Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/YouTube/Pixabay
In the streaming age, every piece of cultural ephemera, from Barney to LuLaRoe, will inevitably be reappraised in a documentary or podcast. The once-ubiquitous game app HQ Trivia has gotten both over the past few years, first with a podcast series on The Ringer network in 2020 and, now, in a new documentary film from CNN and HBOMax.
The latter, titled Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia, has already caused a stir online ahead of its premiere on CNN this Sunday night. In February, one of the original hosts of the internet game show, Sarah Pribis, posted a TikTok criticizing her exclusion from the project and has since made a “Tik-Tokumentary” recounting her experience at the “toxic” company. In a recent article for Rolling Stone, Glitch’s director, Salima Koroma, said that Pribis was brought in for a “pre-interview” but felt like she “had what [she] needed” regarding sources.
Present throughout Glitch, though, is comedian Scott Rogowsky, who became the face of HQ Trivia when he took over as the game’s primary host in 2017. Throughout the film, he spills on the mayhem that occurred behind the scenes at HQ during the app’s brief glory years, including his contentious relationship with one of the founders, Russ Yusupov.