Sophie Mason

photos editor

The first episode of Chasing Cameron opens dramatically with Dallas having lost his phone. In a craze, he rips apart his apartment, throws his hands up on his head trying to play it cool but is really freaking out on the inside.

“Everyone be quiet,” Dallas said. “My phone is on silent, maybe we will hear it.”

That’s realistic. Dallas was basically on the verge of calling the police for this “emergency” until he found out it was a prank pulled by his friend. The best part is that Dallas was genuinely freaking out about being apart from his phone for five minutes. Honestly, not a great start for the show.

Dallas and the others on the Magcon tour have grown up surrounded by social media. For them, their lifestyle is filled with choosing trendy   hashtags, titling their newest vlogs, and taking model worthy selfies for Instagram. Though it seems like they’re living the dream, especially with Dallas’ friend, Taylor Caniff, having the hard choice of choosing what color Range Rover to drive each day, they still go through teenage struggles.

My whole life I thought social media stars were paid to look pretty on a screen and do dumb things in public. However, after witnessing the raw emotions from the boys, Dallas suffering a severe panic attack and Aaron Carpenter mourning the death of his step-brother and step-father, I realized they aren’t as narcissistic and egotistical as I suspected.

Many of them are only in their late teens or early 20’s, but they lead accelerated lives. While we’re off doing homework and applying for college, they are trying to look good while riding a horse and drenching their fans in water while jumping around during their ‘performances’ (lol highkey entertaining).

By the end of the series, I witnessed the stress of having to meet 400 girls a day while also trying to balance seven social media platforms. The boys proved nobody’s life is easy, and while it’s simple to judge the ‘pretty boys’ of social media, I learned that they are regular people like us… except the whole 18.3 million followers on Instagram thing.

So next time you’re wandering through Netflix, looking for a worthy new show to binge watch, spend a few hours watching Dallas talk about his #struggles.

Jonathan Lee

opinions editor

“Their looks won’t be able to carry them anymore.” This quote is the only quote I could not agree with more after watching the idiotic show, Chasing Cameron.

Here’s a quick overview of the show. There’s this guy named Cameron Dallas and he goes on tour throughout the world with other above average attractive looking kids to dance around on stage while their fans scream “Magcon” or “you literally saved my life!”

As you can probably tell, I really disliked the show. As a documentary I thought it was just a joke. Documentary is defined as, “A movie or a television or radio program that provides a factual report,” but half of the show was staged or scripted, not staged meaning the talentless adolescents were on stage, but as in the director had them act most scenes.

I  don’t understand why Netflix thought it would be a cool idea to have a documentary on boys who are famous on social media for being “good looking” and posting “hilarious” videos. I would much rather watch a documentary in a foreign language on birds that can fly than this.

The show in general just seemed very forced. It felt as if they made pointless problems to create pointless drama to help make the show seem “interesting.” For example, one of the “talents” named Taylor Caniff complains about how he doesn’t get paid his “per diem,” (which I think is about $200 per day). It just exposes how ungrateful the kids on the show  really are. By saying things like, “It’s literally so hard to have to smile in photos with 400 random girls.”

“Cameron and these guys in Magcon have this unique opportunity to be in their fans lives for today and be able to change their lives forever.” I don’t really understand how seeing teenage boys on stage awkwardly jumping up and down and attempting to sing on key would change anyone’s life.

The show was just a struggle to watch. When you want watch a show you usually tell yourself, “I can’t imagine what’s going to happen next episode.” But this show makes you tell yourself, “I can imagine exactly what’s going to happen next episode and the episode after that.” It was just very boring, but I have to admit that episode 10 was really good…because it was the last.