If you’re at all interested in technology and pop culture, there’s a good chance that, back in 2018, you put your life on hold twice a day to pull your smartphone out of your pocket and play a round of HQ Trivia — a live, online game show where players attempted to answer a string of multiple-choice questions to win a cash prize. Hosted (for the most part) by a previously unknown but supremely charismatic comedian named Scott Rogowsky, HQ Trivia felt like a party as much as it did a game show. Anyone could play along with a group of nearby friends or join in the online chat that accompanied the game. At its height that March, more than two million users were logging in to compete in the evening show. And then, almost as quickly as it took off, HQ Trivia collapsed as a result of tech issues, behind-the-scenes turmoil, a struggle to keep players interested, and the fatal drug overdose by one of the app’s founders. All of this is covered in Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia, a new documentary that originally premiered on CNN back in March but had its streaming debut on Max just last week.
Directed by Salima Koroma (Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street), Glitch should prove at least moderately interesting to anyone who was hooked on the game. Heck, it may even make you nostalgic for a time when Twitter was still fun, one-time HQ Trivia guest host Dwayne Johnson could do no wrong, and people would lose their minds over winning just a few bucks from a live trivia app. (The way the game worked was that everyone who correctly answered all the questions would split that day’s prize. It often boiled down to just a handful of cents. Your humble reviewer is happy to report that I once won $1.77 during a horror movie edition of the game and tacked on another 56 cents by barreling through a Back to the Future-themed installment.) But the documentary also feels, to some extent, like a final chance for some of those heavily involved with HQ to cash in on a long since faded fad. The film is executive produced by two former HQ Trivia execs (which could explain how the doc can include so much footage from the live shows), and, while a number of former employees and tech journalists are interviewed on screen, it’s Rogowsky who’s largely front and center, telling the story of what happened from his vantage point as the show’s host.
‘Glitch’ Highlights the Trivia App’s Behind-the-Scenes Drama
Every film, even a documentary, needs a villain, and Glitch‘s is HQ Trivia co-founder Rus Yusupov, who the movie portrays as an Elon Musk-loving “tech bro” who had big plans for the app but who also stunted innovation, grew jealous of the game’s breakout host, and possibly maneuvered behind the scenes to make sure he alone retained control of the company. Yusupov, who declined to be interviewed (making the doc somewhat one-sided), is a natural showman who excelled at promoting the promise of HQ Trivia while leaving the technical side of things to his partner Colin Kroll, a camera-shy engineer with a history of having harassment claims filed against him at work. The relationship between the two seems unstable from the beginning, and the documentary makes it clear that neither was prepared to handle the pressure that would come with HQ Trivia’s almost overnight success. Rogowsky, meanwhile, mostly comes across as a good-natured fellow who just wanted to keep the good times rolling only to repeatedly find himself flummoxed by decisions being made by the people in charge. His perspective is a vital one, but there’s also an underlying bitterness that bubbles to the surface probably too many times for the movie’s own good.
Glitch does a fine job showing the mania surrounding HQ Trivia during the few months when it went supernova. Offering up supporting facts on screen in the graphical style of the game show’s multiple choice questions is a nice touch. But once the downward trajectory starts, it feels like the viewer is only getting pieces of the big picture that you’re meant to assemble yourself. As more and more people logged into play, the app started suffering from regular technical difficulties, but the documentary doesn’t really detail what the specific challenges were in keeping the game playable. It does point out how Kroll and other team members were busy trying to grow HQ through the use of various spinoff games while failing to consider the notion that expansion probably wasn’t the best idea when the main game was coming apart at the seams. Kroll was found dead in his bedroom at the end of 2018 with fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine in his system, so the film has no way to offer up his side of the story either. His death is awkwardly treated both solemnly and as just another “can you believe this?” event among many that befell the app.
The Documentary, Like the HQ Trivia App Itself, Fizzles Out
Because HQ didn’t just implode one day, instead just petering out, Koroma also feels unsure about how to end her film. The climax is centered on what was supposed to be HQ Trivia’s “final show,” but the documentary awkwardly points out in its closing moments that it was eventually resurrected by Yusupov before ending on an on-screen graphic informing the viewer that, as of this past January, the app was once again not functioning. (Though there aren’t new shows being broadcast currently, the HQ Trivia app can still be downloaded to this day.) It all just builds to a bit of a shrug, exemplified by the image of Rogowsky blowing leaves off the sidewalk in front of the vintage clothing shop he operates now.
Ultimately, there’s no grand statement to be made, and what we’re left with is a pretty standard tech industry story about a company that takes off and then, largely thanks to poor planning and bad behavior, flames out — a tale we’ve been told several times over since the dot-com boom of the late 90s. If you were an HQtie (as Rogowsky affectionately dubbed regular players) back in the day, you might find watching this documentary to be 90 minutes well spent. But if you weren’t playing the game, there’s not much of a case to be made for checking out Glitch.
Rating: C
The Big Picture
- Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia is a tumultuous documentary that covers the sudden rise and precipitous fall of the popular live trivia app.
- The documentary focuses on some of the behind-the-scenes drama of HQ Trivia, including tech issues, internal conflicts, and the tragic death of one of the app’s founders.
- While it offers an interesting look into the mania surrounding the app’s success, Glitch fails to provide a comprehensive picture of the challenges faced by HQ Trivia and ultimately fizzles out.
Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia is now available to stream on Max.
