To those of you who are fans of the original Netflix show, Black Mirror, you might already know what I’m talking about. Choosing to focus on the possible horrible effects of technology constantly evolving, Black Mirror has become one of the most mind-bending shows to ever grace our screens in 2011. With the fourth season wrapped being released in 2018, we have a couple years or so to process the dark natured episodes of the show before the next season comes out and messes us up all over again. For me personally, here are some things I no longer trust and will be more careful around. Also, just a warning that this show will contain minor spoilers for, Black Mirror. If you feel so inclined, go give the show a watch and then come back. If you’re already caught up, let’s take a look at something's to keep an eye out for.
1. Smart Devices
My roommate came back from break with an Amazon Dot, a voice-activated smart device that can give you helpful information, sing songs and do a number of other things. Prior to watching the show, I would have been excited to fool around with this thing and ask it all kinds of silly questions. But that was before I watched Season 2, episode 5 of Black Mirror, in which the show introduces us to “cookies,” their world's version of Google Home, or an Amazon dot, but with a much darker twist. In this much less empathetic world, smart devices are created by trapping the very sentient and very emotional conscious of someone into a smart device. That way, the device is best optimized for each customer. That sounds all fine and dandy until you realize that this means an actual person is trapped inside that device, forced to be a slave for themselves.
So now, I can never ask Alexa what the forecast is like without thinking that some actual poor soul is actually trapped in there being forced to carry out my stupid demands like “Tell me what the weather is like,” or “Sing the Ballad of the Broken Smore.”
2. Virtual Reality
Sure, the PS4 VR and other similar devices may say that they make gaming super fun. But they leave out the part where they torture you and mess with your mind until you forget your own identity. Black Mirror, of course, had to take yet another cool concept and ruin it for me forever. In Playtest, episode 2 of season 3, of Black Mirror, we see how the show focuses way too much on the reality aspect of virtual reality, taking the concept of VR and giving it a dark twist. The episode follows an American backpacker as he signs up to be the lab rat for a new incredible gaming system, not having the slightest idea what’s in store for him.
The viewers watch the poor guy, go along with the game and what starts out as whack-a-mole, then turns into a horror game riddled with things like: Spiders, creepy guys, a monstrous hybrid of the spider and the creepy guy, and monsters who disguise themselves as people you know before trying to kill you as their skin melts off.
The episode tears a page from Lord of the Rings’ books. Each time you think it’s over, another ending appears. Only, in this case, each ending is far worse than the last. As the protagonist begins to wonder what’s virtual and what’s reality, the audience struggles to do the same. Is he in the game? Is he not in the game? Are we the ones in the game? Is anything real? Has anything ever been real?!
Needless to say, I’m now more skeptical of VR gaming. As fun as it looks, I’ll stick to just using a controller and my TV screen, if its even real that is…
3. My Own Laptop
Being a writer is going to become a lot different now that my own computer may very well be my own worst enemy. Black Mirror, of course, has to go and ruin laptops. Being a show focused on how technology and blurred, if at all present, morals can lead to our downfalls, it, of course, tackled what may be one the most widely used devices of all time.
Shut Up and Dance, episode 3 of season 3, is one of the most disturbing, mind-bending episodes of the show that I’ve ever seen.
This episode features an awkward, soft-spoken teenage boy named Kenny. He seems to live an average life. He’s a waiter at a restaurant and lives with his mother and pesky sister. After downloading a seemingly legit program to erase malware from his computer after his sister used it without permission, Kenny unknowingly gives complete strangers to watch him through the webcam of his computer without knowing. This leads to said strangers getting some rather damning footage of him masturbating, Kenny begins getting cryptic texts demanding him to do harrowing tasks, lest he wants this video to be released to the public. He ends up taking the day off work to do things like, deliver fake cakes to strangers, rob a bank and in a rather grisly climax, fight to the death.
Like Kenny, I’m sure most or at least some of us, have downloaded something off the internet before. I know I have, and I’ve never worried about my webcam until recently. Needless to say, I’ll be keeping my webcam covered up from now on. Call me crazy. But I play it too safe when there’s a chance I could end getting blackmailed with footage of me double dipping, blowing off homework so I can look at memes and try to teach myself how to twerk? Because believe me, that last one is better off remaining a secret to all.
4. Hashtags
We’ve all done it. Something is trending on twitter so we re-tweet with a hashtag? Fun and innocent right? Well if you’ve made it this far and still hanging around, you know that the same can’t be said for hashtags in Black Mirror. Which takes concepts and, all together now, gives a dark twist.
Hated in the Nation is the finale of season 2. And boy this one go out with a bang. The bang in question is the murder of almost 400,000 people at one time. Of all the hashtags used, how many of them are more mean-spirited than others? How many of those specific tweets are targeted at a specific person? In Black Mirror, the hashtag in question is #DeathTo in which common social media users use the hashtag in order to put a target on the backs of hated public figures or even everyday people who did something awful enough to catch the attention of the public.
If the person in question gets tagged in enough #DeathTo tweets, that person actually dies. Very slowly, and very painfully. Just imagine, what if the person caught in the middle of every pop culture scandal was actually killed because of the number of people online who collectively bashed them and used a hashtag in order to do so? That means that Kanye could have died after “letting Taylor finish.”
But there’s more. Not only were the targets of the hashtags killed, at the end of the episode it’s revealed that anyone who ever even used the hashtag was also subject to death, without even knowing. After spending so much time being the judges, the jury, and the executioners, they become the ones on death row.
I don’t know about you, but it made me think twice about using the newest tag floating around that was created to demonize someone.
5. Architects
Mia. Just….Mia.
6. Museums
Fitting that the last episode on the list pertains to the last episode of the series as of now. If there was any question as to whether was made singular horrible worlds or giant horrible world, the finale of season 4, Black Museum pulls everything together and wraps in a neat little bow. Depending on your definition of neat. Black Museum contains easter eggs and throwbacks to earlier episodes. You might pick up on the bathtub from Crocodile or the balaclava from White Bear but don’t worry. This episode does more than go, “Hey remember this horrible thing? What about this horrible thing? Or that horrible thing?’ In addition to all of that, this episode introduces even more horrible things!
The episode follows Nish, a young woman traveling down a long, dirt road in a desert when she stops at a roadside attraction called Black Museum the owner, Rolo has collected a number of strange memorabilia from crime scenes as well as the tragic stories behind all of them. In fact, he’s the one responsible for a number of these items including a dead woman trapped inside of a stuffed monkey, a helmet that allows the user to feel the pain and sensations of other people, and last but least the haunting main attraction. It allows visitors to repeatedly kill and torture what I can only describe as a “digital ghost” of a wrongly convicted death row inmate.
While the guest only see a hyper-realistic hologram that can’t feel pain, the rest of know that there is actually a sentient person behind the display glass that is being repeatedly tortured for a crime he never even committed. Most of the museum only exists because of someone else’s suffering which was caused at the hand of Rolo, who had a knack of ruining people’s lives just for the hell of it.
Got me thinking, what if all museums are just full of tragic stories? With the conscience of different people forever trapped there for someone else’s amusement? What if all musejm owners are actually crooked, and just go about their days watching paying customers look at all the “displays.”
So what do you think? Has "Black Mirror" completely changed your view of the world and made you want to go back to communicating via carrier pigeon? Are you completely unaffected? Or are you more inclined to check out the show and see all the things I left off the list? Whatever your reaction, comment below and let me know your thoughts. Just remember, someone’s probably watching you, and everything you know is a lie.
