry a large box and offered to help me carry it up to my apartment. I said “no I got it” and he asked me again after he clearly saw I didn’t ‘have it.’But does he think imma have him know where I live?? Not today, Joe Goldberg.”
This can be called a case of mean world syndrome, but it still highlights a major threat we can all avoid.
In my opinion, “YOU” is a good way to show that we all need to hold a little more mystery about ourselves online, just in case someone takes a page out of Joe’s book. I urge people to protect themselves from their own vanity and low self-esteem, so no one ends up like Beck.