Documentary

Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul

Documentary

In this docuseries, a scrappy electronic cigarette startup becomes a multibillion-dollar company until an epidemic causes its success to go up in smoke.

Year

2023

IMDb

6.7

Episodes

1

Trailer

Cast

R.J. Cutler

Director

AG

Allen Gladstone

Self

RP

Robert Proctor

Self

DP

David Pierce

Self

JD

Jamie Ducharme

Writer

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Comments

10 comments

OUi6AMOct 2, 2024

documentary

OUi6AMOct 2, 2024

documentary

BOKOSSA MABICKAApr 5, 2024

Valina vertueMar 19, 2024

This "crisis" is the equivalent of designing the perfect ass-kicking machine. Then, the users complain because they are getting their asses kick at previously unknown levels. JUUL ended up being the scapegoat for all vaping, but not having the choice of nicotine levels was a bad choice. You had that choice in do-it-yourself "messy" products, but, in the end, it's still a nicotine delivery system. These guys did what they set out to do, but ended up not having the foresight to realize what their product would actually be used like...and marketing to kids was the smoking gun, pun intended. Kids are too gullible to be using this.

Marx LeeMar 19, 2024

The final conclusion in this series is generally put the blame on irresponsible marketing target on teenager, but not quite the product itself. Annnddd.. I feel like the product seems pretty legit, not something so evil comparing to whole lot of other bad and harmful products like cigarette, alcohol, etc. So I really don't know, then I just list down things here: Stanford and product design are great Great pitch "A safe cigarette?" Product is great, vaporizer and else Research result of nicotine salt is great Move fast and break thing strategy is great Don't understand the point of using vaporizer for canabis, because the series presents JUUL like a cool technology for canabis smoker. OR is this like a friendly way to introduce canabis to kids because of its secret way of using, which should be dangerous? Digital feature of smoking device sounds pretty dope, and quite reasonable approach for the illegal use epidemic. The timeline to earn revenue is pressing from the investors that founders have no way but to follow? A way to push marketing and sales, is to teen, which sounds reasonable to meet with the expected return from investors. Cause of lung failing is Vitamin E not because of too much smoke sucked in the lung ( which takes so long to be discovered ) ?? What if someone fix the Vitamin E part, is this better to use than a cigarette? Nicotine is strong therefore addictive. What about the addiction of caffeine, non-chemical product like Instagram, gambling? Big Tobacco buy is reasonable, tobacco is bad but legal, but now they want to shift into more healthy way, why not? Do people actually think about vengeance on tobacco company when their loved ones died because of cigarette? Sounds unreasonable and weird Contradiction in the series itself: "Basically you should only inhale air in the lung" vs. "Experiment on 4 pack of tobacco vs vaping continuously" Vaping and e-cig is here way before JUUL was out. Is JUUL like a successful business use case for vaping? Quick google on vaping: It's widely recognized, either banned or under regulated on several countries including Asia. --- Bottom line is I don't understand what message the producer is delivering in this series and seems like lots of good in this JUUL business, but they tried hard to make the good looks bad, which make the whole thing quite weird. Anyway it's a good story to watch, but a bit too unnecessarily long.

Cheri Ta StéphanieMar 19, 2024

It's a classic capitalism tale where original founders with good intentions start a company with the hope of changing the world for good but then money hungry CEOs with deep pockets take over and prioritise quick marketing at the expense of consumers. I'll admit that maybe the reason I didn't like this documentary could be because I'm not the target audience but I'm sure it didn't need to be 4 episodes long and a 90 minute doc would've been much more engaging. I think it's an important narrative to tell but the documentary didn't inform me of anything new or give me any new perspectives so I felt a bit let down on that front. They repeated so much information especially in the final 2 episodes that, for me, it started to feel too repetitive and simple. By the 4th episode it felt dragged out with minutes of interview clips just repeating what the audience already knows. I also couldn't help but feel that by the end of the final episode, I had just spent about 2 hours watching a really longer advert for Juul.

IamlucyedetMar 19, 2024

As Episode 1 of "Big Vape" (2023 release; 4 episodes ranging from 43 to 51 min) opens, we are introduced to Stanford students and smokers James Monsees and Adam Bowen. On a smoke break, they fantasize of coming up with a better product that is less harmful to a person's health. Upon graduating from Stanford, they pursue their crazy idea... At this point we are 10 minutes into the documentary. Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from longtime writer-producer-director R. J. Cutler. Here he reassesses the legacy of the maker of "the iPhone of e-cigarettes". I was vaguely aware of the rise and fall of Juul, but to see it laid out like this gives a entirely new perspective. And as it turns out, Monsees and Bowen say one thing (to rid the world of cigarette smoking), only to end up doing a great deal of harm themselves, and for what. (Money, of course!) Check out Episode 3, focusing on the teen vaping crisis that overwhelmed this country (and still does a lot of damage today). And what of Big Tobacco in all this? Just watch! These 4 episodes flew by in no time. Last but not least: this is listed on IMDb and several other platforms as "Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul". There is not a single reference to that in the 4 part documentary, which is simply tltled "Big Vape". "Big Vape" premiered on Netflix earlier this week. I binge-watched all 4 episodes in a single setting. If you have any interest in how one company decided to take on Big Tobacco by creating a supposed less harmful alternative, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

Srabanti GintuMar 19, 2024

I'm not living in the United States so I only knew the going down part of the vape and I had no idea about the part of the brand becoming a nationwide legend in the first place. Amazing genius people that's for sure and I really respect that amount of intelligence. But empathy is another part where you would always encounter the laws to protect people and especially children. I can see the difference of our law system for example, which were inspired by the Swiss Law which is completely prepared by the expert authorities and accepted and followed by the nation, and, the United States law system that is created and evolved by eventually by the intentionally good and free but more average people and not the nationwide accepted expert authority figures. It's a shame that vaping for teenagers can be actually allowed by the law in the first place. This obviously is a smoking related issue that should have been audited by the government first to make sure the people are protected. That speed of success is very unprecedented, I'm mindblown. This allowed them only focus on the product and not the society. But that freedom idea in the US makes them to make a difference by that kind of speed and that's a choice to make it seems. There are more mindful laws in Europe but they are more protective of the future generations and therefore more restrictive. The US version is both a blessing and a curse. I loved the documentary and seeing all the perspectives. Amazing story of the genius people and the conscious people dealing with the geniuses who use their Ferrari brains recklessly. It stimulated my brain a lot, thanks.

A.K.M ✪Mar 19, 2024

I have never seen so many addicts, none of whom look at all healthy, trying to convince themselves that their drug is somehow better and even aspirational. I fail to see how trading an addiction for the same addiction (under more socially acceptable branding) is something to be proud of. Nicotine is nicotine is nicotine and it is highly addictive. When you advertise it to young people, young people are going to become addicted. That is what Juul did, while also claiming that they were targeting current smokers and, in doing so, singlehandedly created a whole new generation of addicts. I find it difficult to believe that this wasn't intentional. When asked to stop making flavors, which were what attracted kids to their products, they tellingly refused to do so. They saw an opportunity to make millions of dollars and they jumped on it and never thought twice about the people they could hurt. Whether or not the lung damage shown to kids came from Vitamin E, Juul was the company responsible for creating the addiction in the first place. It is well known within the addiction and recovery community that addicts gain a tolerance for drugs and then seek out other drugs to try to get a better high, and that is exactly what happened. Vaping is still relatively new, so we don't really know what its long term effects are. Juul didn't care to wait to find out and, for some reason, found it unreasonable to go through the FDA approval process. But, if someone inhales chemicals into their lungs, whether it be nicotine or meth or marijuana, it's going to cause damage. To claim that no one has died from an e-cigarette is misleading. I'm sure Philip Morris could claim the same about cigarettes for years - until lung cancer came along. A more accurate statement may be that no one has died of an e-cigarette yet. Disappointingly, this entire documentary seemed to be more about trying to glamorize Juul than it was about indicting them, as it should have been. It was far too long and spent far too much time trying to make the founders seem like they were "good guys" and not enough time showing the repercussions of their actions. It just seemed like a last ditch attempt to save a company that, quite frankly, doesn't deserve to be saved. Juul used the same advertising as Big Tobacco, targeted the same people as Big Tobacco, and used Big Tobacco money in their business. It was no surprise to me that Big Tobacco eventually bought out their company. Juul and Big Tobacco are one and the same. They just wanted to make cigarettes cool again.

Shraddha DasMar 19, 2024

First 2 episodes were very good. But then the whole documentary turned into idiots blaming juul for their ignorance. Teens saying literally: we didn't know Juul was addictive, we didn't know juul contained nicotine. Parents who do not parwnt their kids saying: we didn't know what was e-cigarette, we didn't know what juul was. And finally: Juul had to be stopped from destroying our kids future. This is not a documentary. What this series shows is how ambivalent and unaware parents are. And how easy it is for those idiots to blame others for their own mistakes. I had to stop watching ot at 4th episode.