Jawline

I live in the same town as Austin and the movie portrays Kingsport as something it's not. The town is very much not rural. Most would argue that we actually live in a bubble of wealth because of the Eastman Chemical Company. I actually went to school with Austin and when people found out about the movie the laughed at the idea of it. The movie is very far from the truth so I wouldn't believe a thing about it. If you really want to watch a inspiring movie don't watch this. They stretch the truth to a very jarring degree.

This has got to be the cringiest thing ever. Nobody want's to hear about a 16 year olds "teenage girl lust". That is disgusting.

I enjoyed this documentary much more than I expected to. More surprisingly, I found myself caring about the protagonist and most (but certainly not all) of those involved.

This documentary takes an unbiased and detailed look at a social phenomenon that, I suspect, may be quite foreign to most of but is nonetheless real. This is the existence of social media 'influencers' and the mostly female fans who virtually worship them. I use quotation marks here because I find it slightly scary that these so-called 'influencers' actually have any influence. This documentary examines the attempts of one young man, 16-year-old Austyn Tester from Nowhere, Tennessee, to become a social media influencer. It gives us some insight into the world of other 'influencers', the girls who follow them and the avaricious managers who exploit them. For many of us this will be a real eye-opener.

It is easy to see why a teenager like Austyn would aspire to enter the ranks of the young men who gain celebrity status on the internet. He is a teenager living in poverty, in a dead end town, with no prospects, not much talent and not much going for him. Fortunately, he is not bad looking, he is a 16-year old male and he owns a computer with an internet connection. That's all that's required for social media celebrity status, if you can just somehow create a big enough profile. There is something sad about watching and listening to Austyn as he attempts to make a name for himself. Your heart really goes out to him. He seems like a nice kid, but sadly deluded.

The brief interviews with some of the girls who follow these social media personalities, giving them god-like status, are eye-openers too and also heart breaking. None of them are the popular girls in school. They are the girls who are bullied, who are outcasts, who are just ordinary or who just don't fit in. The young men they follow give them a sense of belonging, of self worth and value. It is all so sad. To their credit, it seems the social media 'influencers' recognise this and treat their fans with respect and affection. So they should, because these fans are the source of whatever fame and income they have. You really get the impression that these are two groups of equally damaged people who are feeding off and sustaining each other. As I said, there is something terribly sad and disturbing about this whole scenario.

Lastly, we get to see the managers who latch on to these young men to help them achieve their dreams and become the celebrities they desire to be. These people are perhaps the most realistic of the three groups in that they see the social media phenomenon for what it is - and they see an opportunity to make money from it for themselves. These managers or agents or whatever else they choose to call themselves are predators who latch on to and manipulate and exploit aspiring influencers and use them to line their own pockets. They don't care for the people they are 'managing'. Unlike the influencers and their fans, they recognise that these young men don't actually have any talent, that all they have going for them is their looks and that their fame is going to be short-lived but that other young men who rise up to take their places. These managers and agents, particularly the one we see profiled here, Michael Something-or-other, are a fairly unsavoury lot. I said that they were the most realistic group of those involved in this business, but in their own way they are also deluded. They imagine themselves to be real movers and shakers in the entertainment business, people who others sit up and take notice of. These creepy, manipulative individuals who lack the charisma or personality to be influencers themselves, are convinced that they have achieved fame and influence themselves by controlling and exploiting the careers of others. They really are very unpleasant human beings.

I found this a fascinating and very revealing documentary. I have no hesitation in recommending it, particularly to parents. There is much food for thought here.

As a teenager who has grown up in the infamous Lynn Garden Drive area of Kingsport, the producer of this film & Austyn both missed a great opportunity to truly expose what holds youth back from fame, especially in a rural area. Many will argue that this can't be considered a rural area because we have a huge factory, an entire area of mansions, and we're ONLY 30 minutes from a decent mall. But there's a class split between the rich and poor, that many are too blind or privileged to see. You don't understand it or see it until you live on a street without sidewalks, and there are people tweaking out constantly walking down the road & you can't go outside, you go to sleep at night and your leaking, molding ceiling drenches your mattress. Half of the people your millennial sister went to high school with are on meth, have kids who have kids, and they're all in the arrested papers from an array of domestic assault to drug charges. You can't join any extracurriculars to become a teacher's star studded favorite, because you can't afford the thousands of dollars worth of band fees each year. And there's still not enough money with both of your parents working jobs, because the best you can get without going back to college is a factory job.

There are youth way worse off than Austyn, but there are also youth way better off than Austyn, youth that could skyrocket way past his level of fame with the money they have. Austyn truly missed an opportunity to expose beyond a couple short, jabbing statements & briefly heart wrenching scenes- the bitter truth. If you are born into trash in a town like this, you are most likely going to be stuck in trash. Even with the small boost of fame he received, he wasn't lucky enough to raise the bar. He's aware that this town doesn't have much to offer, he's aware that there's not easy help for kids that have lost their way, and not fully exposing those issues lost a lot of potential sympathy & documentary content beyond scenes of goofing off and flashing the luxurious life of being on tour.

If it wasn't for the unpleasant, anxiety inducing struggles that low-income youth have to suffer, maybe Austyn would've had the energy or funds to continue on without falling behind. But in a town like this, it's not always enough to just chase your dreams, you really do have to put in work, and go through disappointment, being more broke than you ever have before one week just to hopefully have the most money you've had ever, the next. It's a lot of sacrifices, staying the course, and not becoming a product of your environment, especially when part of your environment has been abusive.

If the film hadn't tiptoed around so many negative subjects relating to the environment he's dealt with, maybe audiences would be more sympathetic, maybe we would be able to expose the true grit of escaping a town with low opportunity and low expectations, and we wouldn't be a lost statistic. Being trapped as a product of your environment doesn't just happen in your television dramas, or in a famously notorious town like Chicago, it happens in places like Kingsport too. Austyn is awfully inspirational, and luckily still conventionally attractive enough to grab attention from masses, but he's looking to the masses of people to inspire.

Maybe next time we'll get a film that isn't afraid to go further than the surface, and raise the bar for rural towns.

"I'm my own boss, my own editor, my own shooter, my own writer, everything. This is all stuff I learned through trial and error... failing at a lot of things has taught me how to succeed at them eventually... you roll with the punches." Lily Singh, influencer

It doesn't take much to be cynical about the instant fame of broadcast influencers like the protagonist of the powerful, perceptive, and sometimes depressing documentary Jawline, directed with insight and care by Liz Mandelup. Austin Tester, a 16-year-old Tennessee social media personality, is struggling to keep the thousands of fans who connect with him online.

In the four or so years chronicled by this objective and compassionate doc, Austin goes from the high of being recognized and rushed by scores of teens and tweens whenever he appears in public to scrounging for "likes."

Handsome he is, not as articulate or charismatic as my friend Derek, whose fans get more wit than they deserve. D has got talent.

While Austyn seems to decline in hits and energy as well as high school credit, he stays dedicated to his craft of expressing positivity, as his manager, barely older, demands he do all the time. Hovering around is the distant smell of failure, if not now but inevitably, for the competition is just as fierce as in entertainment in general, and Austyn is just not that talented.

Making it here and anywhere is not a given. For Sinatra it always was, but that was a talent given by the gods.

See Jawline if you want to experience teen passion in an audience that similarly adored Frank. If like me you can stand only so many wasteful words like "like," then start your own YouTube channel and see how few "like" you. It's rough out there.