As "Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia" (2023 release; 88 min) opens, it is "2012, New York", and two guys,, Rus and Colin, are turning heads with their innovative Vine app, allowing for 6 second videos (yes, TikTok before there was TikTok. Vine gets snapped up by Twitter, which then inexplicably shuts it down after 2 years. Colin and Rus then start the HQ Trivia in August, 2017 with exactly 284 users... At this point we are 10 minutes into the documentary.
Couple of comments: this is the latest from documentary director Selima Koroma ("Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street"). Here she assesses the very rapid rise, and even quicker fall, of HQ Trivia. The documentary brings is in a breezy way. The film makers interview all of the right sources, including some with HQ and also several tech reporters. The documentary exposes the rifts and other problems between Colin and Rus, and it all feels quite remarkably similar to that other documentary from earlier this year on the rise and fall of BlackBerry. Along the way in the film we got the following trivia question: All all startups, how many meet their demise: 10 percent? 50 percent? 90 percent? The correct answer is of course the latter. I'm frankly surprised that the percentage isn't higher.
"Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia" premiered on CNN in March, and started streaming on Max this weekend. I caught it last night. I was a little surprised that as of now this movie is rated 100% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, as that feels a bit too high for me. That aside, if you, are in the mood for a breezy and entertaining documentary about yet another tech company's rapid rise and even quicker demise, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.
