It’s perhaps cliché to say, but it’s hard to imagine how much worse ubiquitous social media must make the already difficult teenage years. By the time kids hit high school, they’re steeped in a culture fueled by the likes of YouTube and Snapchat where crafting a personal brand isn’t just a core element to developing their personality, but a possible road to stardom. It’s unfathomable for people even just one generation older to imagine what that must do to a kid’s sense of self, but director Liza Mandelup’s new documentary, Jawline, which is available on Hulu today, attempts to do it.
Mandelup’s primary conduit into that world is Austyn Tester, a fledgling social media star hoping internet fame will get him out of poverty and his small hometown of Kingsport, Tennessee. With floppy hair and the beginnings of a six-pack, Austyn is just the kind of safe, earnest boy to make shy young girls swoon—which they do based on the the young girls he interacts with over the live-streaming site younow. Though there’s obvious vanity in the way Austyn preens in front of the camera (the first thing we see him do is make his friend take and re-take dozens of artsy, posed photos), he genuinely seems to want fame not for its own sake, but because he wants to help people by spreading a message of positivity and self-love. Unfortunately, that earnestness is exactly what makes it so hard to watch him try to make it big.
One of the film’s most cringeworthy – and spellbinding – scenes comes when Austyn sets up a meet-and-greet at a local mall à la his role models, Jovani and Julian Jara. Though the group of girls who show up is much smaller than for the Jaras, they’re just as passionate: one girl drove two hours just to show up three hours early. There’s an element of harmless, Beatlemania-esque hysteria to the way the girls excitedly follow Austyn through the mall, but things turn queasy when they ask him to drive a motorized stuffed horse so they can film it. Austyn demurs, but one girl insists, forcing a wad of cash at Austyn until he agrees. In essence, the dynamic isn’t that different from the way Austyn’s fans pay him through younow, but there’s something upsetting to both the audience and Austyn in how openly transactional and debasing the moment feels and it begs the question of how healthy this lifestyle is for everyone involved.
That question becomes even more pressing when Austyn becomes popular enough to catch the eye of a Houston, Texas-based talent management company. Viewers need not have heard too many stories about ingenues ground up by show biz to be suspicious, but Mandelup quickly confirms those suspicions. Prefaced by shots of an empty office building decorated by a lone bundle of emoji balloons, we see Austyn’s gawky, awkward new agent essentially give a sales pitch of both Austyn and his plans to help his career. However, rather than reassure the audience of his credentials, the scene only emphasizes how easy it is for Austyn and kids like him to be exploited.
The film’s most potent embodiment of that exploitation, though, is Michael Weist, a Svengali-esque social media talent manager who’s barely older than the mostly young men he manages. Those who follow such things will recognize Weist as the Segway-riding mastermind/scapegoat behind Tana Mongeau’s disastrous TanaCon last year. Though that Fyre Fest-lite incident isn’t mentioned here, Mandelup portrays Weist in the same manipulative con artist light as Shane Dawson did in his investigation of that dust-up. Watching Weist berate his clients–who seemingly live with him–or brag about how he buys everything on Rodeo Drive, it seems impossible that this industry could lead anywhere except exploitation, but what makes Mandelup’s film so thought-provoking is that it’s never that clear-cut.
Yes, Austyn is constantly at risk of being exploited or disappointed by his chosen profession, but he also seems to get true joy and meaning from what he does. Likewise, the numerous young girls Mandelup interviews repeatedly express the way their online lives not only allow them to feel more confident, but have the friendships and social interactions they can’t in real life. It’s easy to dismiss social media as superficial, but the brilliance of Jawline is in its willingness to admit that it wouldn’t be so dangerous if it weren’t also so appealing.
