Letterboxd

About

Letterboxd is a social media platform designed for sharing, reviewing and rating movies and films. Users are able to create "lists" of movies, add movies to their "favorites" and communicate with each other regarding their love of movies and what films they've seen. The website was created in October 2011 and, as of July 2021, has roughly 3 million members.

History

Letterboxd was launched in October 2011 in Brooklyn, New York, although the company was founded by New Zealand natives Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow.^[1] The website was created in 2011, however, it wasn't officially released outside of a beta format until April 24th, 2012.^[2]

Membership to the website remained invitation-only throughout 2012. By February 2012, the website had logged roughly 40,000 members.^[3] It wasn't until February 8th, 2013, that the website became completely public.^[3] Additionally, the Letterboxed subreddit, /r/Letterboxd,^[4] was created on December 18th, 2012, and has accumulated roughly 22,800 members over nine years.

On August 30th, 2017, Letterboxd launched its mobile app, compatible with iOS and Android devices.^[5] This gave Letterboxd increased accessibility to users going into 2018.

In November 2019, Letterboxd co-founder Mathew Buchanan talked with The Los Angels Magazine^[6] about Letterboxd's success so far. He admitted to wanting to create an IMDb-style app that allowed users to follow each other and interact. He also revealed that as of November 2019, Letterboxd had roughly 1.5 million members.

As of July 2021, Letterboxd has roughly 3 million members.^[7] The company is based in Auckland, New Zealand as of November 2021.^[8]

Related Memes

After the site became more mainstream in August 2017 following its mobile app launch, Letterboxd began receiving more meme attention around the internet.

Insane Letterboxd Reviews

The first memes to come out of Letterboxd circles were related to movie reviews on the platform. These memes are known as Insane Letterboxd Reviews. On the app itself, users began leaving satirical reviews of movies. One of the earliest known examples of this is a December 2017 review^[9] posted by user BRAT of the movie Call Me By Your Name. The review (shown below) received roughly 10,600 likes on Lettterboxd over the course of four years.

Insane Letterboxd reviews also began receiving attention as screenshot reposts on Twitter starting in October 2018. Twitter^[10] user @BRlGSBYBEAR tweeted a screenshot of a Letterboxd user's review of the movie First Man. The tweet (shown below) received roughly 1,600 likes over the course of three years.

Letterboxd User Stereotypes

Although tweets about Letterboxd started becoming prevalent as early as October 2017,^[11] stereotypes about Letterboxd users didn't start becoming popularized until October 2018. Twitter^[12] user @sweatpantspapi posted a tweet on October 28th, 2018, likening Letteroxd users to "15-year-old bisexual anarchists." The tweet (shown below) received 51 likes in three years.

Letterboxd users became associated with general "Film Bro" stereotypes of implied pretentiousness. On November 29th, 2018, Twitter^[13] user @tylerllewtaing posted a tweet making fun of "men on letterboxd." The tweet (shown below) received roughly 1,200 likes over the course of three years.

Memes made about Letterboxd users received increased attention on Reddit's /r/Letterboxd, starting most notably in September 2020. The first known meme posted to /r/Letterboxd poking fun at Letterboxd users was uploaded on August 8th, 2020, by Redditor^[14] NEWBURNz. The meme (shown below) received roughly 400 upvotes over the course of 13 months.

Overall, Letterboxd memes began to revolve around these stereotypes of pretentious and male Doomer aesthetics, vaguely relating to obsessions with movies like Pulp Fiction and American Psycho, among others. Letterboxd memes also received an increase in attention following the release and hype surrounding the movie Parasite in 2019.^[15]

Additionally, multiple memes^[16] made about Letterboxd users revolve around how much effort they put into writing their reviews, oftentimes making perceivably cringeworthy efforts to eloquently describe movies.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References