Tickled by Tickled

A short one for today.

You know how sometimes you spiral down a streaming-service hole and eventually you find something really special that you've never heard of before? A secret little treasure hidden away deep inside Netflix or Hulu that only surfaces every now and again? Well, I did that a few days ago and let me tell you-- this one is a doozie.

Tickled is a documentary about David Ferrier: a bi New Zealand journalist who discovers the exciting field of "competitive tickling." That isn't a typo, either.

It starts off with the guy just looking into an unheard-of sport and ends up with him dodging lawsuits and homophobic slurs like a...like a...thing that dodges a lot. It gets pretty intense, alright?

For example, after reaching out to the head of competitive tickling (and receiving some really just homophobic emails in return), David is informed that two lawyers will be visiting him in New Zealand in order to ensure he stays silent about the events he's been poking his nose into.

So he does the only sensible thing and greets them at the airport with a sparkly rainbow sign.

There's a million more little moments in Tickled like that, but that one is my favorite. The thing that makes Tickled so good is just how much it escalates. If you got caught up in the recent Tiger King wave then you know what I mean. Every twenty minutes I found myself thinking "surely this cannot get any worse," but then it absolutely, positively does. It just keeps getting crazier and crazier, twisting and turning all the while.

Ferrier knows how to roll with punches too. Every time the powers-that-be try to throw a wrench in his plans, he takes that wrench, welds a few more wrenches onto it, then tosses it right back. He's the king of antagonizing people just be existing, and it makes for a really delightful little documentary that I highly recommend.