If you’ve had the sinking feeling that technology is about to engulf the world as we know it, and that the apocalypse is just around the corner, Hao Wu’s documentary, “People’s Republic of Desire,” is not going to make you feel any better. In fact, it’s likely to make you feel considerably worse.

It’s a well made and, at times, innovative film about the fame and fortune beckoning ordinary people in China’s live-streaming culture, but it plays like a scary science-fiction story come to life.

It’s not surprising that a culture of virtual celebrity would take hold in a country like China, with a population of 1.3 billion. An unavoidable sense of anonymity and loneliness has driven half a billion individuals to become vicarious observers of common people broadcasting their lives on the Internet. In this world, a host can become a “Goddess,” and...