My bet is that there’s some kind of corporation, maybe the people in charge of cam girl site Alice uses, that selects girls to replicate based on how capable they are of fighting back. They’d probably look at financial, occupation, relationship, and family data to determine how hard a prospect would be able to draw attention to the issue and get it fixed. Arnold seems to imply there’s some kind of algorithm to determine which girl is getting taken next, so there’s definitely a formula at hand, even if it’s not this one. The scary part about it, isn’t that it exists. It’s that people like Arnold know what’s happening and do nothing about it. Instead, he actively supports the endeavors by staying on the services and sliding into different DM’s. It’s more disturbing when you realize that he’s fine with the clone Lola. She looks the same and acts the same, so it doesn’t matter too much if the real one vanishes.
2. The final scene of Alice bashing her face in to win back her account is disturbing and hard to look away from. Brewer throws herself into the sequence , and the desperation with which she slams her face into the table visually demonstrates just how important her avatar is. It’s a way of earning a living and giving her a method of climbing the social ladder. Without it, she’s lost an essential method of controlling her representation.
I did think it was interesting that she chose to create a new identity and try everything again after all her ordeals. If the algorithm picked her before, there’s no reason it wouldn’t again. Is the point that the internet is inevitable so we just have to bite the bullet and try and set up safety nets to protect ourselves? Is she doing it because her previous life has been taken away from her through the destruction of her image in personal social circles, so changing identities is the best decision? Or is she simply doing it because it pays well and its normal to want to keep your job? The movie is great at showing you just enough to have you make your own judgement calls, but also shows you how other characters judgement calls are way off base. It’s almost like a gambit to see if you’ve reflected on what’s happened the whole movie.
