Behind the Trend

Occasionally a streaming service (mostly Netflix) will drop a short series that takes over the internet for a few weeks and sometimes months. They are mostly flash in the pan type things, the internet has no attention span. And I mostly try to avoid them until the hype dies down. Because like it or not we are all moldable and I'd like to avoid group think. So I wait until the internet is over it before watching anything that generates that much attention. I like to see if the hype was worth it. So here we go with our first behind the trend watch: Inventing Anna.

Inventing Anna was based on a true story so I think it's worth disclosing that I did very little research to verify how much of the Netflix series was accurate. So the entirety of this article (like internet opinions) is going to be based on the series’ portrayal of this story, not the real story.

Let’s start with Anna is a genius. Stealing from billionaires isn’t a real crime. And Rachel is an idiot. Telling this story from the perspective of the journalist was a great way to have an audience insert in a more authentic way. Because Vivian had the curiosity about Anna that the general public shares. How exactly did a 25 year old girl with no money swindle billionaires? She asked the right questions and allowed the audience to follow along with Anna’s story. Leading us directly to, stealing from billionaires isn't a real crime. Look if these major banks and hotels were stupid enough to fall for a little girl swindling them then they deserved to lose every single cent. This wasn’t some ivy educated genius. She wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, charming or influential and yet all of these people feel for her act. That’s a them problem. I am a full believer that if you get scammed, that's on you. Let’s move on to Rachel being an idiot. First of all that trip they took to Morocco was completely planned and instigated by Rachel. She was a leech. Had no problem running up the bill and booking experiences when she thought someone else was footing the bill. She was a freeloader and when that caught up with her she suddenly had a problem. She wasn’t owed a damn thing and I’m glad Anna wasn’t forced to pay her back. I (and most people I know) have never gone anywhere expecting someone else to pay for them. Not dinner, not even out for coffee. The idea of accepting an entire, out of country vacation without paying for anything is absolutely insane.

I think the Netflix series absolutely deserves the hype it got. Shonda Rimes is incredibly talented and she doesn’t miss. The series is well structured and well written. It was engaging and entertaining and honestly without deeper research there is really no way of telling how much of it is made up. All of the creative liberties were melded seamlessly into the story. I can see why the internet was obsessed with this series. They seem to be fascinated with anything new, they love anything or anyone that takes the piss out of the rich, and we love true crime like stories. This may not have been murder but if you place “inspired by a true story” at the front of your newest idea then you have a hit on your hands no matter what the story actually contains. Inventing Anna is a great story and I’m not sure we should have moved on from it so quickly.