After a major “technical issue” with cybersecurity company CrowdStrike left Microsoft users around the world with the “Blue Screen of Death,” many people who saw the Barack and Michelle Obama-produced film Leave the World Behind were left with a feeling of déjà vu.
Released Oct. 25, 2023, on Netflix, the apocalyptic thriller follows a dysfunctional couple, played by Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke, whose Hamptons vacation gets interrupted by the end of the world, which starts with a technology outage a lot like the one currently causing global chaos.
“Everyone waking up this morning seeing news of the CrowdStrike hack that caused a Global IT Outage realizing this how ‘Leave the World Behind’ started…,” wrote one Twitter user.
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Another social media user claimed to have just watched the film.
“Just watched Leave the world behind yesterday and was thinking about if the massive connection outages will happen in irl what we'll do, and today saw it live across the world😭,” they wrote. “Conspiracy theories do not remain theories anymore. #Microsoft”
And then one social media user who describes themself as a “conspiracy realist” tweeted the quiet part out loud.
“Barack Obama made a movie called ‘Leave the World Behind’ whereby a cyber blackout plunged the entire World into chaos ... It’s almost as if they knew,” they wrote on X.
Of course, there were others who lamented the fact that “every time an apocalypse or post apocalypse movie/show comes out, it basically feeds the tin foil folks new conspiracy theories.”
As the world crumbles around Roberts and Hawke in Leave the World Behind, audiences meet Kevin Bacon, Mahershala Ali and Myha’la in roles and scenarios that serve to critique America’s heightened racial tensions and fears of an impending attack. However, the film wasn’t seriously thought to be a foreshadowing of things to come until now.
“Yesterday was ‘Idiocracy,’ today is ‘Leave the World Behind’… ,:” wrote another X user, referring to Hulk Hogan’s surreal shirt-ripping RNC appearance. "Maybe we are living in a simulation… 😂"
Maybe.
