Doom Scroll
2024 · 13m · USA
Directed by Hayley Zalkin
Tones: dark, darkly comic, melancholic
A freshly laid-off perfectionist binges a TikTok-like app until the algorithm literally consumes her.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
TikTok algorithm literally consumes a laid-off woman — Black Mirror 2.0 territory and the metaphor isn't subtle enough to land. ALTER does this beat in their sleep now.
Zalkin staging the dopamine loop as horror antagonist — no monster, only UI — is the precise Black-Mirror-Fifteen-Million-Merits register modernized for TikTok. The premise is timely; the form will rise or fall on execution.
12:36 with the algorithm itself as villain on ALTER — no monster, just UI design as horror, which is the right register for post-2020 anxiety. 64K views in 3 months suggests it's still finding its audience but the formal idea is sharp.