If you’ve ever been on BuzzFeed and wondered what a day-in-the-life of one of their reporters is like, then think no more. Netflix’s Follow This is a short-form docuseries that looks at the weird and wonderful stories investigated by this famed website while showing the journalists hard at work. Here are five things you need to know about this show.
1. Charlie Warzel’s episode is unquestionably the most frightening one. As a senior technology writer he looks into how easy it is for people to manipulate audio and video and how this can be used to create authentic-looking fake news pieces. Look out for the hilarious scene where he tricks his own Mum into thinking she’s having a conversation with her son, even though it’s actually audio produced by a computer.
2. One episode is devoted to Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR). This is the calming, pleasurable and tingling sensation one can feel from sounds like whispering and tapping. Scaachi Koul delves into this world and learns that the individuals who experience ASMR have very specific personality traits and are wired differently to others.
3. Azeen Ghorayshi’s instalment is one of the most heart-breaking ones. She looks into illegal injecting rooms and how drug overdoses are becoming a leading cause of accidental deaths. This is devastating stuff when you consider that these safe environments allow overdoses to be reversed and how many lives it saves.
4. An episode from the German bureau sees Juliane Löffler interviewing intersex individuals, their families and the medical establishment. Intersex people make up 1.7% of the world’s population and that is also the same proportion of people who are redheads. Interesting fact: did you know that in Malta they don’t operate on hermaphrodite children?
5. The other episodes will feature senior culture writer Bim Adewunmi, senior national correspondent John Stanton, reporter and podcast host Ahmed Ali Akbar and BuzzFeed India editor-in-chief, Rega Jha. This series is as fascinating and interesting as the website’s articles; and thanks to Netflix it’s a binge worthy match made in heaven.
Follow This launches globally on Netflix in three bundles, the first will be available from August 23rd.
