Directed by Caltech Theater’s Brian Brophy, Socially Unacceptable follows three Facebook content moderators who are hired to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Feeling lucky to have a job, these new employees spend their days in a virtual world, Zoom conferencing with teammates for full workdays.
As they screen the site’s most violent and offensive posts, these content moderators begin to deal with the dangerous psychological effects of the job, and their lives become increasingly interconnected both on screen and off.
In Socially Unacceptable playwright Matt Steinberg shows us five characters: the idealistic dreamer, the ambitious recruit, the easy-going confidant, the frustrated expert, and the manager just trying to hold it all together. Together they face the worst the internet has to offer—that which is completely socially unacceptable.
Socially Unacceptable explores the growing conflicts between big tech and health, and the cost at which our digital world looks the way it does.
The cast includes Caltech undergrads Winter Pearson ’23, Tanmay Gupta ’24, Joy Liu ’24, Emily Choe ’24 and Betty Wang ’21.
Socially Unacceptable will run for 3 performances:
(Please note new dates, rescheduled from original January show dates)
Thursday February 25, 2021
Friday, February 26, 2021
Saturday, February 27, 2021
5pm PST followed by Q&A with the playwright and students.
Let’s hope the moderators survive.
Admission is $5 for non-Caltech students, $10 for JPL/Caltech employees and $20 for everyone else. Tickets are available now here.
For more information, please visit tacit.caltech.edu.
