Bitter feuds and toxic obsessions: Netflix’s Beef is the perfect metaphor for social media

The 10-part series depicts a road rage altercation that rapidly spirals into something dangerous and deranged. There could hardly be a sharper analogy for our fraught online interactions, writes Louis Chilton

Searching for a signal: Ali Wong and Steven Yeun in ‘Beef' (Netflix)

At a glance, Beef may look like a tale you already know well. The 10-part Netflix series follows a road rage spat between two dissatisfied millennials (Steven Yeun and Ali Wong) that snowballs into a bitter, dangerous feud. This notion – of a perennially escalating conflict between strangers – has been brought to the screen many times before, in everything from Steven Spielberg’s Duel to old Laurel and Hardy shorts like Big Business or Tit for Tat. “Blood will have blood,” said Macbeth, and it’s true. Or at the very least, property destruction will have property destruction.

But outside this age-old conceit, Beef is a distinctly modern parable, one that could only exist in the age of social media. In fact, its whole story – of misplaced rage, futile grudges and petty one-upmanship – is pretty much the perfect metaphor for online behaviour. Its very title tugs at this fact: these days, we seldom hear the word “beef” (outside the usual culinary context) without it being prefixed by the word “Twitter”. The penchant for caustic tete-a-tetes on the timeline is something that has consumed many celebrities, from Kim Kardashian to Piers Morgan. Donald Trump, prior to his (recently overturned) expulsion from the platform, was the de facto master of the Twitter feud, capable of zeroing in on his critics’ weaknesses and insecurities with genuine – albeit crass and often ungrammatical – aplomb. Twitter’s current CEO, Elon Musk, is also no stranger to a social media fracas: he’s even found himself sparring humiliatingly with his own employees. But Twitter beefs are by no means the refuge of the elite. From pauper to king, we’re all just one “@” away from our next mortal enemy.

What makes Beef such an apt analogy for this? It is, first and foremost, a show about two unhappy people. While the show does probe the class differences between the well-to-do Amy (Wong) and the financially struggling Danny (Yeun), the conflict is never ideological at its core. Rather, this is the story of a damaged duo who used the feud as a way of sublimating deeper psychological issues. It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to diagnose a similar pattern in many of the vitriolic exchanges you see online. There is something, too, distinctly online about the way Danny and Amy’s feud metastasises – by increment, yes, but still rapidly. One minute you’re yelling at an errant motorist, the next you’re dousing a car in gasoline.

Of course, it isn’t all metaphor: social media plays a significant and overt role in the series itself. It is through the internet that Danny is able to locate Amy after their first clash. (Upon finding her, he insinuates his way into her house under false pretenses, before urinating over her bathroom floor.) The web quickly becomes a tool for sabotage, as Danny’s business is spammed with negative Yelp reviews. Maybe not quite as elegant as Oliver Hardy pouring honey into the drawer of a rival shopkeeper’s cash register – but just as damaging. “Catfishing” also becomes a key plot point in the series, as does a risky cryptocurrency investment. At every juncture, Danny and Amy’s feud is facilitated and exacerbated by the internet.

And yet, Beef ultimately manages to find optimism in the fog of hatred. The series ends with an episode of psychedelic reckoning and conciliation between its two nemeses; snake and mongoose finally embrace. Significantly, catharsis is reached only after they have been cut off from the internet, when they are stranded in the digital wilderness following one last exhaustive tussle. Open, compassionate communication is indeed possible – but only when phones are a distant memory. Perhaps there’s a lesson there.

So next time you find yourself riled up by some bone-headed tweet or vainglorious Facebook post, maybe just let it slide into the ether uncontested. The acid thrill of an easy “win” can be tempting – but before you know it, you’re left with a bathroom full of urine, or worse.

‘Beef’ is streaming on Netflix