Nerve is a fairly new movie starring a couple of familiar faces like Dave Franco, Emma Roberts, Machine Gun Kelly, and The Fat Jewish. When an online game brought from the dark web reaches kids in the city, competition meets its peak as players strive to win the grand money prize. The main forces that bring this game to such popularity are the power of the people playing/watching and the anonymous hackers who created it. The formula is rather simple; you are either a player or a watcher. The watchers create the dares and the players complete them for money. If you fail or bail, then all money is lost and you are out of the game. Money is the prize, but in the end is it truly just about the money?

Each dare varies in the amount of risk and danger involved. Most of the dares are fun and adventurous, but when it comes down to the finals it’s either life or death. In an arena like setting, the two finalists are surrounded by crowds of watchers as they cheer on for the soon to be winner. When the players decide that this has gone too far, they try to convince the crowd that this will be on their moral record after the “fun and games” are over. The crowd doesn’t want to hear it and there seems to be no way out.

The genius players decide to stage the completion of a life-threatening dare. I’ve spared a chunk of the details to keep this as a light summary without releasing any spoilers.

In a world run by followers and likes, how does the role of anonymity and power relate to one another? This film is just one example, but it does a great job at showing us how this works in the real world and it is very frightening.

Think of the bystander effect — one person sees a crime happen, but they decide it’s someone else’s business. The bystander effect increases as the number of people surrounding an event also increases. This film portrays a very serious issue that we deal with all of the time. We see it online as our social media friends complain about politicians and the various events occurring in the news. As innocent as it may sound, it’s as if the idea of having millions of users online allows us to assign ourselves the role of a bystander. The watchers in Nerve didn’t think much of their actions and they certainly didn’t hold themselves accountable. This is exactly what we need to learn from. Although the film isn’t an exact replica of what we are facing, we still need to hold ourselves accountable when it comes to the way we approach things in a world run by screens.

A simple dare in Nerve can take a life. A simple post online can do the same damage. The art of winning varies, but a good player knows when to move and when to stay put.

So, are you a player or are you a watcher?