‘Trainwreck: Storm Area 51’ Review: From Shitpost to Showdown, a ‘WTH?’ Saga

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

Netflix documentary ‘Trainwreck: Storm Area 51’ is all about a “shit post” by a bored mall worker named Matty Roberts, who created a fake event called Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us on Facebook as a joke, only to have over a million people express interest in attending. The post went viral, gathered media coverage, and had the U.S. government seriously worried that over a million people might actually turn up to storm Area 51, the highly secretive United States Air Force (USAF) military facility in Nevada. Most were nerds or online eccentrics, some of whom strongly believed the government was hiding aliens or UFOs.

‘Trainwreck: Storm Area 51’ is a two-episode documentary, and until I saw it on Netflix, I had no idea this about this viral story. It even made national news in America and grabbed way more headlines than one would imagine a “shit post” could. “What the hell?!” I kept laughing at some of the developments in the story. For instance, Matty Roberts did a follow-up post about how atendees should do a ‘Naruto run’ as a way to dodge bullets by security, as a way to ensure people understood the event was a joke and it only made the post more popular.

The event was scheduled for September 20th, while Matty had created the post on June 27th, so there was plenty of time for it to spread, morph, and capture the internet’s wildest imaginations. The documentary features interviews with Matty Roberts, several people who did show up to “Storm Area 51,” U.S. government employees who had no choice but to give the bizarre case their attention, and a business owner who owned property near the area and became involved in the chaos that followed.

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The creators interweave real-life footage, Facebook posts, TikTok clips, and some funny animated sequences to keep things visually engaging. Both episodes are under one hour long, and if you know nothing about this story, definitely check out ‘Trainwreck: Storm Area 51’ for some madness. From Matty creating the fake event to the date when over a million people were actually expected to show up near the facility, this entire story is comic-book-level crazy.

Watch ‘Trainwreck: Storm Area 51’ on Netflix.

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