Gone Viral

Crazy8s: Gone Viral 💊 (2026)

It be your own people.

GONE VIRAL is true-crime podcast meets The Substance (2024), where content creators gain access to a mysterious juice that boosts their follower counts and skyrockets their online acclaim.

Amelia becomes consumed by the disappearances of Black creators, the same creators whose original content suddenly starts going viral after being repackaged and reposted by other users. What she uncovers is far more disturbing than people simply gaming the algorithm with some miracle concoction.

I’ve always believed that in the digital age, trends are almost impossible to gatekeep, no matter how deeply rooted they are in culture or how blurred the line between appreciation and appropriation becomes. But the further we descend into an internet ruled (or perhaps governed) by algorithms, the more ownership over creative work starts to matter. Especially when your content goes ignored while someone else profits from the exact same material.

What’s worse is the feeling that the colour of your skin is the very thing keeping you from breaking through. Worse than that? The idea of your own community exploiting that struggle for profit before anyone else can.

There’s a ruthless “if we can’t beat them, join them” mentality running through GONE VIRAL, or at the very least, “profit off our own before somebody else does.” The film understands that there will always be people willing to stall progress for personal gain, and it weaponizes that truth brilliantly.

Stories centered around race and online culture can easily become heavy-handed or preachy, but GONE VIRAL never loses sight of its bigger idea. Race is an essential layer of the story, not its entire identity. At its core, this is about an online ecosystem engineered to reward some creators while burying others.

Writers Felicia Simone and Kat Reynolds clearly draw inspiration from The Substance, but instead of imitation, they build something with its own voice, style, and bite.

GONE VIRAL feels cinematic in both style and storytelling, making it one of the standout shorts from this year’s Crazy8s Gala. 

Enjoy!🍿 🎥

Runtime: 17mins

Where: The 2026 Crazy8s Gala

The Richmond Reviewer Crazy8s Gone Viral Review - May 6th, 2026.