I wish real life had built in like and dislike buttons,

the way YouTube does.

I'd upvote all the cute cats I see

and I'd downvote the hell

out of the new social media scarefest Unfriended.

Just a second, a couple more.

I explain why on this week's episode of Angry Nerd.

First, your comments.

Spartgames asks, Can you talk about Futurama

and why it was cancelled?

Spartgames, check out my Futurama episode from 2013.

I'm glad that Futurama got cancelled.

Again.

Phantom9252 writes, I hate the idea

of making Fantastic Four into teenagers.

How can they be exploring the cosmos

if they're worried about next week's chemistry final?

I know, right?

I also worry that Doctor Doom will escape

while they fight over which group selfie

to post to Instagram.

Ben, you are totally covering my face in this one.

I will fireblast you if you post that.

Speaking of teens ruining movies,

Unfriended is about six high school kids

who cyberbully another student to death

and are tormented by her ghost.

Fine, except that action plays out on social media feeds,

thrillingly shifting between Skype chat,

Facebook threads, YouTube clips, iMessages.

The screen capture format isn't unique.

It also cropped up in Open Windows, Disconnect,

You Want Me to Kill Him, The Den,

even an episode of Modern Family,

but I still find it to be a profoundly depressing twist

on the found footage genre.

Horror and voyeurism are old friends,

but character POV only works if the terror feels plausible.

Watching video group chats,

complete with glitchy buffering effects

takes you completely out of the moment.

Instead of being immersed in fear,

you just feel like you're peeking

over your coworker's shoulder

while he shows you a funny video he just found.

Don't you hate that?

Anyway, I worry that if Unfriended is a hit

it will make horror directors even more lazy.

They don't even have to follow around a bunch

of unknown actors with a handheld camera anymore.

They just have to buy a video capture card and voila,

an exciting shot of a computer desktop.

Then they just invent some drama,

like oh, great heavens, my spreadsheet was deleted

and some evil spirit has disabled automatic backup.

Ooh, scary.

How do they ...

Wait, is that the catalog of my comic book collection?

Hey, that's not cool.

Don't even joke about that getting deleted.

Oh, ooh, oh ho, there's been some mistake.

Clearly that ridiculous child's toy is not meant for me.

How do I click on this and make it go away?

Oh, oh ho, that's not mine either.

Aah, oh Jesus, how do I turn this screen off?

I take it all back.

A direct feed of your desktop can be nightmarish.

Actually, it's easy to find horrifying spectacles

and jump scares on your desktop computer.

You just click over to Chatroulette.

Aah, oh, how do you say put some pants on in Hungarian?

But seriously, how much more lazy

can a film maker possibly get?

What, will they make a movie

about a haunted autocorrect feature

that turns all of your text messages into profanity?

Hope that doesn't give anyone any bright ideas.

Seriously, can you think of any movies

that have done a good job of showing

how people actually use technology

to help themselves in scary situations?

Let me know in the comments.

You should also subscribe to the Wired channel

and click on these miniature versions of me

to watch my other magnificent video ...

Hold on.

Getting a text message.

Ah, from one of these other versions of me.

It says, Don't go see Jupiter Ascending.

It's not very good.

I know that now.

You're supposed to send that backwards in time.

You yutz.

Ah, sh uh.