Complications of social media explored in ‘Ingrid Goes West’
TORONTO Actress Aubrey Plaza has a complicated relationship with social media.
As a producer on two films this year, including this week’s release “Ingrid Goes West,” she says she gets excited promoting those projects on Twitter and Instagram.
But as her character in “Ingrid Goes West” shows, there’s also a well-known dark side to online life and Plaza says when it comes to sharing personal stuff, she has “more negative feelings about it than positive.”
“I think there’s a lot of great things about it, but I think the negative can be kind of scary and I think it can sometimes leave people feeling isolated,” Plaza says by phone from Los Angeles.
“For me personally, sometimes it makes me feel bad, so I try to be very aware of how I feel when I’m on it and when I'm using it."
Out Friday in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, “Ingrid Goes West” stars Plaza as the titular character, who develops unhealthy obsessions with Instagram “influencers.” When she moves to Los Angeles to be closer to her latest obsession, a socialite played by Elizabeth Olsen, she grapples with mental health issues as the two become close.
Matt Spicer directed and co-wrote the film, which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival and is described as “‘Single White Female’ for the social-media generation.” Co-stars include O'Shea Jackson Jr., Wyatt Russell and Billy Magnussen.
“I think the things that scare me the most about social media and just the internet in general are just those moments in my day when I am kind of mindlessly on those spaces, when I pick my phone up in a moment of boredom and I’m going on Instagram,” says Plaza, who played deadpan April Ludgate on “Parks and Recreation.”
“Those moments are scary to me because it’s an unconscious thing, and I think a lot of people deal with that, where it’s filling this space in our day where we otherwise could be present and enjoying our lives in the physical, tangible world.”
Plaza says she’s more interested in using social media as a tool to promote her work, not her personal life. In fact, she also has a private Instagram account under a different name.
“I’ve had that way longer than I’ve had this new one,” says Plaza. “That’s one thing that I really like about Instagram, is that you do have the option to be private.
“So in that way, I can use it just like a normal person, just like anyone else and just follow my actual, real friends and have them follow me. And I can definitely be a little bit more of myself on there, because those are people that I actually know.”