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Time Business News
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Business News
Inside Stathamism, the New Film About the Reddit Cult That Worshiped Jason Statham
By Rossmen Evans There was a Reddit cult. It called itself Stathamism. It worshipped Jason Statham's character in Crank. It believed that living like Chev Chelios was the only way to be truly alive. That's not a joke. Back in 2019, a user who went by 'Opal' created the subreddit r/stathamism that would become ground zero for one of the weirdest digital rabbit holes the internet has ever seen. The basic idea? Reality was fake, and the only way to stay 'awake' inside it was to keep your adrenaline up at all times. Just like in the movie Crank. The subreddit looked like a joke at first. Users shared memes, screenshots, and video clips. But things started getting serious fast. People began reenacting scenes from Crank. Public stunts. Fights. Car chases. Someone posted a GoPro video of themselves jumping from a roof onto a moving truck. One thread casually discussed heart defibrillators as 'ritual tools.' By the time Reddit took the community down in 2023, there were multiple hospitalizations tied to it. Some were ruled accidental. At least one death was left open by the police. The phrase 'performance suicide' started popping up in reports. Reddit wiped the subreddit. There is little to no information left on the existence of this group. But you know how that goes. Screenshots live forever. Now, two filmmakers — Caden Ahmad and Aryan Chaudhari — are turning the whole mess into a movie. The film is currently in production and is already gaining traction with people who were on Reddit at the time and remember the cult before it got decimated from the internet. 'I thought it was fake at first,' Caden says. 'Then I found a PDF called The Crank Testament. That was when I realized this was something deeper than internet trolling.' The film blends real archival Reddit content, surreal dramatizations, and the kind of grainy, brain-melting intensity that feels pulled straight from the internet's underbelly. It leans heavily into dark comedy, using absurdity as a scalpel to dissect how easily people fall into belief systems built on spectacle and chaos. At its core, Stathamism is Caden and Aryan's sharp critique of America's obsession with true crime, cult narratives, and the way we glamorize extremism when it's packaged like entertainment. The result is as disturbing as it is ridiculous — and that's entirely the point. 'We wanted to explore what happens when irony stops being ironic,' Aryan explains. 'People throw themselves into movements all the time. This one just happened to worship a guy who needs to stay pumped full of adrenaline or die.' Even though the subreddit is gone, echoes of Stathamism still bounce around online. Some YouTube comments mention 'Chev Ascension.' A deleted TikTok audio featuring a slowed down version of the Crank theme was tagged with 'stathamloop.' There are even rumors that an underground Discord server still exists, but no one's been able to verify it. At its core, Stathamism is about how the internet makes anything believable. Even worshipping Jason Statham. Especially worshipping Jason Statham. The film does not answer all your questions. It just asks weirder ones. And honestly, that's probably for the best. Links: TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Time Business News
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Business News
Inside Stathamism: The New Film Exploring a Reddit Cult That Idolized Jason Statham
In the vast digital sprawl of Reddit, strange subcultures are not unusual—but few are as bizarre and dangerous as the cult that emerged around the 2006 action film Crank. Known as Stathamism, this now-defunct online community centered around the belief that mimicking Jason Statham's character, Chev Chelios, was a path to true spiritual awakening. The subreddit r/stathamism was launched in 2019 by a user under the handle u/sohobreadsticks, also known as 'Opal.' What began as an apparent parody quickly spiraled into something more serious. Adherents of the group believed that the modern world was a simulation—one that could only be disrupted or escaped by maintaining constant adrenaline, just as Chelios does in Crank. Members claimed that if your heart rate dropped, so did your consciousness. Initially filled with memes and movie quotes, the subreddit rapidly evolved into a repository of increasingly risky behavior. Users posted videos of themselves engaging in high-stakes stunts, from street fights to reckless driving and rooftop jumps. One user uploaded footage of a self-inflicted electrocution. Another discussed using medical defibrillators for 'ritual clarity.' While Reddit eventually banned the community in 2023, traces of it persist. Reports linked the group to multiple hospitalizations and at least one fatality that remains under investigation. The term 'performance suicide' began appearing in user-generated posts and eventually in law enforcement briefings. Despite Reddit's efforts to scrub the content, remnants of the group's activity linger through screenshots, reuploads, and whispers of a surviving Discord server. Now, Boston-based filmmakers Caden Ahmad and Aryan Chaudhari are bringing this story to the screen. Their upcoming film, Stathamism, is currently in production and has already begun attracting attention from internet communities that remember the subreddit's eerie rise and fall. 'I thought it was just another weird Reddit joke,' says Ahmad. 'But then I found this PDF floating around called The Crank Testament. That was when I realized people had taken this way too far.' The film combines real archival Reddit content with dramatizations, capturing the surreal energy and unfiltered chaos that defined early 2010s internet horror. But it is not just a shock piece. It is a darkly comedic examination of how irony and fandom can spiral into dangerous ideology. 'We're interested in what happens when satire stops being interpreted as satire,' says Chaudhari. 'This film explores how easily performance becomes belief, and belief becomes extremism.' Stathamism aims to critique the broader cultural obsession with true crime and cult narratives, particularly in the United States. With streaming platforms increasingly leaning into sensationalist documentaries, the filmmakers argue that society has blurred the line between entertainment and danger. 'There's a market for chaos,' Ahmad notes. 'And when it becomes a spectacle, it stops being questioned.' Though the subreddit is long gone, online echoes remain. Slowed-down versions of the Crank soundtrack have surfaced on TikTok. A YouTube video tagged with #ChevAscension re-emerged recently. And on obscure forums, users claim to be part of a continuing movement—one they say Reddit could not kill. Whether or not Stathamism was a genuine belief system, a viral parody, or a tragic blend of both, the film seeks to hold a mirror up to the internet age's most absurd and dangerous tendencies. At its core, Stathamism is not just a film about a cult. It is a reflection on the digital landscapes we inhabit, and how belief can grow unchecked in the strangest of places. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
