‘Leave The World Behind’ Trends As Cyber Attack Fears Spread Amid Ongoing Social Media and Phone Network Outages

Better stock up on bottled water and canned food. The internet predicts that an apocalyptic event akin to the 2023 Netflix apocalyptic movie Leave the World Behind is set to occur following widespread technological glitches. 

The movie title was trending on Twitter on Tuesday (Mar. 5) during the recent Meta social media outage, as well as during the massive AT&T network outage in February that affected over 58,000 users.

Based on a novel by Rumaan Alam and directed by Sam Esmail, the movie follows two families stuck in the same house during a catastrophic attack in the United States. Upon its release, the thriller spent 5 weeks in the Global Top 10 Films and reached Top 10 Films in 93 countries. Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, and Myha’la Herrold star.

In the movie, an affluent family rents a vacation home for a beach stay but is visited by the homeowners who claim that there has been an attack and they need to seek refuge. At the start of the attack, it is noted that their wi-fi, television, and cellular devices are no longer working.

After the AT&T incident, the service provider released a statement saying that the outage was caused by a process issue, rather than a cyber attack. Meta has yet to provide details about the Instagram and Facebook outage, which lasted roughly an hour, though a spokesperson shared, “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

During the social media outage, one frightened Twitter user wrote, “After y’all told me how we always getting cyber attacked and I watched Leave The World Behind, I be SHOOK every time sections of the internet go down.

“I fear we are moving closer to a Leave the World Behind scenario. These tech glitches are increasing with regularity,” noted another.

“This morning we had a power outage while I was drying my hair on what’s supposed to be my WFH day. Now IG/FB are down. Not saying I’m living in Leave the World Behind, but the vibes are all there,” tweeted a third person who appeared to be having a tough morning.

In the referenced movie, Ali’s character claims that the attack was a three-stage plot designed to destroy a country’s government from within and result in a civil war. Author Alam commented on the scene in an interview with Variety, saying, “He’s describing this scenario of attack, which will induce uncertainty in the population. In a way, what he’s afraid of is exactly what he’s experiencing. It’s just uncertainty. You as the viewer have to fill in the blanks of what that uncertainty looks like, whether it’s a cyber attack, whether it’s an act of war, whether it’s an environmental disaster, whether it’s just a collapse of civic order. That’s what’s so scary about it is that you just don’t know.”

Following the release, Business Insider spoke with a few cybersecurity experts about the likelihood of a similar event occurring in real life and they claimed it wasn’t likely due to the high number of telecommunications networks and modes of transportation that exist. However, New York Attorney General Letitia James noted at the time of AT&T outage that merely having the one service provided down posed a danger to consumers.

But as noted by Screen Rant, the movie employs details from several real-life disasters, such as the Three Mile Island incident, the “Love You Bug” virus, Havana Syndrome, and the 1999 NASA cyberattack, making the fictional scenario feel realistic and like it could easily be replicated.

In reality, social media and network outages are nothing new and the panic is likely the result of recency bias and paranoia. Props to Leave the World Behind for staying relevant! Meanwhile, I’ll be keeping my cool until I start hearing inexplicable shrilling noises or people’s teeth start randomly falling out.

Leave the World Behind is currently streaming on Netflix.