By now, I’m sure you have all heard about – or at least seen the memes – of the infamous Tinder Swindler. The Netflix original documentary shares the story of a group of women who were the victims of a dating app-based swindler posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul.
The story left me with a mix of emotions, shock, awe, frustration, humour – all mixed in a one-hour and 54-minute documentary. The story left me with a mix of emotions, shock, awe, frustration, humour – all mixed in a one hour and 54-minute documentary. While the story continues to unfold in front of our eyes, with the story’s villain, Simon Leviev, claiming his innocence, the documentary combines true crime and a familiar dating app to portray an all too relatable story.
From the beginning, readers are attracted to the romance, mystery, and relatability of a modern-day love story. Referencing The 8-Point Story Arc, the Twitter thread’s statis provides a familiar landscape that readers can identify – swiping on Tinder; a setting that over 75 million monthly active Tinder users can relate to.
As noted in Nick Reese’s article, How to use storytelling to craft better Tweets, the almost two-hour documentary is now into digestible chunks by breaking the storyline down into a twitter thread.
Following topics conveyed in Victoria Smith’s Ted-Ed video How to make your writing suspenseful, the Twitter thread follows the documentary’s cliff hanger ending – suggesting that the story is not over yet and encouraging the readers to want to learn more.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 