Review: ‘Under The Influence’ #3 Continues To Get My Follow

Welcome to the table,

Recently, I have been trying to get my screen time down. It’s not that I am on my phone all day, not more than I need to be for work or anything, anyway. But I find myself waking up in the middle of the night, and, not wanting to put in the effort to get up when I can’t fall back to sleep, but also not want to turn a lamp on to read because the darkness is comfortable, I end up doom scrolling for hours on end on TikTok or BlueSky.

I don’t hate it, but I can feel it eroding my attention span. If I’m listening to a show and it gets to a part that does not interest me, I want to swipe to the next plot point immediately. I want to hold down the screen and get to the point at 2X speed. If it takes longer than 15 seconds to hook me, I want to be done with it.

All of this has caused me, since January, to check myself week after week and try and lower my time. I’m down from 11 hours to 6, so that feels like something… but It’s still not good enough. Nothing is ever good enough. That’s the lesson that social media has taught me. The drive to always be as good as what others show us on social is going to be an ongoing thing and we are always going to be Under The Influence of it.

Under The Influence continues to be subversive and timely in the best possible ways as the plot continues to unfold like an unhinged TikTok story. The plot feels so authentic it could be UGC.

The death of a child by an undercover F.B.I. officer sparks a chain of events that, in the immediacy of the story, spell chaos, but the implications of how viral this whole thing can get speaks, no… it screams, to the way that social storms can rise out well-positioned posts. That’s what is so timely and fascinating about this book.

The team comprised of writer Eliot Rahal, artist Stefano Simeone, and letterer Frank Cvetkovic, really delivers a story that does not feel dated or out of touch in reference to the current social media landscape. Unlike some CSI/SVU/NCIS (are there other letters I’m missing?) that showcase social media as simple a way to catch a predator or to solicit sex work, Under the Influence actually feels like it’s created by a team who understands what follower count is and that ALL the sites are taking our information not just the ones from other countries.

In a world where the majority of our communication is happening across social media platforms, it’s really nice to read a story that feels current and in that space rather than like someone’s fake-uncle is sharing memes about tractors and liberty. I have a lot of feelings about the state of our social networks and the people who are trying to control them and I have no insight into where this story is going but I have a weird feeling that whenever this ends up, it’s going to be one hell of a ride I’m glad I stuck around for.

Normally, I’m not a fan of the types of stories set in the real world because they tend to be in the spaces where PTSD, guns, and abuse take place. And while I’m sure on some level all of those things could be tied to this story, this feels like the start of a new genre of comics. It’s a new age of understanding, by the people telling those stories, one that does not feel like someone’s mom who thinks her cell phone has foreign agents listening to her make plans to play uno. Whatever the case, I’m here for Under The Influence until it gets bought by a billionaire who’s having a midlife crisis and we all have to find a new place to share our memes.

Until next time, see you under BlueSkys.