A Minecraft Movie: A Movie for Losers

Teenage boys used to be cool.

Teenage boys used to be rebellious in a way that felt at least somewhat culturally valuable. They spearheaded counter-cultural activities and artistic movements, like skateboarding and punk music. This “coolness” has always been performative, but it never felt informed by a desire for attention. Now, “coolness” is synonymous with chaos, destruction, and above all else, this thirst for attention at any cost. Now, to feel cool, teenage boys are trashing movie theatres across the globe during screenings of *checks notes* A Minecraft Movie...

Based on the 2011 video game, Minecraft, A Minecraft Movie was released in theatres a few weeks ago. Directed by Jared Hess (best known for his work on Napoleon Dynamite), the film follows four misfits as they enter a cubic world and try returning to the real world with the help of a crafter named Steve. Due to the financial success of the film, there is already a sequel in development, because why the hell wouldn’t there be? Minecraft is the highest grossing video game of all time, so of course this would translate to box-office ticket sales. Further, as soon as the first trailer dropped, memes (both praising the trailer and critiquing it) began circulating social media, creating even more buzz for the film. I am not surprised by the attention this film has received. I am, however, deeply annoyed by the attitudes and actions connected to A Minecraft Movie.

I consider going to the theatre an escape. Ever since I was a kid, going to the movies has been something that comes with a set of rules and attached etiquette. You sit in your seat, clean up after yourself after the film, put your phone away, and laugh and react to the film in a manner which is not immensely disruptive for the other people you are SHARING the space with. For a couple of hours, you are in a quiet space that is meant to be away from phones, deadlines, and chaos. Unfortunately, I don’t think people who are going to see A Minecraft Movie understand this.

Since the film’s release, theatres have erupted into chaos. Theatres for A Minecraft Movie filled with teenage boys are being trashed and vandalized, with some screenings becoming violent. Cops have been called on numerous occasions. Theatre managers have had to step in and warn audiences not to yell or throw full bags of popcorn and drinks in the air during the film. Audiences have taken to booing and screaming whenever one of the female characters is on screen. There has been vomit, water, and other food items strewn across aisles. A theatre employee was even physically assaulted during a screening. People are now bringing live chickens (a reference to the line in the film about a Chicken Jockey, which is usually the catalyst for this insane behaviour) to screenings. Of course, all of this is being recorded and posted online because A. these audiences have their phones out and are recording everything that happens and B. this chaos is all about attention.

I do not want to single out the teenage boys attending these screenings, but it is mostly teenage boys participating. To the grown men also participating in this behaviour... I genuinely do not know what to say. This behaviour points to a much larger cultural issue. Teenagers are a part of a generation that has grown up behind a screen, spending hours scrolling through social media, while digesting some of the vilest videos, comments, and views shared online. Their idols are young men who wake up and immediately begin livestreaming their day, with chaos and disrespect resulting in more clout and views. Because of this obsession with virality, the memeabilty of A Minecraft Movie made it an easy target for this behaviour, with the theatregoing experience placing second to their egos.

I cannot imagine being so irony-pilled or irony-poisoned that I no longer take anything seriously. Audiences at these screenings reduce their violent, loud, and disrespectful behaviour to mere “jokes,” believing that it is simply not that serious. Criticism of their actions is reduced to the critic having a “crash out.” Since they were raised by social media, where messiness and disrespect are rewarded, they replicate what they see online in the real world due to this performative disinhibition. To these teenage boys, nothing is real. Everything is one big joke, so long as they go viral and get the attention which makes them foam at the mouth. They write everything off as “comedy,” but what is the punchline here? The young people working at the theatre caught in the crossfire? The family simply trying to watch the film? I don’t think so.

Going viral equals coolness for the teen boys at these A Minecraft Movie screenings. Their 15-hour-a-day-screentime on TikTok alone has taught them to appease the algorithm with their destruction. So, they manufacture a coolness that is solely associated with virality. This coolness, rooted in destruction and performance, is almost always practiced to gain the respect of other boys and men. Since when did being cool become living life in service of an algorithm? For them, everything is attention. Every moment of their lives needs to be “clipped,” because they cannot be considered cool by other boys and men if there is no online proof. Realistically, recording yourself yelling and destroying a theatre in a movie made for babies and children holds the same level of coolness as when someone presses the stop request button on a bus at the wrong stop because it is “funny.”

This is not me hating fun. This is me hating loser behaviour. What it points to is the larger anti-intellectual beliefs rotting the brains of these boys. Audience participation always has its place in theatre screenings! Think of the singalong/cabaret The Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings! Think of The Room late-night screenings that are filled with plastic spoon throwing! However, there is something controlled about this, especially since most audiences at The Room screenings help theatre staff clean up the spoons after. Again... There is a larger problem at play here. I mean, seriously, do these boys know how to engage with anything respectfully? Do they know what irony is? Do they know how to read or write or sit with anything for longer than a cycle or trend? Do they know how to live outside of these cycles and trends? Everything is ironic and if it is not content, it needs to become ironic to become content.

Superficial coolness has made people – particularly young people – boring, inconsiderate, disrespectful, and stupid. Being rebellious once lead to cool art being made. Now, rebellion is flippant. Rebellion means using mommy and daddy’s money to buy a ticket for A Minecraft Movie – which I need to reiterate, is FOR CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES – and throwing $50 worth of concessions in the air during a scene that has been reduced to a meme. It has become cool to go see A Minecraft Movie not for the film itself, but for the experience of proving that you are cool.

It’s awful that some people are ruining the experience of watching A Minecraft Movie for others. Posting videos of you and your friends trashing a movie theatre online is embarrassing. Though, at the end of the day, what consequences will these people face that will matter to them? If they have already achieved a certain amount of clout or views that is satisfactory for them, I believe nothing done to them will teach them a lesson. No matter what the consequence, they will find a way to make it into a status symbol of coolness, all while posting about it too.