'Addicted to It' Carries an Addicting Tune
We now live in an age where we have to market the dangers of dopamine to our kids. The future is here, and it is getting bleaker by the minute. But there is beauty in it if you can look away from the little screen in your hand. Addicted to It is a short, three-minute musical about a man who can’t put away his phone while taking a short stroll through the park. The movie’s message is light, but its reality is dark. Yet, there’s hope. All it takes is slowly breaking the addiction we have to our phones. It won’t be easy, since it is a drug. But it can be done because we’re no longer connecting in person.
As Dace (Jeff Marx) walks around singing the movie’s highlight song, he notices everyone in the park staring at their devices instead of each other. His entire life is now revolved around likes and social validation. Even a short disconnected stroll becomes an agonizing exercise in restraint. Dace’s phone calls for him in the form of a cute bunny tied to an iPhone, voiced by Mel Brooks. Phony Bunny comes off as cuddly but is menacing. All he wants to do is suck Dace’s life away through his algorithm. The movie directly says, “we become a slave to our technology,” when we spend time away from our friends, followed by images of people staring at their devices to the point where they can’t eat, sleep, or pee without them.
The phones are part of a malicious data-gathering machine that’s pushing us against each other instead of connecting us. When’s the last time we’ve been with friends, or by ourselves, without being tethered to our 7-inch monolith? The tune is catchy and very Broadway-style. The song better work since it’s the entirety of the movie. The one ongoing joke that didn’t land was when Dace sings, “I’m a dic, dic, dic, dictated to my phone.” So far, the movie was pretty clever. Did it need the pee-pee pun?
Kids' movies have been exploring this avenue recently. The soul-sucking device that’s going to consume us all. Toy Story 5 is the thematic, feature-length version of Addicted to It, but about children. If you’ve seen kids recently, they scroll endlessly through YouTube Shorts, either on a tablet or the TV. The material they watch is AI slop, and the parents do the same on their phones at the same time. The family is no longer functioning together. They’re slaves to Skynet.
This movie proudly proclaims in its credits that it's all done by the craftsmanship of human beings. Its use of CGI and what looks like hand-drawn animation blends into a feast for the eyes that looks better than overly glossy products AI produces. Yet, it’s going to come for the visual effects artists. Their jobs will be done by a computer that will make audiences yearn for the days of human innovation. With a catchy tune and a load of hidden talent, you can spare the time to watch this short on something other than your telephone. Unless you want to miss all the delicious details in the eye candy. Ask the late David Lynch what he thinks about seeing movies on your phone.
