About

Dear David is an upcoming 2023 horror movie based on the 2017 Dear David Twitter story by cartoonist and writer Adam Ellis about a ghost haunting his apartment. The film's premise, source material and studio led to the trailer getting mocked by many across social media following its reveal in July 2023.

History

On August 7th, 2017, Adam Ellis first began telling the Dear David story, which would then slowly have updates tweeted out every so often, continuing on with the plot using supplemental material such as camera footage^[1] and pictures (shown below).

Watch the chair. pic.twitter.com/jXtIxpkVxD

— Adam Ellis (@moby_dickhead) August 29, 2017

The movie was first confirmed on June 6th, 2018, with BuzzFeed Studios taking the helm in creating and adapting it. On July 19th, 2023, the trailer for the film^[2] was finally released, revealing its Friday, October 13th release date. The main difference between the film story and the tweeted story is the ghost being able to use Twitter to engage back with Adam while he's "trolling the trolls," among other key differences (shown below).

Terror goes viral. Dear David premieres October 13 in theaters and on digital. #buzzfeedstudios #deardavid adamtots</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AugustusPrew?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">augustusprew @lionsgate pic.twitter.com/o4enW79zyc

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) July 19, 2023

Online Presence

The premise of the movie, that a ghost got upset at Adam Ellis' usage of Twitter and began to tweet him back before haunting him, led to a lot of people poking fun at the trailer and creating memes criticizing it. For example, on July 20th, 2023, Twitter user @HarryPhillips15^[3] tweeted his response to the trailer, saying that he was on the ghost's side because Ellis did tell someone to die in a fire, meaning it was his bad (shown below).

Because of the line in the film in which a character incredulously exclaims that Ellis believes a tweet is haunting his apartment, memes about the perceived absurdity began to be made and spread around on Twitter en masse. For example, on July 20th, 2023, Twitter user @DDayFilms^[4] uploaded a meme in which the iconic line from When A Stranger Calls is slightly edited to be about the social media posts (shown below).

Search Interest

External References