Ashley Madison: sesso, scandali e bugie

We weren't planning to watch this three-part docu-series, but a few extra hours the other day and a fetid curiosity led us astray and we binged it in one sitting. Once again, I'll save you the time and unless you really care about a skeezy website that helps people have affairs, there isn't much there there. I'd heard about the major hack, but knew (or cared) little about it and after watching this show, I didn't feel much sympathy for the people whose names were leaked. However, the show did raise an interesting point about the people who dove into the data and made it more easily accessible. As we continue to see, vigilante internet mobs can be dangerous, with their self-righteousness and certitude. The most empathetic character was the wife of the pastor who killed himself after his name appeared in the leak, and the least interesting (and annoying) had to be the nauseating Christian influencer couple who took up the most screen time. I needed a shower after watching this and am convinced Noel Biderman is one of the more despicable and poisonous pied pipers in the business world.

Of the handful of the people they profiled, I.e. Christian guy, suicide guy, etc they all took ridiculous selfie / regular photos with really stupid looks on their faces, like they were always trying to be funny....

I believe that anyone who constantly takes pics like this are liars who are hiding something. I'll admit this is a far fetched theory but I've notice this in other documentaries also. A real man doesn't do this. So take a look at your significant others social media and also the photos around your house. You might be married to one of these unfaithful idiots and you didn't even know it.

This series show how a website exploited married people who wanted to cheat on their spouses without getting caught.

What is truly amazing is the sheer number: at one point, 37 millions subscribers !

Also some of the characters are presented as actually very good people. One is a Christian who really loved his wife and kids. Another one is a respected minister in a church.

However, what is unbelievable is that these millions of people gladly gave all their most private information and trusted the website to protect their privacy.

I watched the whole 3 episodes in one sitting.

I thought it was well put together by Netflix.

This documentary has a lot of excuses and rationalizing for why it's ok for cheaters to deceive and betray their partner's trust. For the record, it's not just religious people who think infidelity is wrong and immoral.

The CEO, who only appears in clips, seems like the biggest sleazebag.

As for the Christian couple, they're attention seeking phonies and probably only agreed to be in the documentary because they're clearly addicted to views. Everything they said felt inauthentic and just an excuse to have screen time.

Overall, the story is interesting, particularly the hacking, but this definitely didn't need to be three episodes. Even two is pushing it.

No matter how interesting the subject matter may be, this "series" is biased beyond belief. At first I almost couldn't believe that the victims of this doc were the unfaithful partners, it just seemed insane. But yes, we were expected to watch the cheaters explain their stories as if they are recounting traumatic events and feel sorry for them.

The "victims" paint themselves as naive and discontent partners tricked into doing something stupid (not immoral, just stupid) who then faced unfair consequences.

It's quite rich that the filmmakers have people in the doc explaining how the hack ruined so many lives, and yet don't see the hypocrisy that they are defending those guilty of infidelity, which undoubtedly ruins lives. They want us to be scared of the group responsible for the hack, but I think they should be seen as America's most noble whistleblowers.