Unknown Number: A Netflix Documentary

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I was reading through a post that @tarazkp made yesterday and it got me thinking about a Netflix movie that my wife and I had just watched. This is going to be a difficult post to write, because I don't want to give away any of the details and spoil it for you. I will do my best. If you live in the US, there is a good chance you may have heard about this. It's actually a true story and it made national news.

Spoilers may be in the comments, you have been warned!

The main reason we decided to watch this documentary was because the events took place in a town that is little more than an hour away from where we live. In fact, a couple of weekends ago our niece played with her volleyball team against the young ladies from Beal City, MI.

Being a school social worker, my wife was also interested in this movie given it deals with cyberbullying and harassment in a school setting. As a technology director, I was skeptical going into the movie, but it was only about 90 minutes long, so I figured I could be spending my evening doing more stupid things.

It actually ended up being a pretty good show and while the production quality wasn't the best and there were some things I found a bit cringy about it, it was fascinating and led to a good deal of conversation over the next couple of days.

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The actual title of the show is Unknown Number: The High School Catfish. I just changed the title a bit for this post so you could know where you could find it. Before I get too far, let me say this, you will be livid after watching this. If you aren't, then you might want to check to see if something is wrong with you. It goes beyond despicable and makes you wonder how anyone could be so horrible.

The basic premise is this, a young lady and her boyfriend were dating in school (middle school, early high school), when they started getting text messages from some unknown number that were pretty filthy, mean, and harassing. This goes on for years with the police, the school, the friends, and the families having no clue what is going on or where these messages are coming from.

Years.

That's crazy. It's honestly a miracle that one of the kids didn't harm themselves after the relentless abuse. I've heard of kids doing far worse to themselves over far less. As I said before, the production quality isn't up to Hollywood standards, but it is decent. I think the thing that annoyed me the most, besides the big reveal at the end was how they used like a computerized voice to read the texts from the unknown number. It sounded stupid and I know they intended for it to seem menacing, but it just sounded lame.

I found it interesting how willing everyone was to participate in the interviews. Even and especially the school staff. Most superintendents I know and have worked for wouldn't want to participate in something like this even if they were getting paid. With public opinion being so polarizing these days, one word spoken wrong or heard wrong could be career suicide.

I think they handled it well and while some people might argue the school should have done more, I'd follow up by asking them what. As you will see from the show, it took the FBI getting involved to figure out what was going on. Schools simply don't have the resources to do the kind of forensic investigation necessary.

I think this is an example of the CSI effect, where juries think there should be all this obvious evidence in cases these days. The same is true here. People expect the tech department to just be able to pull phone dumps and look at logs and solve the mystery. Sorry, but it's not always that easy.

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I can't even imagine my nieces when they were that age getting the kinds of messages that these young kids were getting. It bugs me just thinking about it honestly. As I said in the beginning of this post, the comments may contain spoilers. I don't plan on specifically posting anything in there, but I want to encourage you to talk about it if you have seen the show.

It's not that this was groundbreaking, but it's definitely one of those things you stand around the watercooler and talk about. Simply because it's so hard to wrap your head around the big reveal at the end.

On a totally separate subject, keep a keen eye out for a scene near the end of the show. They are in a house and in the background you can see a table and the table is covered with something. I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but I'd be interested in hearing if you noticed the same thing I did.

Also, if you don't feel like watching the show, just go ahead and Google Beal City, MI catfish, but trust me, it doesn't hit quite as hard unless you see or hear some of the messages that these kids were getting.

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My Sports Account - @bozz.sports

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced