Both Mark Zuckerberg and the movie based on his early life, The Social Network, are referenced in the new Netflix mini-series Apple Cider Vinegar. Named after the snake oil that was being peddled online by seemingly every lifestyle influencer a few years ago, the show is inspired by the rather unbelievable story of Belle Gibson, a young Australian woman who scammed millions into subscribing to her personalised diet plans. Belle claimed that she’d beaten brain cancer by consuming clean food instead of conventional chemotherapy. The truth was that Belle was never diagnosed with cancer at all; it was the neglect that she experienced in childhood that compelled her to con the world. She’s played in the six-episode series by the wonderful Kaitlyn Dever, who rose to fame with the coming-of-age film Booksmart, and the even better Netflix series Unbelievable. In Apple Cider Vinegar, she puts on a convincing Australian accent, and finds a balance between Belle’s delusion and ambition. Abandoned by her troubled mother, Belle supposedly ran away from home at the age of 12. She gave birth to her first child when she was still a teenager, and subsequently embarked on a career as a huckster. Fuelled by a desire to be loved and accepted, she turned to social media to scratch this itch. Belle founded The Whole Pantry mobile app, through which she literally influenced terminally ill men and women into shunning traditional forms of treatment.

The series Apple Cider Vinegar wastes no time in telling viewers that it is a true story based on a lie. Set in Australia, the limited series is based on the wellness culture that emerged in the 2010s, with pretty young women leading the charge and telling people how to eat and shape their lives. Created by writer Samantha Strauss, the drama looks beyond pretty pictures and nice fonts on social media to look at the real story of what these women were going through. The limited series follows two women, Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever) and Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), both of whom had crafted an inspirational image as survivors who had overcome ill health. The only difference was that one woman was lying about her cancer diagnosis. Apple Cider Vinegar, which is set at the rise of blogging and social media, especially Instagram, is also a time capsule about wellness culture, which rejected science and heralded the benefits of nature. Based on the book The Woman Who Fooled the World by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, creator Strauss has written the series with Anya Beyersdorf and Angela Betzien. Apple Cider Vinegar goes pretty deep into the backstories of Belle and Milla and shows why, while their intentions were well-meaning at first, it all snowballed out by the end.