Documentary Review: 'Lily Topples the World'

One of my favorite modern internet things is the evolution of the word wholesome. Wholesome has been adopted by online culture as a content category, a safe space for earnest, sweet, and gentle, feel good stories. Searching for content on Twitter you can find people praising wholesome content left and right, often animal videos or old people being cute or babies dancing. Wholesome content can even strive to be more than merely viral.

An example of wholesome content that strives for more than merely being a momentary distraction is the Discovery Channel documentary, Lily Topples the World. Now up for awards consideration at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, Lily Topples the World examines the entirely wholesome story of 20 year old Lily Hevesh and her famous domino toppling YouTube channel and strange but wonderful internet fame.

Directed by Jeremy Workman, Lily Topples the World follows Lily as she makes incredible YouTube content, crafting and toppling ever more geometrically astonishing domino creations. Today, Emily’s Hevesh 5 YouTube channel has more than 3.3 million subscribers and her biggest video as nearly 100 million views. And it all started when she got a set of dominos and, lacking many friends, she began setting them up and knocking them down.

Lily was adopted at a young age and brought to America. She was awkward and felt like an outsider until she began playing around with dominos. She got the idea to put her domino creations on YouTube and with the support of her dad, she began to find more and more online fame. As Lily Topples the World begins, Lily is headed to college and there she begins to make friends and before our eyes, we see this sweet, lovely young woman begin to blossom.

Her new friends aren’t aware of her internet stardom when they meet her and prove to be wonderful friends even after finding out how famous she’s becoming. At least one of her friends will join her in the YouTube journey and Lily’s growing fame inspires copycats who, rather than being treated as competitors, are seen as compatriots. Throughout Lily Topples the World, we see Lily working with other YouTube domino artists, they work together on some of her biggest ventures and she supports their channels via her channel.

Wholesome, there’s no better way to describe it. Lily and her domino based internet fame is the kind of wholesome yet non-cloying content that perfectly fits the modern internet culture. Lily is kind, compassionate, ambitious but also friendly and supportive. She works with the make a wish foundation and when I say she’s ambitious, she merely wants to make her own brand of dominos specifically for toppling. She’s aiming to make a profit but also encourage more young people to get into dominos.

One of the big takeaways from Lily Topples the World is how satisfying it is to watch and listen to dominos. There is tension in the setting up of these elaborate geometric designs, we do get to see one fail spectacularly, and there is a genuine sense of satisfaction in watching the dominos tumble perfectly. The sound is a form of ASMR and the visual perfection of the Rube Goldberg-ian order of the tumbling dominos and devices is genuinely soothing.

Most importantly however, it’s just nice to see someone so kind thrive. Lily Hevesh appears to be a genuinely kind and generous human being and seeing her find success is nearly as satisfying as one of her remarkable domino creations. Good things happening for a good person is the kind of wholesome content that the internet doesn’t get nearly enough of. That makes Lily Topples the World a rather wonderful piece of documentary filmmaking.

Lily Topples the World is available via the Discovery Plus streaming app as of August 28th, 2021.