“The American Meme” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and hit the Netflix streaming platform on Friday. The documentary explores the implications of garnering success via social media and features the likes of Paris Hilton, DJ Khaled, and Hailey Baldwin. It also follows “social media influencers” – Hilton, Josh Ostrovsky, Brittany Furlan, and Kirill Bichutsky – as they “hustle to build empires out of their online footprints, redefining the paradigm for the American Dream.”
The film has generally been well-received thus far. Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman pointed to the necessity of the film's narrative: “It’s both highly entertaining and an essential snapshot of the narcotic voyeuristic parasitic American fishbowl.” Check out the trailer below.
The American Meme offered an opportunity for Paris Hilton to open up about her infamous sex tape again. In previously released snippets, she explained how traumatic the experience had been for at the time of its leak.
"It was like being raped. It felt like I'd lost part of my soul and been talked about in such cruel and mean ways. I literally wanted to die at some points. I was like, 'I just don't want to live,' because I thought everything was taken away from me. I didn't want to be known as that."