What Does It Mean to Be Human?

Four new docs ask big questions about technology, happiness, and Mavis Beacon

Nathan Sawaya’s American Gothic in Bricks

It’s long been a dream of mine to go to Utah in January. Yep, one day I will bundle up in every warm article of clothing I own and attend Sundance Film Festival in person! But in the meantime, I’m very grateful to see a few films virtually each year.

The four documentaries I picked for 2024 share some interesting common threads, even as they explore subject matter ranging from the people of Bhutan to a classic video game. As I watched, I was reminded now more than ever that art can be a way of answering a question you have about the world around you, and even taking a stab at predicting what’s to come.

Could AI Be the Path to Immortality?

Hans Block and Moritz Riesewick’s Eternal You explores the moral implications of real-life startup technology that creates an avatar of a dead person. Is this simply the modern evolution of memorial, or is it something more insidious?

We follow a few different mourners who turn to these services, leading to some memorable sequences. In one scene, a deceased family patriarch’s voice is broadcast to a room full of extended family while a painting of him looks on. Another heartbreaking moment depicts a little girl witnessing her mother’s VR reunion with her dead sister. In one brutal exchange, a subject is told by the simulation of her loved one that he’s in hell, and he’s going to haunt her.

Yeah, yikes.

If a subscription-based service financially benefits from the perpetuation of grief, I worry about how such a service might be corrupted in the future, especially when its target users are such a vulnerable population. Say you can no longer afford the service — are you essentially faced with “killing” your loved one? Consider the current price hikes in streaming. Would you eventually have to pay extra to continue your conversations ad-free? Waiting for your AI relative to quit trying to sell you on a meal kit subscription so you can get back to chatting sounds pretty dystopian, if you ask me.

There’s a scene from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl that’s always stayed with me. While trying to connect with Greg in the midst of his grief, Jon Bernthal’s Mr. McCarthy reflects on the loss of his own father:

Even after somebody dies, you can still keep learning about them. You know, their life. It can keep unfolding itself to you, just as long as you pay attention to it.

It strikes me that these AI avatars are generally creating a character based on static information — knowledge that you, as the survivor, provide. There’s no discovery left within these constructions, no “unfolding” — merely a hollow animation of the survivor’s own memories. Worse, if the AI does extrapolate beyond the information given, the entity you’re speaking with is no longer a reflection of the person you knew and lost.

Ultimately, Eternal You asks questions that will only become more urgent in coming years: How will artificial intelligence shape the grieving process? In the future, what will it mean to say goodbye?

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Can Happiness Be Measured?

Fun fact: In Bhutan, happiness is surveyed by the government. Agents scour the land, asking citizens a series of questions which allow them to calculate a numerical value — the Gross National Happiness Index. This information is said to be given equal weight alongside economic concerns and ultimately used to effect policy and change on a broader level.

Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s Agent of Happiness follows an agent named Amber as he interviews the people of Bhutan about their happiness while also searching for his own. I really love how this doc intersperses beauty with humor and big questions. Bhutan is ridiculously gorgeous, and Agent of Happiness features many shots of the breathtaking countryside as Amber and his fellow agent document their journey via selfie stick, cheesing for the camera like a pair of sitcom characters.

After deep-diving The Science of Scare Project’s attempt to measure fear in 2023, I was fascinated by the concept of GNH. Bhutan’s agents ask 148 questions across nine categories about things like environment, living quarters, and cow ownership. (Who knew cows were so crucial?!) Interviewees share the everyday joys they find in wandering and connection to nature. The questions get very personal at times, and I was struck by the honesty of the responses. We can learn so much about human nature by simply asking questions and taking the time to really listen to the answers.

Does Amber find the happiness he’s seeking? Well, I won’t spoil anything. But it struck me that the documentary’s road trip structure is perhaps the most fitting format for the subject matter. Happiness is something of an ongoing journey, isn’t it?

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A Vibrant Digital Life Revealed After Death

How does one define friendship?

Described as a digital eulogy, Benjamin Ree’s Ibelin explores this question as it builds a portrait of Mats Steen, a young gamer diagnosed with a degenerative muscular disease who died at just 25. Due to his limited mobility, Mats’ parents assumed that he was isolated and mourned what they believed was a life devoid of connection. But upon posting the news of his death on his blog, they received an avalanche of emails revealing that their son’s reach sprawled far beyond the bounds his home in Norway. Mats touched the lives of countless people through the adventures of his World of Warcraft avatar, Ibelin.

As viewers, we come to know Mats through a skillful weave of home video, voiceover read from his blog, recreations of his digital interactions, and contemporary interviews with the many people who knew him. The documentary itself is a community-based labor of love, meticulously rendering Mats’ digital life with the help of his guild’s exhaustive archive: 42,000 pages of game text, character diaries, and dialogue.

My favorite moments of this doc were often the interviews, as Ree tracked down many of Mats’ fellow players. They describe an excellent listener, someone who had a knack for sharing a fresh perspective that allowed you to see your troubles in a new way. Over the course of Mats’ Ibelin years, he connected friends, healed relationships, and even fell in love.

Leslie Jamison’s exploration of the vast virtual world of Second Life might be one of my favorite essays of all time. She writes about people who found liberation in the online realm at difficult points in their offline lives, begging the question — does the digital nature of a connection between two people make it any less “real”?

“Ibelin is an expansion of myself, different parts of me,” Mats wrote. Perhaps we can think of the avatar as a digital limb — one which allowed Mats to reach far beyond the scope of his immediate environment. Mats’ life was filled with joy and connection, and in sharing the mark he left behind, Ibelin is a worthy form of celebration.

Ibelin took home Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary awards for Audience and Directing and was quickly acquired by Netflix — keep an eye out for this one on streaming!

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The True Identity of a Mysterious Childhood Gaming Icon

Did any of y’all learn to type with the help of the Mavis Beacon computer games? When I think back on my youthful relationship to rapidly shifting technology, Mavis is one of my happy memories. (Well, as long as I won her typing challenges, anyway.) But it turns out Mavis isn’t actually some real-life keyboard guru, like I’d believed as a kid — she’s a character created for the games.

Documentarian Jazmin Jones also fondly recalls learning to type from Mavis. An early scene of Seeking Mavis Beacon shows her digging through a storage unit with her father, trying to find her old copy. Cheerful and bright, Mavis was a guide into the nascent internet world for countless young people. But now that Jazmin is older, she wants to know: Who was the woman who first lent her likeness to the character of Mavis Beacon, and where is she today?

The doc’s unique investigative style is a fitting homage to the internet era, opening with a desktop that features video clips, memes, browser bookmarks, and more. Throughout the film, Jazmin employs the desktop as a “transitional space” between chapters of her narrative, cycling through digital material that splashes further context onto her search. It’s a format that reflects the way many of us parse information in the modern world, mimicking the first-person experience of diving down your own rabbit hole. I’ve been a sucker for the “screenlife” genre since seeing Searching back in 2018 (thanks, MoviePass!), so this was an early sign that I was in the right place.

I don’t want to say too much about the revelations this doc holds regarding Mavis Beacon’s real identity, but Jazmin establishes early on that the woman who first embodied her is a retired Haitian-born fashion model. Jazmin’s overarching goal is to find this woman and interview her about her experiences firsthand. But as Jazmin embarks on her quest to learn more about the game’s history and track down its creators, interesting ethical questions begin to arise. What if she’s looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found?

Some of my favorite documentaries consider the act of storytelling from the inside. Films like Kim’s Video and Shirkers ask, Where do we go next? How will this end? The filmmakers invite the viewer along on their journey, speaking from a place of wonder while acknowledging subjectivity. In fact, I think that’s part of why I love the documentary as a genre, as it explores the question I often ask myself: How will I shape a narrative from what’s been given to me?

Overall, Seeking Mavis Beacon is an exuberant digital collage with a lot to say about the roles of gender and race in technology. As the doc notes, Mavis was one of the early consumer-facing AI assistants of our time, paving the way for contemporary household names like Siri and Alexa. In considering the personal implications of this history as a Black filmmaker, Jazmin Jones offers a heartfelt exploration of what it means to see yourself reflected in the technology that surrounds you.

In publication news, Michael Wheaton wrote a book about all my favorite things, so of course I had to interview him. You can read our conversation about nostalgia, fame in the internet age, writing as montage, and more over at Write or Die. (And order Home Movies while you’re at it!)

Are y’all ready for the

March Danceness (00s Edition)

essay competition next month?! As a reminder, yours truly will be competing with a piece I wrote about The Killers’ iconic millennial anthem, “Mr. Brightside.” You’re all invited to submit a bracket by midnight tonight! And of course, you’ll hear from me again in March when it’s time to vote. Stay tuned!