Everybody’s Everything

Lil Peep was a force of nature — the likes of which the music industry has rarely seen. A self-made internet celebrity before his 20th birthday, Peep found community and success through the connections he made online. He poured his every emotion into his music, and through doing so developed a community amongst outliers that spread around the world before the industry at large even took notice.

Unfortunately, just as his talent was beginning to reach the masses, tragedy struck. Peep died of an overdose in the back of his tour bus just a few hundred feet from where fans had gathered to watch him perform. It was the kind of unexpected event that sent shockwaves through the industry, and it left a hole in the lives of many who knew Peep that has yet to be filled.

Executive produced by a team that includes Terrence Malick, Everybody’s Everything is less a documentary about Lil Peep and that void he left behind and primarily a meditation on loss, grief, and connections we forge online with people we’ve never met. Through interviews with family and friends, the legacy of Lil Peep is told in a way intended to inspire hope and confidence in dreamers everywhere. It’s not so much about how things ended or how they got there, but how everything that happened to and because of Lii Peep changed music forever.

The film also serves as a commentary on the digital age. Though Peep was just 21 at the time of his passing, the amount of footage and images available to filmmakers is bountiful. Common documentary elements such as home videos and aging photographs are present, but it’s the cell phone footage, screen captures, and social media elements that give us the clearest image of Peep and his impact. Whether intentional or not, Everybody’s Everything shows just how much of our lives are now captured and saved on hard drives, and how that archiving of existence can help us grieve in the darkest of moments.

It’s rare that a music documentary has something more to say than praising the life of its subject, but Everybody’s Everything does just that. It doesn’t matter if you like Lil Peep’s music or if you even knew of his fame. If you have experienced loss in your life, Everybody’s Everything offers something for you. It’s a therapy session and a celebration of life all rolled into one, with glimpses at the highs and lows of a life lived on the cusp of stardom. You won’t forget it.

Grade: A-minus. Not rated. Now available on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube

(Photo: Gunpowder & Sky)