The American Meme is a full-length documentary that explores the world of social media in its current state. How it has changed the rules of fame and has altered our perception of reality forever. Featuring social media stars Paris Hilton, Josh Ostrovsky, Brittany Furlan, and Kirill Bichutsky hustle to build online empires – and face the pitfalls of fame. As the creative director, leading the team at Blind, we created the vibrant animation featured throughout the film.
These animated sequences were used to punctuate the stories of the main characters and help illustrate the ideas of the films. This included a fully 3d animated scene that featured an augmented VR version of Paris Hilton, who deletes me (a hater) from her world.
The major themes and questions we considered in our design process:
What is reality, and what is fake? Living a false, curated life, then having to maintain it.
We're more connected now than ever before, Yet more alone and Isolated.
What does it mean to be famous? How has social media has changed fame?
Lenses: How do we see ourselves, and how do we see others?
These questions we asked early on helped shape the ideas about the design directions to explore. From wild and whacky 2d character animation to raw and depressing sequences of our characters featured in the jail-cells of their phones. We tried our best to create a visual language that mimicked internet culture and gave viewers a lens on how to experience the world from the characters' viewpoints.
Watch the official film trailer below and see the full-length documentary on Netflix.