Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 Review
Director: Jack MacInnes
Date Created: 2025-07-29 17:28
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Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 Review: Directed by Jack MacInnes, this is a two-episode Netflix documentary series about the internet’s weirdest group moment—the moment when more than 3 million people joked (and some completely seriously) that they would “storm” Area 51. Through on-camera interviews with the event participants such as Matty Roberts (the accidental instigator), people in the region around Rachel, Nevada, and authorities, the series attempts to examine what began as a sarcastic meme and became a media sensation. With only two episodes, the series is a fast but completely captivating ride into the social mayhem that happened in 2019.
Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 Review
The notion of storming a top-secret military base because “they can’t stop all of us” is, in and of itself, absurd. And that’s why this show is so great. The pilot episode sets us off in the story of Matty Roberts—a Bakersfield, California, everyman who, bored and in an instant of cyber foolishness, created a Facebook event, “Storm Area 51.” What he intended as a sarcastic meme post for nothing took off and became a viral phenomenon that saw the attention of millions of individuals across the world, including social media influencers, conspiracy theorists, and even the US military.
To me, this bizarre piece of news is the perfect symbol of our internet culture, how quickly something uttered in a joke can become an international watercooler issue. I was giggling at the stupidity, but I winced at the real-life implications. Watching the U.S. Air Force, the FBI, and state officials in Nevada scramble to deal with something that was created as a joke is both humorous and ironic.
Matty, the nerdy, bewildered 21-year-old in the film, accidentally caused a cyberstorm. I was angry and, somehow, sympathetic to him. He hadn’t anticipated that the post would be viral. But when it was, instead of issuing an apology, he attempted to cash in on it—collaborating with party promoters, selling the “raid” as a music festival, and giving interviews as some sort of reluctant celebrity.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if he ever actually did have the burden. He did know the danger and deflected attention to a party, but by then, millions had already spent. Seeing him bask in praise on stage while raking in a measly $1700 from the whole debacle was some kind of bittersweet full-circle moment. He’s truly the poster child of internet fame, accidental, fleeting, and ultimately unprofitable.
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What was most striking about the series was the residents of Rachel, Nevada—a town of fewer than 100 residents, overnight thrust into global headlines. Connie West, proprietor of the sole restaurant and motel beyond Area 51, worried about money, while others, such as Joerg Arnu, worried about anarchy.
I also started thinking think how this would have played out if something like this had happened in a small Indian village. There, it would have been handled much more autocratically, and social media theatrics wouldn’t have taken this far. That the local authorities, police departments, and even U.S. counterterrorism officials spent millions of dollars dealing with this speaks volumes about how online things are becoming increasingly hard to predict or to manage.
While Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 documentary is certainly binge-worthy and entertaining, I longed for it to go a bit deeper. It poses some excellent questions, what social media can do to spur real-life movements, how fast disinformation spreads in real time, and how that impacts national security, but never quite gets there.
I did feel while watching that it’s an intersection of elite culture, conspiracy theory fixation, and meme culture crashing in the desert. While millions of people across the world are dealing with actual issues, a large online community in this nation was busy wondering how to “Naruto run” by troops. The docuseries does touch on this disconnect to some degree, but I wish it had done it more substantively.
Trainwreck Storm Area 51 Review: Summing Up
Ultimately, Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 docuseries is a clumsy, occasionally sloppy viewing experience that is absolutely of the internet. It’s eccentric, current, and full of “you can’t make this up” moments. But despite being an engrossing examination of how online fads begin and propagate, it never pauses to offer any insightful observations on what it’s all actually about.
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