The Vacant Politics of New Black Mirror | Big Joel
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video, I take a close look at Black Mirror. Basically, I argue that there was a shift in the political attitude of the show--a shift from skeptical to reactionary. I go through the third and four seasons closely in order to prove that point.
Support me on Patreon: / bigjoel
Follow me on Twitter: / biggestjoel - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Black Mirror, but set in the Stone Age.
Caveman: *makes wheel*
Wheel: *opens portal to hell*
If you actually visualize this and sit with the detailed scene, it’s downright hilarious!
Wheel: runs over a guys foot and make people so lazy they can't walk
Nope, it would simply be caveman invents wheel then gets run over.
College Humor has a video with a similar concept
Reminds me of that old dresden codak comic. Me am play gods!
dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
Black mirror should make an episode about people who get all their opinions from video essays on youtube cause that’s literally me
Brian Kurt the waldo moments sort of did that, it took a representative public figure that was already a stand in for people’s subconscious likes, and then got people to believe in them and the fake values as well.
you gotta get your opinions from somewhere, right?
Relatable
straight up? don’t fucking sub me like this again
Well, long as you choose them well and go for the ones that construct their arguments well theres nothing wrong with that. People like Big Joel, Lindsay Ellis and Gamemakers Toolkit have a good theoretical foundation that comes back in their videos. It starts becoming a problem when you only watch people scream opinions that they haven't examined further than what sells.
To summarise Black Mirror
*we live in a society*
What if text but at the bottom
of control
gamers rise up
Gang weed
Gamers must overcome the Furry loving Government snd legalize weed in Israel
Black Mirror became the guy at the end of "Fifteen million merits".
It was always that. That was literally the point that episode was making. It was a meta analysis on the whole series, and on Charlie Brooker's other shows.
@@krombopulos_michael It had to become popular first.
Well it’s talking about how bad technology is when we are watching and consuming it so yes that has always been the point. Black mirror represents our phone screens but we are watching black mirror with it so it’s telling us how bad it is but it’s using it to tell us how bad it is
pretty sure black mirror isn’t saying technology is bad, but the people who use it in the wrong way is bad.
Jargon top tier comment lmao
what if... computer turn off u
playtest
That's what we call soviet realism cinema.
I can't believe that actually made me laugh lol
U wot m8
@@leonardorossi998 Tarkovsky rises from his grave just to slap you.
What if phones, but too much?
GiRayne I think it was a tweet from Daniel Mallory Ortberg several years ago
That’s literally the plot to smitheerns
No, thats just my life
YOURE HIRED FOR THE WHOLE OF SEASONS FOUR-TWENTY
nope
This rings so true after season 5 came out. The most sanitised, safe, corporation friendly season so far.
That star trek episode were immediate red flags
I liked the Star Trek episode ;(
@@matucomedes More like a red shirt!
@@IAmNumber4000 the star trek episode was as fresh as it gets,it was a lot more original than previous episodes,even if it barely fitted the ongoing themes of the show.
@@matucomedes I loved the Star Trek ep, it just wasn't Black Mirror.
Can you imagine if the arkangel "blocking out danger" feature had a different origin?
Like, if the ability to block out stressful stimulus was originally invented for people who have suffered from extreme trauma. Maybe it would've been used in mental hospitals, or therapy sessions, at first. Then, as the research and knowledge of it grows, the "uses" of it begin to spread.
Maybe it starts being prescribed as a "medicated treatment," first to patients with more severe issues, but then later more broadly until it's over the counter.
To counteract the "always in danger" element, the treatment could function differently in adults than in children due to levels of hormones, or in the way adults have more experience than kids, so emotional responses are amplified in children.
Then, when arkangel adds the feature, it's untested for longterm treatment in children who don't suffer from any serious trauma or mental illness, and has unforeseen, serious side effects.
In this way, it could be not just a criticism on overprotective parents, but on the emphasis of profits in the pharmaceutical industry, and the abuse of adaptive or medical devices by people who don't need them
This weird little ramble has a lot of holes but it's 3:30AM so please forgive me
Better plot than the episode
I like your vision! In fact, I'd love to see the TH-cam video...
You're basically discribing brave new world
Freaking yes. The latter episodes of the show makes the mistake of taking societal woes and putting them on individuals rather than systems. It's the parent's fault for being a helicopter parent, not the system's fault for convincing her she needs to be terrified and selling her a solution. It's the vapid redhead's fault for being fake and performative, not society's fault for ensuring that only one cookie-cutter type of person can find social acceptance and the safety/opportunities that are found in numbers.
Like... in the society shown in the social media episode, it wouldn't simply be a matter of rejecting the system and deciding to live a euphoric life expressing yourself authentically. Making the choice to reject a social system like that would also mean losing the protection of that system. It would be a bittersweet and frightening choice that would lead one to experience precarity, NOT the unambiguously happy choice that the end of the episode presented it as. That's a big reason why people perform socially and ingratiate themselves into groups to begin with--because of the protection they offer. That's why humans evolved to form tribes to begin with. Loneliness is not only painful, it's also dangerous.
It's only distant, privileged people who see the world the way those Black Mirror episodes do. Who see the world as a bunch of people participating voluntarily in the harm we do to each other and to our society, who could just as easily choose to live a more authentic and moral life but couldn't resist how cool the new technology is. According to Black Mirror, it's not about power structures--after all, according to them, doesn't everyone have power inherently? Don't we all start with the same advantages?
@@Xenophilius Thank you! Holy cow you summed up my thoughts better than I could, something bugged me immensely about the later episodes and this finally put the finger on it for me.
What if ye gran ran on battries
This had me laughing ridiculously hard
She does. Ever heard of a pacemaker?
She on life support yeah
LOL
This is literally a twilight zone episode lol
the thing about "Nosedive" is EVERYONE thinks they're the truck driver
Luan Oliveira, unfortunately I identify more with the protagonist.
well, self-awareness is a blessing on it's own
Oof
I related more to the brother, but you've got a point.
Logan Cox yeah, I related to the brother.
So if the chip blocks out things that give you high stress, would it block out exams?
Or social intefactions, kidnappings, god forbid, facing a rapist and not knowing how he looks like would be counterproductive to police work
The entire world suddenly looks like you're looking through those permanently fogged panels of glass, because you never develop a proper response to stressors. Welcome to being made artificially blind, I guess.
My brain already blocks them out.
@@elijahpadilla5083 also imagine the chip malfunctioning and the kid dying from stress overdose since its body never had to deal with it and suddenly its overfloading the system
@@elijahpadilla5083 Well the chip was only designed with children in mind. But the point of the episode is that the system is bad, so yeah.
Playtest had so much potential-if he had gone through the test twice or three times (because he was afraid of losing touch with reality) but then went home and was paranoid and didn’t feel like he woke up, that would be awesome and could actually say something about the nature of VR vs reality. I wish we had gotten that.
That's a great twist... I'd get into that episode!
Sounds like a philip k dick story
@Ben Gallup after having read a good bit of him recently I'm convinced all modern scifi stories are just some retelling of a Philip k. Dick premise
Isn't that sort of like inception
@@rini9325 yeah, it’s basically inception but with horror I guess
WOT IF YOR COMPUTER WER YA MUM
cover the webcam.
I like this comment
WOT IF YOR JAPANESE TOILET THOUGHT IT WAS WW2
That's a fetish.
Hot.
The episode Playtest isn't about gaming at all. It's about the fear of losing your parents to Alzheimer's, or more broadly, losing your mind in general. That's what the episode is about, and the gaming is simply acting as a backdrop to explore this idea.
The protagonist lost his father to the disease, and gave up many years of his life looking after him. After his fathers death, he runs away from his mother, travelling all over the world, because he's scared of watching the same thing happening to her. When the protagonist starts to lose his own mind towards the end of the episode, we can see that his mother getting the disease is really his greatest fear - not the haunted house or the spider creature he conjures up - but losing his mother, and having to spend even more years watching her die, just like he did with his father.
Ultimately, it was this fear that caused him to lose his own life. The game was a form of escapism, literally. He only ended up there because he was running away. That's what the episode is about. Not the game itself.
Mircalla well said
Scrolled down looking for someone making this point. A lot of the more recent Black Mirror episodes, the future tech is just the context for an otherwise normal story.
It doesn't matter about the theme, because the guy just dies in the end anyway, regardless of it. There were no big questions being asked, and us feeling a certain way about it. Just because it has underlying themes of losing one's sanity, doesn't mean it pulls it off well in the context of black mirror.
thank you!!!!
true, but the episode still felt kinda.. distracted? like it just forgot about that meaning for most of the narrative
Talking about Black Mirror Season 4 and leaving out the episode where they Mind Read a Guinea Pig to solve a murder, smh.
What
@@worldwidewebstertheinterne4924 white christmas or black christmas i think it was called
It's called Crocodile and it's a great episode
@@Shams-fe6lq White Christmas was a good episode but I believe that episode being referred to is Crocodile.
@@sethsoarenson7414 It's traaaaaaaash! They establish in the episode that a person needs to be asked prompting questions and be presented with items that stimuate senses to evoke memories. How are they gonna do that with a God damn guinea pig? Their brains and memories don't even work like a human's do.
"If you give a nonsense device to some nonsense people.. they're gonna do some nonsense with it"- Big Joel 2018
One problem I have with Black Mirror is how it seems to vilify the individual and their reactions to new technology rather than the government that put these systems in place. For example, the episode White Bear could've focused on the government that allowed for a punishment as severe as the one the main character was subjected to but decided to focus on the people attending the Justice Park. While those individuals are also to blame for attending and supporting the park it just doesn't say much.
I think Black Mirror is good for exactly the same reasons. If the government had put out a device that would tell them where people were all the time, they would probably object. So people carry one around voluntarily; it's called a cell phone. And I'm sure a lot of them would knock me down for saying this, explaining that it's totally different somehow. The impetus to put something on "the other," of which the government is a prime example, is a way of distracting from the real problem, which is that people just do not care. Everybody in every country would cry out for a White Bear or it's closest possible equivalent, not really caring that they are going too far, because they are the ones with the cell phones and not the ones confined and tortured in a literal hell.
Have you seen that one time the US Senate called in Mark Zuckerberg for a statement regarding election interference? That shows how much wise government is about the cutting edge technology. Maybe some smart guys over at the surveillance agencies understand the huge social engineering experiment that platform capitalism has been carrying out, but the actual elected officials are as numb to it as everyone else who buys the next iphone. The ones who really caught on to it, and are pushing this dystopian future ahead aren't "the government", whether it be the elected part or the bureaucrats, but instead... big capitalists in silicon valley and the like.
How well does White Bear in particular fit into that narrative? Again, in the US there are private-run prisons that put inmates to work. With no pay, no benefits, no rights whatsoever. While it is not exactly the same sort of hell shown in that episode, let me ask you this: whom among the fine upstanding citizen is going to question a handful of murderers or small time robbers getting worked to the bone for their crimes?
At the end of the day the government is also made of people. Its easy to blame abstract concepts for the ills of the world, the government, corporations, society, whatever the fuck. we all have some personal responsibility regarding the issues of the world.
I disagree. I think the episode's point was to make a commentary on social justice and the people's desire for revenge, though it would've been interesting if they focused a bit more on the government.
black mirror is overrated garbage
I cry everytime I watch San Junipero. Idc if it’s flawed, I love it
Some might say that’s the point of art. It’s not to make a point, but to make you feel something.
I think San Junipero was a notable exception to Joel’s analysis. I don’t think it tries take that original black premise of “problem bad, technology fix, but not good”. The story has very nuanced things to say about mortality, afterlife and VR. And the problem of the story is not a terrifying one but an emotionally complicated one. I would like to see Joel’s take on that episode
i cri evritim
i remember seeing the writer saying that he wanted the main characters to have a happy ending because it was the first bm episode with a gay couple as the protagonists, which is so nice & a good way of fighting the "bury your gays" trope.
@@xandermin
It's been a while since I've seen it, but wasn't the whole point that no one will ever truly have to be buried with the caveat of being stuck in a 'theme park' of their choice?
Can we talk about how Community did the meow meow beans thing better and in only 20 mins
Honestly, a Big Joel Community video sounds like the best thing ever.
Community was just streets ahead
right...... and they did it first
@@greenm110 stop trying to coin the phrase "streets ahead"
@@MrAdamo Been there, coined that.
Nosedive is about how people feel like they need to obtain an artificial standing in life through impressing others in order to obtain what they truly want, connection with others. The protagonist doesn't want a high rank for nothing, she wants it to get into a good apartment so she can find a romantic partner. Everyone tries to climb the social ladder in that way so they can feel accepted. I would have thought that theme was obvious.
Exactly
He's misunderstood a lot of what black mirror means.
The trucker lady asked the protagonist what her goals were, and she didn't give a tangible answer. It was as vague as "when I get there, I'll just be happy". The episode conveyed that she _did_ want a high rank for nothing, and that getting a good apartment and finding a romantic partner were equally meaningless as getting a 5.0.
@@randairp Because she absorbed so much of messages she was getting through social media that she believed her live would genuinely be better with a higher rating, until someone reasoned out the truth for her again. You start to believe whatever you get regularly exposed to. Brainwashing
RanDair Porter importance is subjective. I can find something important that you’ll find meaningless. Some people find importance in high ratings and the best living situations. Remember how the trucking lady also said that your medical priority also depended on your eating? Ex. Her husband was denied medical treatment because someone else with a higher rating came in.
Honestly black mirror focuses less on how "technology is bad" but the flaws in the people that use it and humanity overall. We evolved to a point where we are capable of creating amazing machines but to satisfy empty and superficial needs. Even when it uses exaggerated hipotetical scenarios, the real focus is on the protagonist's struggle with their individual issues.
Exactly
Yeah, the technology is just a metaphor for potential philosophical ends. That's why this analysis is infuriating.
Hypothetical*
@@greenpigking6974 gay
Exactly! Not all Black Mirror episodes are made equal and you can certainly criticise some of them more than others but boiling it all down to technology (and ascribing this "authentic" focus of it to the first two seasons alone) is a very shallow reading of the show. After all, what is the oh-so-special role of technology in the very first episode?
But social media standing is actually really important in the world of Nosedive? You stand to lose everything or gain everything based on your rating. It's not just silly teenage girl stuff. The truckers husband died because of it. There's clearly a method to the madness to a point.
and it mirrors systems being put into use in certain countries.
exactly, it's closer to the social score that china is developing for its citizens, you know, the one where if it gets low you can't use public transport or leave the country among other real-life consequences. Nosedive is like that but adds in the whole social media like button/star rating system from random people in your life.
So then how are we supposed to be fulfilled when she rejects this concept at the end? It's posed as a happy ending because she's free of all of those anxieties about rankings but if it indeed is still important she's still fucked overall in her life, so what was the point really? Reject the system and be happy but unable to function in society/get a job/get medical care/etc. or follow the system and be unhappy? I would have found it more existentially interesting if they would have brought up that point instead of having a black-and-white "reject the rules and you'll finally be happy and free!" ending.
@@aboyaser5608 social credit score in post-brexit britain when?
I think that that's still an obvious factor at the end of the episode- even though she's having that breakthrough, part of the beauty of it is that she's still in a bad situation and she's responding to it with all the emotions a person actually WOULD respond to it. The message isn't "she broke out of the system, so therefore her life is now perfect and happy" the message is more along the lines of showcasing how things are, and that maybe there's hope for people because she's still able to have that moment. After all, there seem to be people in the show who still manage to live content (probably better) lives while NOT playing the social game, like her brother and the truck driver, both of whom obviously weren't rich or well provided for by the rest of the world, and yet seemed much more content to be themselves and say how they felt while making some sort of livelihood.
Her beating her mom with the iPad in ArkAngel isn't her continuing to hit her because she doesn't understand violence it's her hitting her because she's pissed and overreacting, because the ArkAngel system has caused her problems with managing her emotions.
I thought it was pretty realistic even
Plus, in the moment, she's not able to understand exactly how much damage she's causing because the device shields her from seeing it fully, which is nice visual shorthand.
Clearly the point of playtest was, "You got all this technology, but you can't call your mom?"
More like running away from your problems and living in fantasy and Dying in reality. The irony is that he had to die in reality for him to call his mom
Like the spy kids watch that can't tell the time
11:39 The fact that she reacts violently to the censoring...I think that actually makes a LOT of sense, honestly. If you've ever lived with someone who sought to inappropriately control you to the point of abuse (and it is child abuse) the experience of it can be truly horrifying.
The point of the scene isn't that the kid is prone to violence in particular, it's that they had an incredibly visceral reaction to someone violating a critical personal boundary. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if given the conditions that could be justified as possibly *self-defense*.
The level of control is comparable to the episode Men Against Fire, if someone can control what you perceive, they take everything from you.
i personally loved Nosedive. i thought the general pastel aesthetic of the episode was a great homage to the 50s, where, as seen in the episode, people tried to fit into a perfect lifestyle and cover up what was considered unappealing with happy smiles and whatnot
If it hadn't been so de-saturated I'd agree with you. It really could've worked with more of a serial mom style.
At least the economy was good in the 50s so that was something to be happy about
Arkangel was good, actually. It's happened to me all my life. I've had an anxiety disorder since 3rd grade and my mom has kept me from things like doing work and failing grades by blaming my mental illness. I've graduated high school and I feel nothing. Everyone is talking about how big an accomplishment it is but i just,,, dont feel it. Along with that, I'm not allowed to have social media at all and I'm never supposed to talk to anyone online besides people i know irl. Despite this, I got an amazing girlfriend who just so happens to be 2 years older. She's helped me with a lot of the emotional abuse my mom has put me through. Knowing my mom though, she'd do exactly what she did to the girl's boyfriend in the episode. She's one of the few people who helped me develop my own voice and realize something was wrong with the dynamic between my mom and I. Given the chance to not be criticized for it, I have no doubt I'd end up exactly like that girl did. Sorry, this was half vent half review i guess.
I liked it for talking about helicopter parenting and how it stunts a child's growth and prevents them from properly developing empathy or personal values if they're too sheltered from "bad things" but I gotta agree with the vid that the way it talked about this was kind of ridiculous and I think could've been done better. The technology blurring out things that may cause the child stress kind of ruined it for me, one because its such an obviously bad idea that it kinda breaks that suspension of disbelief and two because I feel like it kind of shifts the blame onto the tech rather than the parent. Sure, the mom is the one controlling the tech and making it blur out stressful things for the daughter, but she isn't really being controlling of her in any other way. She uses the tech the way its meant to be used, to see whatever the daughter is seeing, know where she is, and blur stressful things, I feel like if that last part wasn't a feature of this tech it would give the story a chance to show us how the mom over-shelters her daughter herself, making the focus be more on human flaws expressed through fictional technology and not a criticism of the tech itself. The mother could watch where the kid goes and what she sees and be proactive in not letting her have these negative experiences, showing how what she is doing is a conscious effort and not just one mindless mistake
Lol graduating HS really isn't a big deal. Hell I don't even know how twitter or Instagram is laid out. I don't have any mental problem to be a "crutch" I simply don't care and that's how I live my life.
Graduation is good, but it’s genuinely not something you should feel much about at all. Honestly a lot of people get a little bummed about it and a little stunted for a moment because your world is changing. That’s basically all it means. Also, I wouldnt be completely set on the fact that your upbringing happens to be this other way you are seeing it now. Your perception of your upbringing is going to change and grow forever. Im 32 still understanding new things about how and why i was raised how i was. Not to make any claims, as I don’t know any of your specifics and I don’t intend to claim you are wrong, because i have no idea about your life… but your mom being over protective is not the worst thing. At all. And while it could absolutely be to the extent of abuse… you are still young. And impressionable. And if she really did shelter you bad enough to be deemed “overbearing” or “abuse”… then you are just now getting and seeing the first perspectives on your life that are different than what you knew. One supportive girlfriend doesn’t make you suddenly clear on everything. It’s definitely good to get more perspective, but it comes with time and experience. You may be entirely right. But never rule out that you might still be wrong in ways. One thing you realize as you get older is that you always know better than you used to. And while it feels like a slow evolution in which nothing is immediately changed… looking back… i have numerous different feelings and perspectives than i used to.
Abuse does come in a lot of forms. But abuse is really really bad. If your mom was a bit over protective… she’s human. She is fallible. There’s much worse ways to fail as a parent. Just be mindful of claiming abuse. For your mothers sake, and for abuse victims sake. I highly suggest therapy. Especially if your girlfriend is shouldering the weight of your new perspective on yourself. You ought to consider alleviating some of that with therapy. And be careful. Young love is great. But you seem to be leaning into a new blooming identity for yourself tied to your girlfriend. That’s gonna be a really tough break up if you break up. (Definitely something to consider too). I don’t mean to be negative or contrarian here, just helping with some totally unsolicited advice. Take it or leave it.
I dropped out of high school. It didn't effect my life at all- still went to college and have a good job. High school is overrated you just have to show up.
Hopefully you'llbe able to move out on your own soon and get out from under the overprotective mother you seem to have. Don't forget that at 18 you're an adult (in the US) she can't prevent you from accessing the internet. Start working on your mother seeing you as an adult, rather than her baby. My dynamic with my mom really improved once I had my own life and job.
Playtest's ending is literally, "and it all was a dream! " I can't believe it got made in that state
No it isn't
I got the vibe that he was trying to run away from the possibility he may develop alziemers and ironically lost his mind and died in his attempt.
If you have time, here's a more positive reading:
The first episode of season three wasn't that bad, this guy missed a big point that the episode made: there was a structural component to the social media thing. People could get fired or demoted from their jobs based on their ratings, which was a really important part of the plot. The target of the episode wasn't every social media user, because there are characters, like the brother, who have these social media accounts but aren't all that affected by them and have pretty average lives. It's when more ambitious people (especially women, and Bryce Dallas Howard's character makes this apparent in one of the episode's speeches) try to move upwards in their social and professional spheres that this weird little fucking instagram facebook phone thing starts to make a bigger difference. The real target of the episode is the structural acquiescence to the social value put on social media sites: the success of someone's social and professional life should not be based on their online footprint. Our world is moving slowly in that direction, in that it is becoming a lot harder to get a job without a facebook or any online presence because it makes it harder for companies (and the government) to do background checks on you. I don't think I'm ever going to get fired because a picture I post gets shit reviews, but the episode does a pretty good job of critiquing the growing weight of social media in our society on a hypothetical basis.
I'm also going to defend the overprotective mom episode (i forget all the names for these). I like the earlier seasons of Black Mirror because in a lot of cases the focus is not on how technology is going to destroy society as a whole and bring on some robot apocalypse, but on how technology might affect very specific types of people. This specificity doesn't happen well in science fiction often, but black mirror is damn good at it (or at least it used to be). I saw this episode as a return to that form, and I really enjoyed it. I think video dude gets a little tripped up between what he thinks of the archangel technology and what other people might think about it. I mean, yeah, to me the archangel thing sound like a stupid idea and I would never give it to my kid (and I'm sure the majority of people agree, which explains why it was outlawed in the episode) but I've definitely met a lot of parents, like the ones who use those fucking leash things, who would throw that shit on their kids like it was a bookbag (and I could see a tech company tapping into that demographic). That being said, yeah, the ending was terrible, although I didn't see the girl attacking her mom as a side effect of the archangel. To me, the implication was that she was so filled with anger and idk teenage hormones that she just had to try and kill her mom or something. I think what happened was that the writers didn't have a good enough end in mind and someone was just like "let's have her beat the shit out of her mom" so they decided to go with it and no one had the energy to come up with a better ending because let's face it the season comparatively sucks, so why focus on making a really polished episode if all the others are going to be mediocre? Why not just make them all mediocre and at least have some sort of continuity?
Other than that, yeah the two most recent seasons were subpar. I really do think that a lot of it was an attempt to tailor the show to American audiences. British shows tend to have a lot more introspection and complexity, a lot more control in terms of tone and how the show is broadcast, and a lot more freedom in how stories are written and portrayed. I'm not being an idiot American having a wet dream about how much more sophisticated British people are, it goes both ways: American cinema, at least in my opinion, is widely superior to British counterparts for pretty much the same reasons. There are exceptions: breaking bad's real good, lawrence of arabia's real good, and when British and Americans cooperate, there can be real genius (Kubrick, Hitchcock). I don't think the differences between cinematic art across the Atlantic are in any way inherent to the societies, it probably has more to do with how the countries have traditionally made, interpreted, and interacted with the media, and I bet if one were to compare the history of American and British television they would find some profound developmental differences that could help to explain the cultural gap. Or I'm just an asshole who liked black mirror before it was popular, that's valid as fuck.
Sorry to write this big ass thing and piggy back on this video. Don't shit on me for writing a big post, you didn't have to read it if you didn't want to i was just bored. Love to the guy that made this, it's really good and makes really good points, I just think that his argument is a lil spotty. I think both of us can agree that black mirror is in a slump right now and needs to stop with its toxic self awareness in order to get back to that good shit, that good sittin on the couch gettin high watchin a season o' black mirror eatin a carton o' ben n jerrys shit. mm, tasty
to be honest although i see the flaws in arkangel 100%, i still enjoyed it. i saw her beating her mother as a side affect, but also as pent up rage, and pent up apathy. no one can develop empathy in their early years without exploring on their own, without experiencing new things. of course, most people wouldn't beat their mother up like that. but a) the kid was already getting ass-deep in other dangerous things, b) she found out that her mother lied to her and forced her to get an abortion without her even being aware, and also broke up her relationship (regardless of how shitty it was for her health), and also had been secretly monitoring her and controlling her without her knowledge. nevermind the whole childhood of growing up like that. her mother WAS the reason her child hated her, tbh. it was a very extreme but also very delicately packaged toxic/abusive dynamic. we just got to see both sides of the story, and knew that the mother was well-intentioned.
Keaton Gosser love your analysis and it falls much more in line with my own. Thank you!
Idk how nobody has mentioned this, but S3 E1 with the social media thing is surely referencing the new “social scores” being used in China.
Google it or something if you’re interested, but the gist is the same. More and more people are being assigned scores based on their reputation in social circles/professional circles/etc. and it is affecting everything they do in life.
The concept is new but they are expanding it constantly, and want everyone’s life history/ “score” to be integrated ASAP.
I’m in a rush but I believe this is the correct Wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
I disagree pretty heavily with some of this but still enjoyed it a lot. For instance, I took "Nosedive" as less of a criticism of social media and more of neoliberal capitalism and its marketization/metricizing of all things, with social media as the more easily accessible phenomenon that could represent it.
I don't know that those two take aways have to be mutually exclusive here. I think a broader understanding both you and Joel's takes would neatly fall under is critique of consumerism, or at least liberal consumerism. Still, I am leaning more towards Joel's take here in that given social media being primarily responsible for hubris and/or disingenuousness is the assumption which this episode works upon, it does seem to be from a reactionary position in that, as Joel said, it disregards the objective truth that the need for social capital is an inherently human trait. That being such a reactionary position, I can't imagine the core message **as intended** by the writer of the episode was a critique of liberal capitalism--unless the writer is a secret AnPrim or a Brocialist/Manarchist lol. That being said, though, the writer and their intention is ultimately irrelevant beyond their own satisfaction with the work. The material value beyond that though is whatever the spectator gets from it so sure, it can definitely be understood as a critique of capitalism **if you want it to be** but I do have to stress my concern with giving the writer that credit for that take where it may be argued not appropriate.
edit: a few changes in language for clarity
This is definitely an appropriate reading of nosedive, and probably one of the only elements of the episode that I enjoyed - the very unsettling social media consultant scenes where protagonist is being told to accelerate her status as a commodity, to continue to market herself to others, the literal equating of social capital in the form of online ranking to economic capital in terms of income, job security, etc. However nothing is really done with this comparison apart from holding them next to each other and implying to the viewer that they are a part of the same larger system. But idk. I don't think this critique does much in the context of the episode. There's not much developed re: this juxtaposition. The solution that the episode seems to endorse is to unplug like the brother or the truck driver does, which if we're looking at social media as a stand in for neoliberal capitalism or ideology or what not, we would know is clearly impossible. Even if you unplugged from this hyper-alienating version of social media by rejecting it or not you'd still be in the larger alienating world of neoliberal capitalism. The episode doesn't seem to think about this idea very much. It seems to value this process of unplugging as the end all for a satisfied life. That's where my problem with this as a successful critique of neoliberal capitalism is. its not very thoughtful about the critique and it doesn't take it to any interesting places. you can certainly read parts of it as a critique of neoliberalism, capitalism, alienation, etc. but it seems more like those things are being incidentally critiqued as an extension of critiquing social media, image-cultivation etc. If you critique any of those things, the possibility of reading that as a critique of capitalism has the potential to follow most of the time.
The unfortunate thing is that Black Mirror is definitely capable of more complex critiques like this. as on the nose as this episode is - the 15 million credits episode from season one essentially depicts ideology, neoliberal capitalism, and all its manifestations in laws, media, etc. as inescapable, showing how the mediated depiction of rebellion and "unplugging" etc. pretty much what it seems to lionize in the truck driver in Nosedive is as much a part of the ruling ideology as the things the show critiques. It just feels like they've started to focus way more on making entertaining episodes than thoughtful ones. Definitely not an entierly bad thing. I still think the show is fun. I don't know if i would call it interesting or thoughtful in most cases though.
I have to agree. I would say they've veered into the territory of needing a less complex narrative solution to stories they start in more complex territory. I don't know if it's simply a choice or what have you, I think they're rooting the stories more in the character arc than the tech they are criticizing. Which is good and bad, good in that character is infinitely more interesting than lore by default, bad in that we start looking at more micro lessons rather than macro solutions.
Are you gay...?????...
Whatever, season 5 is the best because it asks the real tech question "what if Trent Reznor was actually Miley Cyrus"
Deep questions like, "Is it gay to fuck your homie in a fighting game?"
"Blocking out stress would make your child unable to respond to real danger"
It seems like that's actually the point they were trying to make
I think his point is that it's not plausible. Like almost unbelievable.
Yes, and since anyone (you, me, random youtubers) can figure out on their own that this is incredibly dumb I think anyone involved in this project would too.
So it’s a really bad point to make for the series.
But no, instead of dying from something dangerous, the girl kills her mom randomly
Well yeah, that's exactly the point they're trying to make. Joel's argument is that it's a point that doesn't really need to be made. If it was possible to put a device in your kid's head that blocked out everything stressful, who in their right mind would actually do it? It's obviously a bad idea if you think about it even a little bit. Even within the fiction of the episode, governments around the world banned the device for being terrible. So the plot of the episode boils down to: "person uses unrealistic device in unrealistic way, bad things happen."
Teddo Bomb I think the same criticism could be applied to the robo-boyfriend episode though
The main change is that Black Mirror has leaned more heavily into its genre worship. A lot of the newer episodes are like genre films with a science fiction twist. Playtest is popcorn horror, Hang the DJ is a romantic comedy, Metalhead is old school thriller, etc. This definitely hasn't been a negative change for me though.
Although I think you've woefully misinterpreted Nosedive. That episode is at its core a critique of the free market, showing a system where it is technically possible to go from the bottom to the top and then simultaneously showing how that can't happen. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer. The ending is undeniably cheesy, but I still happy-cried when it happened. It's definitely my favorite episode of the series, but I share your love for Be Right Back and White Bear.
I really don't think Nosedive is a critique of the free market, or, if it is one, then it is an incredibly ineffective one. You can't say, "While it's theoretically possible to rise up, in reality it never really happens," by showing someone losing capital in the most ridiculous and unconnected to real life ways possible. Moreover, literally every time she is barred from some social structure that would make it easier to gain capital (in this really weird and indirect way), she would have had access to it at the beginning of the episode when she had her points in hand. Which means that beginning of episode protagonist would have absolutely been capable of going from the bottom to the top.
Could there have been an incredibly similar episode that does have this argument? Absolutely. Make it so she's prevented from accessing these resources from her starting position instead of after being an annoying phony, have the problems she faces be way less ridiculous and self caused, and make it so that everything after she's denied air travel isn't basically wholly disconnected from this theme, and we have some fun capitalism bashing action.
Ultimately though, the episode is neither about this, nor particularly trying to be about this. All of the conflicts in the episode are generated not by capitalism but by this kinda skeevy phoniness required in a system where all of your actions are monitored by everyone you see for coolness. All of the big moments in the episode are about weird and uncomfortable social interactions, rather than about how capital fails to flow uphill. There's definitely an element of, "The quest for capital is a fundamentally meaningless and futile exercise," in there, but there isn't much there about that quest being impossible.
That's a good point I never thought about Eric. I think that was my biggest problem with s4. There really weren't a lot of episodes that had me wondering what universe I was in. Not the worst thing for me either, but I think that's why it didn't feel like traditional BM
Moron, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It's the other way around, you idiot. Technology is destroying man and that's a real fact.
What? The first statement is accurate, but that doesn't make it the theme of the episode, and the second statement I'm somewhat doubtful of, but again, either way, its truth value does not change the episode's theme.
Oooohhh I didn't see Nosedive as a criticism on capitalism before but I see it now thanks
Very interesting. I didn't realize.
But in regards to Nosedive I think you focused too much on the social behavior aspect. Much more interesting to me was the fact that people are excluded from certain things such as travelling, which is now ACTUALLY A THING in China, and it is pretty scary and dystopian.
Especially rn
This is why I downvoted the video. He completely ignored this.
But thats not the focus ? Its just an extra bad thing uwu
Oh, I agree. That's far more frightening especially with the parallels to China. But I think I can excuse Big Joel for ignoring that because the writers of the episode basically ignored it too.
wait can you explain the china thing? no travel if you don't have enough followers..?
boy, people really love writing essays about black mirror in the comments
It's real hard to resist the urge to click that 'read more'.
BigFatCock
and then regretting i ever did that
Well yeah, he invited people to give their opinions. God that was a stupid and pointless comment.
And then you have the people who write the essays in the public reply
That's hardly an indictment.
Your analysis hits the nail on the head, pointing out how Black Mirror often places more emphasis on the individual's reactions to technology rather than the systems that put these technologies in place, which is something I've noticed too.
I’m pretty sure black mirror is individual based on purpose. We are individuals watching, are we not? It’s telling the stories of people in a dystopian future and how they experience the world because we can put ourselves in their point of view and question our ways of thinking. Also, the involvement of the systems in place is always implied.
I don't think they have to perceived through the lens of their tech though. With Playtest, for instance, the tech is used as a plot device to explore Wyatt Russell's mind. It's not a, "Is this tech good? No, it's bad." It's, "This is what people are really afraid of," replacing the monsters with phobias, failures, and the loss of loved ones. I will agree that the final ending was less powerful than the, um, second ending where he returns to his mom and we learn she has dementia.
I see where you're coming from here, but I don't find the character study very engaging and still wish the episode was more pointed
"So we just got him out of one virtual world, but now he's in another virtual world that's scarier and more realistic. Let's get him out of it and have him go home and hug his mom now. Actually... nah, happy endings are dumb. Let's kill him."
- Charlie Brooker, probably
you choose the literally worst episode of the show as an example
The entire episode pretty much hinges on the scene where he walks into his room and his mom doesn't recognize him. Either that hits you or it doesn't. For me, it was devastating. And that carried over into the final scenes.
But to assert that the point of the episode was "don't turn your phone on when asked not to" or "don't test dangerous technology" really isn't fair. The episode is about fear -- specifically running away from it.
@@ZeroSum23 I agree 100%. That scene with his mother was very emotional and the fact that he died and couldn’t even say goodbye hurts the pit of my stomach. Kinda makes you think about how instead of running he should’ve spent as much time with her as possible regardless of the somber idea of the end (although I understand why he must’ve been terrified.) I could see how the plot could mislead people into being more curious about the ‘game test’ itself more so than his issues, but wanting to understand a character’s interpersonal fears is a lost art these days. Symbolism is my cup of tea anyway so I love any story that’s thrown my way that includes depth ☕️
Seasons 1 and 2 question the ability for technology to solve the problems created by human nature
Seasons 3 and 4 largely state that human nature is what largely causes the problems technology vrings.
this is a really good comment! I do wonder how "San Junipero" fits into it. That episode seems to say "sometime technology good and just enjoy it instead of overthinking it so much carol" (I say this at the same time that I am gay and I love that episode and I cried)
@@samb3209 we all cried lmao
15 Million Merits from the first season on the BBC, which you used a lot of clips from in the intro, had a huge impact on me when I watched it as a teenager and it was the first thing I thought about when suddenly all of my friends were talking about Black Mirror on Netflix and I found out that they had been producing more seasons without me realising. The way it ends, with Kaluuya's character's pain and rage becoming commodified, and him sitting at the top in the big apartment with a glimpse of the world outside in exchange for creating 1 hour a week of easily consumable, state-approved Rage At The System content, always felt like Charlie Brooker's worst fears for himself -- the cutesy spokesman for neatly packaged corporate dissent. Feels pretty apt now.
Nosedive, to me, is a criticism of trying to be the perfect version of yourself to 'fit in' and essentially acting fake. Lacey really rings true for me and I empathised with her. It's not a 'phones bad' thing, its a 'getting your happiness and self worth from others opinion is bad' thing.
Black Museum, I can see the points. But I also see an allegory of karma coming back to bite those who do wrong. The daughter of the prisoner comes to exact revenge on the man who manipulated so many to get what he wanted.
Completely agree
IMHO I don't really get the criticism of Black Mirror being anti-technology. I don't think it has an attitude about technology, it just uses technology as a vehicle to explore human nature.
Also I think playtest was about a guy who felt chained down to his home life, and our efforts to find some sort of "escape" whether it be backpacking across europe or video games or something. I agree the message was delivered weak, however thematically virtual reality and "escape" are close together, so thought was put into it, execution is just weak.
knaveHaven yeah, I don’t know what this guy is talking about. He misses the point completely because he is projecting his expectations on the stories too much.
I agree. Actually Charlie Brooker has said there aren't any "message" that you're supposed to "get" in Black Mirror. It's just something that plays out and you can take away from it various different things, you can even go away thinking different people were the "good guy", a lot of people get hung up on the technology, but I personally think that part is not that important other than as a tool to make these stories make sense.
If there's any thread in black mirror I'd say it's the theme of punishment that is WAY out of proportion to the crimes or wrongdoing of the character being punished. This is most obvious in White Bear, Shut Up And Dance, White Christmas (which might have the worst punisment in fiction ever since dante's inferno) and Black Museum, but it's there in some ways in other episodes too.
About Shut up and Dance...
Charlie Brooker has done things about pedophile hysteria before, he was involved in the making of brass eye Paedogeddon (you can see it on youtube, it's hilarious), although he wasn't very central in that production. And in his screenwipe program that was dedicated to American TV compared to British he showed this show where they lure pedos to go to houses where they're not just arrested but filmed on camera so that everyone can hate on them. I'm not saying i'm innocent of seeing that show and feeling righteous and entertained at the same time when some pedo realizes he's been caught, but I also think it's stupid and tasteless tv that doesn't make anything better for anyone in reality, at least not if these people would have been arrested anyway.
It's easy to hate on murderers, pedophiles, neo-nazis, religious extremists because 99% of people will agree with you and signal that they agree with you, whether they think you're going over the top or not.
Some people can't even help themselves and when ever they see on the news that some pedophile, rapist, terrorist or wife beater has been arrested they go on a fantasy tirade, describing the various torture they'd inflict on that person if they met them, or if they found out someone was a pedophile or something like that. It's really pretty cringeworthy to hear, because you know these people are extremely unlikely to do that even when given a chance, very few people do. Instead they call the police like they should.
Now the hackers were of course able to be anonymous in Shut Up And Dance. Otherwise they wouldn't have done these things, but really they are worse criminals than Kenny and Hector because they fuck with their heads, threaten them, push them (not force them, but still) to commit robbery, and some might say murder but I don't see how it can be considered murder when both of them are made to fight to the death.
Instead it's a weird case of the two parties who both ought to have the right to self defence, because they both reasonably can judge that the other person is a lethal threat to them.
What Kenny really needs, is to first get some prison time and a hefty fine to be shocked enough to wake up to what he is (a fkin pedo) and that he is a criminal not just someone with a terrible secret who's innocent because no one knows and then he should be sentenced to undergo mental treatment to remove these behaviour of masturbating to pictures of naked children. And if that doesn't work, he should be forced to undergo chemical castration.
But we already know there are pedophiles so the new thing in this episode is really the hackers, these are the scum who neglected to report someone they knew looked at child pornography to the police just so they can play vigilantes (some crappy vigilantes btw, causing a robbery) for their own amusement and feeling righteous first, only then do they inform the police.
I believe that’s what the show writer or something said, he said it’s not about technology
@@gunnarthegumbootguy7909 Modern day twilight zone?
I think that happens because most people tend to focus on "the story" and not the themes in it and how they are being explored along the story. Sometimes a story can be simple or not very well told, yet exploration of certain themes in it are interesting enough to make it worthy. I agree that Playtest may be too focused on "world building" which makes it easier to miss the actual themes being explored in the episode. But they are still there. And no, it's not about "VR is bad".
The thing that gets to me so much about the new Black Mirror is the just never-ending amount of Easter Eggs it tries to sprinkle into every episode, to the detriment of the standalone nature of the stories. I think a lot of people nowadays feel like every series needs to have some sort of completionist narrative that you can pay attention to and be rewarded for seeing mostly-hidden hints.
xingcat They aren't even hints anymore. Black Museum had 2 or 3 references that were right in your face.
thats why i liked metalhead. you have an isolated story without alot of references to the other episodes. just a woman running from a metaldog and trying to survive.
EMto thefknRE: I liked the one where they hide the body. I smoked weed for the first time in years and I was sooo tripped out lmao. Everything felt so epic and unexpected
I thought that making the universe consistent was an assault on the show's ability to tell wildly different stories from episode to episode. If it's all interconnected, the logic of one episode has to bleed-over to the next.
"people nowadays"
uhhuh
In arkangel she knew that she was doing some ammount of damage, she just didn't know how far she had taken it. Also, my interpretation of playtest was it was the system doing everything, but so fast that it killed him. Your critique is still valid though.
If you focus on the technology, you're barking on the wrong tree.
The show is about the inherent qualities of human psyche, that are given a channel to express themselves through new forms of technology. It asks if technology takes the innate "evil" in us and magnifies it to an unhealthy level. What was once buried deep beneath the surface is dug up by the newest high technology shovel.
Let's say in USS Callister the guy is a creep. In a normal world, he would only dream about punishing his co-workers in such a ways. In the "advanced" world, he is given a channel to express this side of himself in more "tangible" way, slowly perverting his mind (and soul).
These qualities are being strengthened by their expression, not unlike a muscle when exercised. And I think, that this thought is present in all of the episodes in one form or another.
Segagens I think he gets that it’s just nowadays the show doesn’t do that very well because the people are not believable.
@@AJJ129 Exactly. The show used to focus on human behavior and how we interact with new technology but now it's just "technology bad"
Black Mirror isn’t about technology being bad, It uses technology as a metaphor for society, Arkangel is about parents who try to control their childrens lives (which do exist, and would definitely act similarly if put into that situation), Men Against Fire is about dehumanisation of the “other”, USS Callister is about men who abuse their power, etc. San Juniperno actually shows technology being a good thing, and it’s the best episode of the show.
Yes, but in the case of Archangel, the metaphor becomes flaccid because the technology is ridiculous. A certain degree of plausibility is important, here, and I guess I disagree with you about how much plausibility that episode has.
Exactly. Realize that every episode you mention is from season 3 or 4. Seasons 1 and 2 highlighted the relationship between technology and society in such a way that conveyed fear about what might one day be reality. Take The Waldo Moment for example. While the case could be made that it is generally about backing a politician based on personality rather than merit, a much stronger case could be made for the show representing the power of artificial icons like Vocaloids and the cult of personality surrounding something that isn't real. Black Mirror was afraid of technology, but it isn't anymore.
"Black Mirror was afraid of technology, but it isn't anymore."
A really good way of saying this.
Okay, but seasons 1-2 aren’t just about technology either. The Waldo Moment is about political apathy and personality cults leading to the wrong people being elected, something that later would happen with Trump in 2016. White Bear is about society’s sadistic desire for medieval style revenge against criminals rather than actual justice. TEHY is about the way we obsess with the past that is ultimately unhealthy and destructive to our lives. BRB is about dealing with loss and the fake personas we present ourselves as online.
Black Mirror was never afraid of technology, if it was, it would be an incredibly reactionary show that wouldn’t be half as good. Technology can be a good thing, it isn’t something to fear, it is a tool, and the way human society reacts to technology is what Black Mirror is really about.
I'll admit that I don't think fear is not necessarily the best word. A better way to phrase it would be that that Season 1 and 2 are about being troubled by our interactions with and reliance on technology and what that may one day bring based on what those interactions are now, hence the name Black Mirror (which also invokes the image of a screen that is off, further linking the show back to technology). In Be Right Back, instead of moving on the main character put to much trust in technology. You even mention how we present ourselves online in your interpretation of the episode, another aspect of the technology theme. Of course here is were we reach the ever present interpretation issues. I would say that White Bear could just as easily represent online harassment. More than once people have made what they thought was a harmless joke on twitter only to be met with constant berating from others who won't let you forget that one mistake months or even years down the line. The people who do berate you might very well derive some sort of pleasure from it, a hero fantasy, like they are standing up for something when really they are just making someone's life hell.
Ironically enough this problem of interpretation links back to The Waldo Moment. I really don't think the episode has that much to do with politics, that topic was just a vehicle to push the message. Why did people like Waldo? Because he's an icon that they think stands for something when he really doesn't stand for anything. In the episode they mention Waldo's actions being decided by online polls, representing people reflecting their own beliefs on to characters. Compare this to Hello Kitty, Batman, or Mario. What these characters mean to you may not be the same as what they mean to me and that is why they sell so well, they are idols with meaning of our own creation. Yes at one point Waldo did stand for something when he was being piloted by the main character, but after he was kicked out Waldo grew faster because there was no particular political message attached to him.
The thing with nosedive is that the social platform is not only for "social capitalization" but can also earn you material benefices. If you're rated high you can buy this and that for less money than lower rated people. That is a big incentive for getting a high rating and justifies the "fakey" conversations happening.
This analysis really rubs me the wrong way. The social credit system in nosedive was much more important to their daily life than you made it be. The score basically determines things such as quality of medical treatment, living situation, even if you can open the doors to your place of work. There were other flaws in the analysis but this one frustrated me the most. Black Mirror shows us what can happen when humans use technology and, like with everything else, make a mistake or use it for vile purposes. Companies who leech off widows and family members of a dead person. Overbearing parents who would rather their kid numb to the world than them be healthy and grow up like normal children.
But it also shows us the crazy good things we can get out technology when human error is eliminated. (hang the DJ and San Junipero.)
It feels like he was willfully ignorant for a lot of this video. I understand being willfully ignorant as a facetious schtick but he just wanted to push an argument. You could tell he was gonna do it even from the start when he said “hopefully we’ll come to some conclusions” or whatever the fuck. While I’m commenting- “play test” or whatever seems to be pretty relevant in the current world- the outcome of the man dying is weird, but deep fakes are a huge issue that we’ve gotta confront at some point soon. In a show that tries to intertwine philosophy, his ignoring of the fact that this is clearly the Cartesian evil demon rubs me the wrong way as well.
Ok. Still think the Amazing World of Gumball did a way better episode with this premise.
Ike Okereke I haven’t seen it. What episode is it?
@@messymexican9452
Its titled "The Stars." It's from Season 5.
The show got worse because it stop asking questions like what if we can live forever , what is considered life , or how we never really progress in improving our quality of life . Despite the advancement of technology . Only to use technology to help avoid the scary and hard work it takes to hold ourselves accountable . Nosedive is a lazy idea that presents the question "What if social media bad ?" It is essentially clickbait to appeal to those that hate social media . Your mad because you thought you saw something special and that made you special . Just like how you feel when looking at those likes . The sadness, fear, and anger that this video gave you, would be a better concept for Black Mirror to use .
i agree with all of this but i still love all those episodes bc im just a little gremlin who loves being entertained
Some great insight here, but I think you have to remember Black Mirror isn’t simply a show about the “dangers of technology”. It’s ultimately a show about human nature, and our shift in values in conjunction with shifts in technological process. Yes, in ‘Nosedive’ this social media craze makes the characters behave in ways that are, in reality, annoying and phony... but this is the type of persona we create on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. We curate our online selves to be our idea of “perfect”, pining for the approval of others. So in the future, is it too hard to believe we would take this attitude into our real-life interactions?
That being said, I agree the show has changed in a lot of its political aim. I just think it does deserve some credit where it’s due, and it’s not that it isn’t working as hard anymore, it’s just working equally as hard on other things. (But Play Test and Arkangel were just underwhelming and uninteresting episodes in my opinion, I’m with you there.)
I still love black mirror, but you dont deserve all the dislikes this vid is getting. Its a really cohesive well thought out, and put together essay that made me look at the show from a new angle. Props to you man
I gotta agree with k d here, I genuinely wanted to hear a good dissemination of Black Mirror's slide from its provocative prominence, but what I got was someone who injected a little too much of his own bias/expectation of the show into the critique. Now granted, with almost all reviews that is to be expected, but for me, I think he missed the point of the show.
And as an extra aside, his criticism of Nosedive seems a little naive when you consider the chilling parallel to China's social credit system. Think back to when cell phones and social media weren't a thing, and how radically altered our world and our view of it has changed to accommodate that augmentation. I always saw black mirror as a sort of warning to the dangers of computational progress, relative to our own proximity to its invention.
@@Atamastra Very very true. That Nose Dive critique felt like he was deliberately overlooking how tech and apps changed the way people interact, just to prove his fabricated point. It's a case of "I don't use social media this way, nor do I see it being used like that much, therefore it doesn't exist".
All in all, while I might agree on a couple of things mentioned here, it felt like he was being a little too edgy for the sake of it.
Its nice to see people on youtube actually engaging with a piece on it's own terms. The dislikes are some of the many people who want to apply their arbitrary values to everything. I dont think videos should get disliked on mass, especially when they're so comprehensive. I feel like you could write a book about the way media is consumed, interacted with and interpreted on TH-cam.
I liked when they had the prime minister bone a hog.
It was fun science fiction, imagining a time when our leaders acted more respectably.
In defence of Playtest, I always felt the episode was trying to make a point of how the constantly evolving escapism we find in the modern world allows us to run from out problems until its too late. Like the crux of why the technology fails and the main character dies is because his entire situation is caused by him running away from his family problems and life, with the end result being him going into a game, his escape, and dying from the mother calling him, literally reality forcing him out of the escapism.
Just wanted to suggest an alternative to the common critique I see of the episode.
I don't share your viewpoint at all tbh. In my mind, Black Mirror isn't driven by politics or technophobia - it's a show that looks to tell a horror/thriller story that explores how the worst parts of human nature could manifest in developing technology in some similar alternate universe(s) to ours. Just look at the title - it's about casting a dark reflection of society as it is now and seeing what that looks like. Technology is more of a horror sub-genre than the actual focus of the show in my opinion.
yeah, the dark reflection of your technological device, like how a phone looks when it's off. I would say the show focuses nearly every episode on the social implications of some technology, either current or speculative
Yepyepyep i agree
+
enbykenz Thank you! I keep seeing people talking about Black Mirror's view on technology and all I can think is: this is very "first degree" analysis and misses the point completely. Technology in Black Mirror is a device, a tool (as it is in the real world) but the focus always is human nature. It's not about technology worsening humanity, it's just that some technologies may make humanity's flaws more apparent. Moreover, in some episodes such as "Playtest", technology is just there to better frame a story (here it serves to display an allegory of the character's inner world, trying to use distractions to ignore his fears: mostly dealing with his dad's death and his mom's distress).
When technology truly is central, problems always stem either from the humans who designed a device/program for very questionable purposes, or from how humans destroy each other and/or themselves using these devices/programs.
Yes, indeed! Was just compelled to point out the same thing. Tech is just the medium. I mean c'mon. future tech is rad as hell.
I think you are a little wrong about Arkangel. I know people who are so protective of their child that they would take up all these services, without much thinking about the future.
As far as governments are considered, I'd not recommend relying on them to ban something provided they earn good money from it. Guns could be an example. And since the big tech companies are some of the biggest companies in the world right now, they sure can get their way in a world where guns are cigarettes are legal.
I don't know about parents using the ability to censor things from a child's vision. I mean, there might be some ridiculous parents out there, but usually over-protectiveness comes with the desire to protect your kid. And in the case of this tech, it would be an active detriment to that protection.
As far as governments are concerned, I agree with you. I wouldn't necessarily trust the government to ban arkhangel. My point was more that even within the show, the government would ban this tech, so what exactly are they telling me to worry about?
Big Joel Denying children sex ed or contraception is done with a desire to protect but studies show it leads to the spread of stds, pregnancy, and all sorts of shame about sex. So, no, it's not always about what makes sense to outsiders who fancy themselves sane with regards to protecting a child. Thats a fundamental misunderstanding about what helicopter parents are protecting their kids from. It's not just the scary thing. They're protecting *themselves* from having to explain that scary thing to their children, thus shattering their innocence and no longer being in control of their child.
Also keep in mind that much of what that mother did was a projection of things she wished shed had growing up. The dog scares her too, so instead of dealing with it herself and talking to her daughter about fear and how to navigate it, she took back control (really she just gave herself instant gratification) by masking it from her daughter. Same with the kid running away. Instead of explaining to her how dangerous that was, she blamed herself and then spent years monitoring everything her daughter saw and felt. And in some cases she was rewarded for doing so, like when she caught her father's heart attack. That's ultimately what the ep was about. The ways we lie and say we're doing something for others, but really its catharsis for ourselves, using other peoples lives as an excuse. When you think of it like that, how the daughter has this almost worm inside her brain revealing things that even she doesnt know first, that her mother has controlled her and her entire life, its not hard to imagine her snapping. She craves violence because its one of the main things her mother didnt want her to see and one of the only things she can actively control (see the brief instant she pricked her finger and saw blood).
Not a perfect ep, not even a great one, really. But it's been filtered too often through this incredulous lens of what an overprotective parent is and just how much rage a teenage girl has within her. Usually both are underestimated, like the when you jokingly said it was like beating her mother because she read her diary. Goes a little deeper than that.
Just FYI, watching Arkangel I recalled some article I read several years ago. It was basically about how pet implants are now so common and even mandatory, and people kinda want to take that to the next step.
They interview a few companies that were already in that field of research and prototypes for humans (Several years ago yeah?), and they said they get THOUSANDS of calls a month from parents asking if it's possible to implant their kid (!!)
Yeah it's "just" GPS for now, but that's how it starts.
Just some food for thought because I'm not sure people realize just how many parents would actually do this to an extent.
Yeah, parents will say its "just in case they go missing" until they start following their kids every step, creating either very dependent childs or highly rebellious ones, godammit law and order SVU did an episode on this
"I don't know about parents using the ability to censor things from a child's vision. I mean, there might be some ridiculous parents out there, but usually over-protectiveness comes with the desire to protect your kid. And in the case of this tech, it would be an active detriment to that protection."
Age restrictions, the MPAA, ratings, of course these things exist and are solely meant to "protect" kids. And yes, overprotectiveness comes with the desire to protect your kid...but is that an excuse to invade their privacy? Nope.
If you look at it technically then nosedive has a pretty bad message. But thematically, I like it because it’s about not basing our happiness on what others think of us. That’s an important message, despite the world not making much sense.
This isn't about a technical look, joel is just sad because they made fun of him taking pictures of his food.
@@alvin_rowlol
I think black mirror has run into this problem where people think each episode has to be some deep cultural criticism. But instead of just creating narratives that are valuable for different reasons, it tries to shoehorn in some statement.
If you look at Nosedive as just a dark comedy about being true to yourself then I think that it's a perfectly good story. For example.
I agree with you 100% on Playtest, and I've detailed my criticism of that episode in the comments section of a few of its review videos on youtube.
I loved Nosedive though. The world presented is not meant to be completely realistic. It's more like a satire on people's addiction to and almost worship of social media.
You're both wrong. It tries to hold a lens up to the idea of what social wealth is worth and at what cost it should be maintained. She actively destroys and ignores her only family relationship because it has no social value, and yet pursues empty relationships with people that wronged her because it has social value. It swaps out race and class and first impressions all in favour of a number that floats over your head that determines whether or not you're worth socializing with, and as such calls into question whether or not that number, and by extension the things it replaced, are more useful than getting to know who that person actually is.
It's an episode of a television show, and it's not that serious.
The wonderful thing about TV shows such as black mirror is that anybody can take away whatever they want from it. So i dont think its fair to say that one's opinion is wrong, I think we should all respect and maybe learn from others opinions :)
He acts like "the point" of the episode was "don't turn your phone on when asked not to" as if that was actually a message the episode was trying to send. It's fine if you get nothing out of the show, but it's pretty silly to act like it wasn't trying to do something with its story.
I mean, Joel's not really wrong. The message of Playtest is "call ur mum," but that's not really keeping with the tone of Black Mirror. Remembering to keep in touch while traveling or whatever isn't exactly a technological issue, and it has nothing to do with 70% of the episode content. It really just felt like Playtest wanted to go for a second twist. "Ha! It was a dream within a dream WITHIN ANOTHER DREAM!" Which is a shame, because I disagree with Joel that the episode had no promise outside of its ending. AI-driven immersive horror is something the gaming industry is currently trying to work towards, with VR horror and heartbeat sensors and all that whatnot. They could have told an interesting story, one where the protagonist doesn't die at the end, with that.
Really, I think that's a trend in a lot of the later episodes. Nosedive doesn't really suffer from this, but Shut Up and Dance's message ends up being "blackmail sucks" after the first twist, again completely divorcing the message from the technology, and the second twist seems to exist purely for its own sake. San Junipero doesn't really seem to have a message, existing purely for the twist. Men Against Fire is a pretty neat episode, right up until the second twist, where the character breaks down after learning he signed a vague agreement about having an implant as if that somehow makes him fully liable for what was done with the implant, and the military, which has demonstrated the ability to wipe people's memory, needs the protagonist's permission to do so, but is free to literally torture him with full sensory deprivation without a trial or anything. I didn't terribly mind Hated in the Nation. Without going into detail, I think that Arkangel, Crocodile, Hang the DJ, Metalhead, and Black Museum all put having a "twist" over having a message critiquing progress for progress' sake.
I liked some of the new season, but it's definitely a LOT more hit-or-miss than it used to be.
I think you missed the point of "NoseDive", especially when you got into your point of:
"We're already living in a society where everybody tries to gain social capitol"
"We're already living in a world where everybody tries to look cool for each other but we don't have to look fake to accomplish that"
"Nobody likes phony people."
Well, yeah, you're right and wrong. Not everybody is trying as hard as the people in this episode to get ahead, not everyone is this 'fake' for views and do you know why? There is no real all around incentive that everyone has access to equally for putting on a fake persona. In this episode, it's not just social media standing, it's everything from your financial status to your job to your place of living. Hell, she couldn't even rent a good car or board her flight because of her scores and there's her coworker that couldn't enter his job because his score was too low because everyone took his ex's side in a break-up that wasn't anyone's business but it still affects his job. That's extreme and I think it's more of a take on what could happen if social media starts to account for more than just making statuses that don't dictate anything outside of your profile. It's also a take on personality and realness which is important, when everyone has an incentive to act agreeable and nice and just what you'd think people should act like to get ahead because your job and apartment are on the line then that's a world that shuns deviation and upholds conformity which is the exact opposite of what a human needs. If you can't be the real you on any level then it's like pent-up frustration that will burst if all you've worked for has been shat on, which is what we see in the end with MC. Today's social media gives us a small insignificant incentive to be fake, to be what we need to be for others to like us but we can take off that persona when it's not working and be ourselves. Will you really want to do that if your livelihood is on the line? If I needed those points, ya damn right I'll be upvoting everyone I see, shooting the breeze with people I despise, and taking stupid instagram photos of food.
But it doesn't so I continue to barely update my facebook statuses, post a selfie every other month, and continue to share memes with my friends.
+Jack G wow you must thing you're so cool for using big deep words
sorry for expecting too much you weren't even able to link something correctly
There are certainly some reasons why some black mirror episodes suck but this reviewer seems to lack the imagination to actually understand the show before he reviews them.
Nosedive was never about fakery. It's about fakING kindness and our inability to process criticism. Calling people fake? Not many people would care about that. But try to even insinuate that they're not compassionate, and all Hell breaks loose. If Nosedive was about faking without consequence, it would be less what it is now and more The Purge.
the only recent black mirror episode i loved was arkangel. to me, her beating her mum wasn't her not knowing that she was hurting her - in my interpretation she wanted to hurt her. but upon the pad breaking and her being able to see her mum's unresponsive she panics. she's well aware that what she's doing is violent and harmful - she just doesn't care as much until she sees it. i still think that the technology is in no way realistic and that the criticism of helicopter parenting is far too heavy handed - but the character driven story was at least good in my opinion. as a stand alone from black mirror i would've enjoyed it far more - but i still felt it was a standout piece in a sea of mediocrity.
equally, the individual stories of the pain addict (which is, apparently, based on a story written by Penn fucking Gillette??) and the revenge of the tortured criminal's daughter are interesting ideas that could've been fleshed out or presented differently. obviously these are just opinions and the rest of the series' episodes can essentially be boiled down to "TEchnology *BAD*?!" (bar san junipero - which i completely enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like an episode of black mirror - with a sentiment more "lesbians good")
I think San Junipero is less "lesbians good" and more "brain in a jar ok"
I disagree with the assessment of Nosedive. I don't think the writers meant to criticize the protagonist (or by extension teenage girls) at all. I think the episode empathizes with her deeply. It presents her as a woman who just wants to be accepted, to be pretty, have a passionate relationship with a nice man, and to be more independent by moving out of a small place with her brother and into a super cute place on her own. She wants what most people want. But she has to play this stupid game to attain it. It's not a criticism of her participation in the system, because it's completely understandable why she'd see this participation as worth it if the rewards satisfy her very human desires for love, acceptance, and to be surrounded by beauty. As a plus-size straight woman, I related so much to her. I think the composition of the episode puts the viewer in her shoes.
I think you also missed a huge factor of the effect of Nosedive's social media. In this world, your rating directly effects and determines your station in life. It determines whether or not you can survive. It's not a choice. For many people without any other capital to speak of, it's a necessity. So the episode doesn't comment so much on the nature of social media now, but how oppressive it COULD be if we allowed it to effect our lives on an economic level. China has already started implementing this kind of social credit system that has an impact on the kinds of opportunities and privileges people have access to based on their rating.
I'd also argue that the episode does a good job of empathizing with the gendered pressure on young women to have and maintain a conventionally attractive body in order to receive affirmation of their worth. That was a huge theme. For this reason, I think the episode actually sides with women and girls. It doesn't criticize them.
I don't think that Black Mirror is saying that we are advancing on to a technology all the time. I think that the device that is created in the episode is used as a narrative device to criticize existing things, such as in parents over protectiveness in Arkangel.
I'm pretty sure in playtest, all those experiences the protagonist had WERE caused by the VR. I just assumed it was so powerful that it warped his perception of time (like in a dream) so that though it felt like 40 minutes, he only actually experienced it for milliseconds.
I'm replying to an old comment, but I agree 100% with you. That was my thinking as well.
Arkangel is a commentary on parent censorship.
no shit, Sherlock
Stefano Fierros lol
Commenting on an issue doesn't mean you are making a smart point. BM just sends modern issues on a slippery slope to a stupid extreme and then kust says "you see? this thing is bad"
Matteo Musella lmao all I said was it was a commentary on patent censorship. He didn’t mention that.
@@borednerd5767 He didn't need to. Every single person who's seen the episode knows that. He didn't mention it because anyone with the ability to open a youtube video surely has the brainpower to know it deals with censorship. He tells you in the video why the episode doesn't make a tangible statement.
The whole thing about the Nosedive episode is very real. So real in fact that a system in China not too disimilar is in the works or has come out. Sure it paints it in a light that people dont express their real selves or that we already do that but with a more connected world would a question be posed that we wouldn't put on a facade more often than the now as opposed to say when everything revolves around social media and its obsession.
Ok. Still think the Amazing World of Gumball did a way better episode with this premise.
American propaganda
@@IkeOkerekeNews Which one was that?
@@blake..- did making this comment bump your Chinese social credit score up a few points?
That college humour parody of black mirror is surprisingly accurate to what the show has become 😂
8:28 I agree that a lot of people dont like phoney people, but a surprising number of people do. And this is those people and their behaviours taken to its logical conclusion.
That archangel episode came out when my kids were around 15 and it hits pretty hard about parental trust and letting go, letting your kids be autonomous even though by adult standards nobody's "ready" for that kind of responsibility when they first take it
This genre of short sci-fi horror stories is older than television & I love it. From Edgar Allen Poe, to pre comic book code comics, to The Twilight Zone, Tales From the Crypt , and more. It's a space where writers can develop & stretch outside of the traditional writing constraints. They're not ment to make sense or have significant meaning but instead be ambiguous & thought provoking. A large part of their horror comes from peaking into a similar universe that's not quite right. Much better in my opinion than other genres of horror because the villians aren't ghost, deamons, or magical insane killers but us. The sense of uncomfortable dread is derived from the fact that you recognize this surreal horror within yourself & those around you.
Also, holy shit, have you seen the black mirror netflix ad that's actually about how netflix is EVIL because you DON'T DO ANYTHING BUT WATCH SHOWS, GET OUT THERE AND ENJOY LIFE GODDAMNIT?
I swear you had 40 subs when I subbed to you not even a year ago and here you are. congratulations on your successes man, you honestly deserve it.
Arkangel was the biggest disappointment for me. I thought we might end up exploring the idea of a person growing up emotionally stunted, having been prevented from experiencing or even witnessing pain and grief. We saw that she can't even see her own drawings if they're deemed too "violent", or look at her mother's face as she mourns her own father. That, I think, would have been interesting.
Instead, it became this weirdly dramatic Very Special Episode. First time you use the device to check on your teen? She's definitely having underage sex for the first time and talking like a porn star. Day 2? Drugs, of course! Straight into the cocaine! And did she get pregnant from that first sexual experience? Of course she did - better put some abortion drugs in her smoothie! She'll never find out... oh wait, she DID! And finally, question for the audience - you find a device your mother has been using to spy on you and has recorded several intimate and incriminating details: do you A. Smash the damn thing to bits, B. Keep the tablet as evidence to confront her with C. At least take the thing away from her and maybe stick it in one of the suitcases you're packing, or D. I dunno... just leave it there, I guess? If you answered D, congratulations - you're a moron!
The point of playtest is how neglecting relationships for technology is harmful. The only reason he got that call was because he was never in correspondence with his mom. If he treated his mom right and she didn't have to worry about him he could have explained to her that while he was at this playtest he needed a do not disturb type of deal. But he was neglectful to her so she was unaware that calling him would kill her.
He could also have been killed by a cold caller trying to sell him something, or someone just calling the wrong number - in an alternate version of the show where he did keep in touch.
I didn't watch the episode, but is it made clear that she's actually a good mom?
But then there is Shut Up And Dance, which is easily one of the best Black Mirror episodes. I'd sum it up this way: what of the episode stays when it is over? And indeed, of the Netflix seasons there are not many. They may be intriguing stories and fun, but compared to the early seasons, they are just popcorn flix, because nothing is left to reflect about when they are over. Shut Up And Dance however is one of the episodes where a trope is taken and turned on its head. The twist at the end does not only change the story, but also allows one to perceive the story emotionally in a different way than had it been told differently.
Also it features the magician of The IT Crowd.
shut up and dance is my favourite episode of bkacj mirror. there are so many little details that pop up every time you watch it.
Also my favorite episode. But I'm more fascinated with how it makes me feel, I don't really think you have a lot to think about when you finish it
I find it interesting that you contrast Be Right Back and Nosedive when essentially one of the base messages is the same.
The reason the robot reminds her of her loss is because he's too perfect. The robot is reconstructed from his carefully curated social media presence. So his skin is better, he's deferential instead of combative. He's a facsimile that has a built-in in flaw in that it constantly reminds that it is not real.
Nosedive takes this idea of curated social media presence and applies it to real life. The rating system has real impact on your life. You can't get a house in this neighborhood without a high enough rating, you can lose your job if your rating falls too low. So yeah today when we meet tryhards we are bothered but there's no impact to not accepting them. Human social behavior is astoundingly flexible. Interracial marriage was illegal in many places until 1967 and now it's a fast growing subset of marriages. There's still places where it's not accepted as much as it should be but it is largely accepted as a social norm, and has been for at least two decades by now. So in around 30 years people came to accept interracial marriage as a norm without there being any significant external pressure to confirm to that sentiment. If you kept your opinion to yourself regarding interracial marriage you we're unlikely to lose your job and you definitely wouldn't lose your home for supporting it outside of action of lawless groups like the KKK.
The point here is that in nosedive the rating system is integrated into society to a ludacris degree, it may break your suspension of disbelief but that's a different problem, through such integration and social pressure the fake curated lifestyle of the try hard would be quickly adopted by consensus simply by external pressure alone. Our current social normalities are defined by this consensus and it's state is always shifting. It's also accelerating due to the globalization the internet creates. It took 17 years for the Supreme Court to declare anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional (Bowers to Lawrence though it can be argued that it was a generally accepted principle before Bowers but it was the one that established a firm constitutional stance on the subject). It only took a further 10 to declare a federal ban on gay marriage unconstitutional (Lawrence to Windsor) and then only a further 2 to incorporate that decision into the states (Windsor to Obergefell). To correlate this to popular attitude during this time in 2001 people opposed gay marriage by a nearly 60/40 margin. It stayed this way through 2004 where favor steadily and slowly gained. In 2009 an inflection point occurred it was 54/37 against but the rate of change of opinion towards favor moved rapidly by 2011, just two years later favor surpassed opposed at 47/46 with 3% undecided. From there it has continued to rocket towards the favor position and 6 years later it is now basically flipped with 62% in favor 32% opposed and 6% undecided.
So to summarize that polling data people's attitude towards gay marriage was stagnant from 2001 to 2009 in 2 years favor overtook by a single percentage point and in 6 years the attitude has completely flipped compared to 2001. In 8 years the social consensus essentially flipped. And before it's said the changing social consensus led the Supreme Court not the other way around. There was no change after Lawrence and the rate of change didn't change after Windsor. The basic point is social consensus can be stable for a long time and then completely upend itself in less than a decade.
There are a lot of reasons such as demographic shift and the like but the point is this was a natural shift without artifical pressure put in place like we see in nosedive.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is imposing current social normalities to undercut a narrative basis is not a particularly good argument. The social interactions seen in nosedive make perfect sense if you accept the conceit of the world. Ignoring the real world impact of the ratings is a major flaw in your argument. You say it's a fad but the establishment clearly demonstrates it is a long standing practice. The social consensus has moved toward the rating system and thus the rating system is now in a self reinforcing loop where it only gains momentum in society. That's why the end is important its not "social media is bad" it's more like "if we spend too much time curating ourselves and accepting the curation of others we become prisoners." that's why the final scene is so important. She's literally in jail but because she chose to leave the system behind (for real not like her brother who just pretends to not care he talks a big game about it but still holds a decent enough rating to live his life unlike the truck driver who has truly abandoned the system) she is freer than she's been in a long time.
I just want to add I'm not saying interracial or gay couples don't experience bigotry or discrimination anymore. That would be silly. I'm saying that their right to simply exist is now essentially a widely accepted cultural norm. This is more so true with interracial marriage than gay marriage but it also had a few decades head start.
Well said.
Be Right Back was good, Nosedive was not
a ludacris degree
Charley A: Pointing out typos. How original, you deserve a badge.
On the topic at hand: I agree with Adam. I just don't think that you have to end up in jail or as a low income truck driver to be truly happy.
I always felt like Nosedive was more a criticism of society and also a peek at the rating system China has implemented and is still developing further. Technology is mostly just a supporting character in the episode. At least in my eyes.
All fair points, but I would like to point out that the first two seasons had no small amount of hand waving to move the plot and point of the episode forward. Take the "Black Christmas" episode. Pretty much all of the horror of what happened there was extralegal and insane when you think about it. The company making cookies would have had to get together as a company to enslave copies of peoples consciousness. I find it hard to believe that anyone would be really ambivalent towards that to the point of just going along with it, up to and including the hiring of a torturer to "program" the cookies. All of that while keeping the customers involved in the dark.
Beyond that, I'm not certain that any court would uphold evidence gained from a copied consciousness of a suspect. It's plausible, but still far fetched given that doing so also required imprisoning said consciousness in a wasteland forever.
Completely improbable is the sex offender all block. A person goes nearly insane not being around two people for a few years. How does the government expect a person not to go completely insane with zero interaction whatsoever?
Despite all of this, it is still one of my favorite episodes of black mirror. I'm not tryign to say the show has always been this bad, or anything like that. Just consider that your problems with seasons 3-4 may come more from the lack of political focus and less from the consistency issues.
to be honest, the government already removes all social interaction from some convicted criminals through solitary confinement. other than that, I totally agree.
you'd be surprised at how many people I've seen defend the cookie slaves and interrogation in that episode. I've even heard people say the girl in White Bear deserved her treatment. people are kinda fucked up, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this became a reality.
Disagree with you about Archangel and Nosedive. Both of those scenarios seem completely believable, and realistic to me. However you do have a point. Some of the scenarios and technology are just too far-fetched for present time. Copying people into computers, or virtual worlds that are as advanced as The matrix, that's just not technology that's right around the corner.
Norman Huxley it’s not meant to be though, it’s probably quite far away and who knows from the extent that the speed of advancements in technology will increase
The tech is probably no more than 20 yrs away. Look how far we advanced in a decade.
I don't think we're advanced that much, not at all. We struggle to even go to the moon again, let alone copying someone's memory. I think some of the hypothetical situations aren't meant to be literal future, just present what ifs
This is one of the best comment sections I’ve ever seen. Everyone is so respectful, wether they agree with you or not. Great vid!
Fuck you
@@bassmastervan9391 😂😂😂
Really interesting analysis of the later show. The one thing I would say is that I felt Black Museum was more of a self-parody, as in of black mirror itself, rather than a criticism of the audience. I think it was trying to say something along the lines of “yeah the show causes unnecessary suffering towards characters, and Charlie booker can be a bit of a dick,” but that’s just me
DwRockett that's a good point, actually. I see it
Black Museum was the best episode of both season 3 and 4 and it reminded me of before teh show got mainstream and soft
I thought it was incredible as a standalone episode as a story of liberation, and as a sequel to white christmas with the 3 part format and devilish narrator who gets comeuppance, and also, besides those things, a wrap up of the existing black mirror Seasons/Series, putting it all in one building and setting it on fire. I took it as the show makers saying "we aren't resting on our laurels, we're not married/attached to the previous works/episodes". Possibly also a "this is all you get, lol" to people who obsess over the possible inter-connectedness of the episodes. There's something very powerful in the ritual of burning a symbol of everything that's come til now.
man i disagree with this analysis, i dont tend to care about realism and unlikely plot hole scenario world building, particularly in black mirror, and i feel this video focuses primarily on that and straight up misses some of the key points the episodes were trying to make. in arkangel its less about the child growing to not have empathy and more an allegory for youre child growing to resent you if you shelter them from reality out of your own insecurity and anxieties, a parent has to grow up themselves and realise that bad things will inevitably happen to those they love before being fit to raise a child. with nosedive once again the focus isnt meant to be literally what if social media was currency, its saying that in many ways our image is already currency and it does that by forcing the audience to compare our reality with this made-up surreal metaphor land. its not supposed to literally be a concept world to make fun of social media, its exagerrating the current landscape to emphasise and expose current issues. as for playtest, which i wasnt even a fan of but at least i didnt arrogantly reject the idea that it had a message at all, the idea is to show correlation between the advancement of escapist technology and the need for escape. how escaping from our unreconciled real world problems will only ever end badly for us. the edit in this video even showed the point was at his death he regretted not "calling mom". he wouldnt have died if he had a better relationship with his mum. thats not to suggest that everyone should have good relationships with their mothers but that he died unhappy and unfulfilled not because he was happy with no contact, but because he was escaping contact with people out of essentially cowardice. all in all i still believe that while not all episodes are equal, the show by and large still keeps the theme of really being about society and people, and a warning of what will happen if technology advances, but socially we fail to. you might still think these ideas are not grounded well in the show and should be presented better, as i said im not the biggest fan of the new seasons. but its a failed analysis to simply state theyre not there. and im not here to blow smoke up charlie brooker but i think parts of this are too harsh on his writing and diminish some of the complexities and meta commentaries that he comes up with. hes not just making random shit he's a professional writer he'll want to be saying something of value after all.
Since no one seems to be writing essays about Black Museum, I’ll take a crack at it!
Your borrowed point that it is a meta-narrative about how we consume media* is pretty well-established, but I certainly don’t think that is a flaw or the episode. I think it is calling us to be more like the protagonist of the episode - if you see these issues of injustice, do your part to stop them. It’s a call to action. I have no problem with that. 🤷🏻♀️
But also, Black Museum is doing some other interesting things in the background. It’s commenting on society’s fixation on pain, specifically for criminals. White Bear addressed this more explicitly (which is why it’s my favorite episode
Remember how Black Museum ends though? With the protagonist creating a copy of the bad guy museum owner she can torture forever as revenge for what he did to her father. And its played off as this awesome, empowering moment. It's insanely hypocritical for a show to judge people for enjoying the suffering of criminals and then turn around and say "The solution is for us to torture *those* people instead!" Imagine if White Bear had ended that way, it would have turned something morally complex and uncomfortable into just another mindless revenge narrative. That's what I hate about modern-day black mirror. It takes these really dark, adult concepts and handles them in the most juvenile, mean spirited way possible, often getting its messaging mixed up in the process.
"Nosedive" isn't about questioning technology, most episodes are not about that, it's about questioning how technologies affect our society and what sides of human nature they show, the setting is mostly parodical and not supposed to be realistic.
I think it is not the technology that affects the society. The technology amplifies a society. It is like watching tv or using the internet. If a smart person uses it to learn, they become much smarter. If a dumb person uses it to consume more and more dumb stuff, they become much more stupid. The potential to use tech to our good or bad is in the society, it is not the tech that corrupts society.
@@happytofu5 Exactly.
That's what questioning technology means.
I actually kind of liked Playtest and here’s why. This episode actually paralleled the standard Black Mirror formula pretty smoothly. The formula is essentially this: a piece of technology or some gimmick is introduced, and through effects of it which were unforeseen, the message is delivered. Now, I’d argue that Playtest does this.
Essentially, the technology, the video game, malfunctions, killing the protagonist. This is an unforeseen effect, and through the protagonist’s death, the theme is revealed. In his last moments he sees images of his mother, the fact that he sees these things upon his death is proof that guilt was building up within him. You likely see things you care about when you die, so it makes sense that the protagonist really cares about his mother, and it is ironic that she accidentally caused his death.
This brings us to the point of the story: escapism. Video games are often pointed to by older generations as an escape from reality. In fact, even dungeons and dragons and other such things are an area of “escape” for some people. I think the message they are getting at is more like: “video games are fine, but don’t use them to escape from your problems.”
Hot take^
I personally loved Black Museum when I first watched it, but I didn't interpret it as a the show calling me a sadist, I just thought it was about some spooky stories related to technology, but maybe that's exactly what's wrong with the show in seasons 3 and 4, the fact I was no longer looking for a point the show was making is because the show is no longer about making points, it's about interesting ideas about technologies that may or may not be created that would have serious consequences. I agree with a lot of your points, when Black Mirror is at its best it's making the audience think, but after a couple seasons it became out being entertaining making technology seem scary.
I loved San Junipero and Hang The DJ, but they weren't episodes that really made me think about life, they were just fun.
i liked this the minute you pointed out how a lot of things they do to criticize social media are actually criticizing the young girls who participate in it.
Honestly for me the cookie bitting moment was more relatable than anything. I don't really much stuff for social media but when I do it isn't how I would normally do it
I think that Black Mirror has declined in a few ways; unbelievable/impossible technology (like the Star Trek episode fundamentally misunderstanding what DNA is) or a lack of thematic coherency (the bee episode, what was the point? that mob mentality makes us a hivemind? it's a bit of a stretch). I've also noted a certain cheapness creeping into the show in some areas - certain points in the show make me feel like I'm literally watching a Marvel movie, that's the only way I can describe it. It's a peculiar sort of fusion of absurdity and obscenity that you can tell is targeted directly at what they think Millennials like. Case in point, the Star Trek episode (again), where the guy says to the (incredibly one-dimensional) villain "but you threw my son out of an airlock, so fuck you to death." I groaned when I heard that. That sounds like RiffTrax commentary on a Star Wars, but it's supposed to be a dramatic moment (but it also has to be funny so that you can't get too invested because then you'd realize how fucking dumb it is).
ANYWAY, I will say however that I disagree with your critique of Nosedive. You must be pretty lucky if you've never had to interact with a person or group of people who act incredibly fake like that in real life, because they're real. Try talking to your average sorority girl/fraternity guy. And when those people grow up, they act the same way, and they just occupy similar social circles their whole lives so they're surrounded by other fake, ridiculous people like them, and worse, they feed into each other's bullshit so that they just get worse and worse - so I don't see that aspect of the episode as unrealistic. The episode also provides a few examples of people who don't really care about their star rating, like the main character's brother, the charge station cashier who rates his interaction with her a 2 star without really thinking about it, and of course the extreme example of the old trucker lady. To me, these events implied that there was a world beyond the main character's, made up of people who didn't really put too much stock into social media, just like in our world. I also would urge you to consider that younger people, such as the ones who would be occupying the world depicted in that episode, have a different and generally more intense relationship with social media; for example, just today, my coworker was telling me about how the first thing her 14 year old brother did when he was caught in a compromising position by a police officer was to take a picture of the cop car and put it on his Snapchat story. Haven't you ever seen a social media meltdown, even from an adult? This stuff penetrates our minds and worldviews, and that often can spill into our social behavior beyond it. I think that Nosedive was trying to explore our relationship with social media and the way that it influences us as it grows to absorb more and more of our everyday social behavior, and I think it did a good job of it (even if that "fuuuuuckkkk youuuu" scene still makes me groan).
I agree!
Even the original 2 seasons were mostly vapid
Congratulations on writing a novela.
My interpretation to the Star Trek episode was that he was using their DNA to spoof their login info because their minds were already stored in the cloud.
Seth :o no u
7:26 There was an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball that did a similar thing. The 2 main characters, Gumball and Darwin realize if they give a store a bad review, they can bring down the quality immediately (idk, cartoon logic), so they use it to blackmail the stores into giving them free stuff. Anyway, they make an app so they can review people too, to use as blackmail. Unfortunately for them, other people can use the app. Everyone important like doctors and police stop doing their jobs because they cant risk having 0 stars. Everyone just stays still and does nothing in fear of getting 0 stars. Anyway, the app gets deleted and everything goes back to normal. Its kinda a different approach to the same idea.
personally i enjoyed playtest, specifically because i feel it wasnt trying to make a point but rather tell a compelling story with typical black mirror trademarks, and i feel it succeeded in that. the ending genuinely sent shivers down my spine. its a similar thing to a few other episodes where i think the story arc and character conflict where prioritized, which made for a good viewing experience imo.
Series 1-2: Old man grew up with technology and saw it's not the end of the world, but cautions people against viewing it as a godsend instead of another tool.
Series 1-4: Old man neo-luddite yells at cloud.
At least I feel like Series 5 kinda got back in the Series 1-2 mindset. Instead of judging, it's cautious.
Yeah, but is it cheating if I kissed my bro in a video game, tho?
@@realgamergirl4638 Nah, bro. Just kiss him in the streets after. You'll see it isn't what you think.
@@allihavearepasta-basedthou2890 Oh h*ck, man. You right!
They problem is that you decided in the 1st and 2nd seasons that Black Mirror can only be one kind of science fiction, where it shows you a specific technology and tells you it's bad. Since you agree it's bad, you're happy. Now some more episodes come along and since you don't agree that those technologies are all bad, you think the show's message is purely anti-technology.
"Be Right Back" doesn't say robot replacements are all bad. It shows an instance where one seems good at first, and later turns out to be not really be a perfect replacement for the lost person. But it does show a pretty effective way to transition through grief to a new place of acceptance. It doesn't end in a living hell, just a weird world that we don't recognize.
"The Entire History of You" does not tell us that a perfect memory playback is all bad. It just shows us a case where it goes off the rails because it's used without any boundaries. More to the point, it shows us a kind of science fiction where its *us* living with a new technology, rather than what people who had adapted to it would be. The very horrors we see in this case are why if such a thing were introduced, social behavior would change. Nobody would speak in a low voice to their lover while their spouse can see them across the room, because they would know the tool would let them zoom in and play it back, and use tools to read their lips. Anybody who wanted to lie about something, say an affair, would forget to delete all their memories of it.
This kind of science fiction is not saying this technology is bad, it's saying this is what the transition to that technology would look like. The message of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is not "never create an artificial person, that's bad". It is that if you do create it, and then turn your back on it, it will haunt you -- you can't avoid your duty and responsibility to it. This message of inevitable responsibility for the changes we introduce is the foundation for perhaps every speculative fiction story ever since.
"Nose Dive" is an ordinary problem: over-reliance on data-driven decision making. This plagues nearly anyone in any walk of life. Many organizations discover a statistic that seems to correlate with their goals, but if they give people too much incentive to deliver results based on a single statistic, their behavior will be distorted and perverse. High-stakes testing in schools is a common example, or the use of body counts to measure success in the Vietnam War. The message is not that social media is all bad or data is all bad, it is simply showing us what we would do if we let a single statistic like a likability score rule our lives. The bizarre lengths that police departments or retail shops or anyone you can think of go to to meet a data-driven performance goal is all the proof you need that this horrible "fake" behavior is entirely possible, if we let it get that bad. And we have evidence that it has become that bad before. If anything, the problem with "Nose Dive" is how familiar and ordinary it is.
You have trouble believing that a society could choose to filter out undesirable things from the sight of people, as in "Archangel"? Consider the vast numbers who live in societies where women can't be seen in public without their entire bodies shrouded, and any kind of image of a sentient being is forbidden. Is that a bad idea? Can there be bad side effects? Yes. Do we not have to worry because the government wouldn't allow it? Well, many governments do allow it. In half of the states in the US have aggressively removed information about birth control and abortion from teenage sex education, in spite of all the objective evidence that it has exactly the opposite of the intended effect. It is entirely plausible that a society could get it just as wrong with a technology like the one in "Archangel".
Same mistake in "Black Museum". It doesn't say that is the entire audience. It says, as with the other episodes, that this is not the way to use this media. If you choose to use it in a foolish way, bad things can happen. It even presents a somewhat better use of the same media as an alternative.
These episodes all do have flaws. "Black Museum'" a terrible episode, but the reasons are not the politician shift you claim, or a universal pessimism about technology. Mostly is that some of them are not very well written, or not thought through enough. I get an "early draft" vibe from many of these season 3 and 4 shows. But some of them are great.
Dennis Bratland Thank you. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the video I really was hoping at least one person eloquently explained why not a thing he said made sense.
This was okay... Except that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's moral was definitely that you shouldn't play God, and make people.
The first thing Victor does is abandon his creation because he is horrified at its appearance. The "monster" learns to read and speak on its own, takes the name "Adam" in reference to his being the "first man" made by the titular "Modern Prometheus" not unlike how the first man made by YHWH was given the name "Adam" as he was created from the earth. (Which shows Adam Frankenstein had read the Bible). He learns compassion from people, hatred from people, and even at the end of the story his pursuit of his father through an arctic/icy tundra is not entirely out of anger...propelled singularly by Doctor Frankenstein's refusal to look past the disgust he has of his creation not fitting the image he had of it despite the many years having enabled Victor's "son" to be cognitively fully-grown and even into notable adulthood.
The overarching moral, at least in the book, is 90% that if you decide to play God, at least try to be benevolent and caring to the things you play God towards.
When I started reading your comment I initially expected to disagree with you, but by the end I was pleasantly surprised to find quite the opposite.
"Mostly is that some of them are not very well written, or not thought through enough. I get an "early draft" vibe from many of these season 3 and 4 shows. But some of them are great."
This is exactly my feelings about the later seasons of Black Mirror. I felt that so many of these later episodes were far too focused on having high production value that they didn't flesh out their premises or tell a very meaningful story. They are often well written and well produced by conventional standards, but within the context of Black Mirror's message they seem lacking in any real exploration of their concepts.
Perhaps one of the best examples of this is Metalhead. It was an interesting idea in a fairly unique setting, with lot of action and suspense, and the cinematography was great. But what was it trying to say? What were the good and bad sides of the technology presented? Where did everything go wrong? In context of any other sci-fi anthology I would have likely enjoyed it a lot more. But as a Black Mirror episode, it ultimately failed to present any real moral conflict and by comparison felt flat and one-dimensional.
Also, I entirely agree that the biggest problem with Nosedive was not in its execution or its message, but simply the fact that its theme was already far too common in the social commentary of today. Perhaps fifteen years ago when social media was in its infancy the premise might have been much more impactful, but nowadays this is a real issue happening around us every day and thus the message feels pedestrian.
Black Mirror wasn't originally about "technology is bad", it's about questioning society's responsibility to handle solutions involving technology. The technology in _Nosedive_ wasn't a solution for any problem (maybe there is that I don't know). _Playtest_ doesn't involve problem-solutions nor any societal critiques, it was about an experiment. The point that Big Joel was trying to make is that Black Mirror beyond season 2 is (completely) different (or probably unfaithful) to the original Black Mirror seasons.
"we already live in a society" -Big Joel, 2018
It’s not about technology being ‘bad’, it’s about human nature being inherently selfish yet innovative, leading to our tendency to create things that are meant to benefit us but ultimately creates more problems or leads to our own demise
Thank you making this. I couldn’t figure out why it was that I never connected with the show after seasons 1 and 2 but this definitely touches on a lot of what I was feeling!
Oddly enough my favourite episodes are in the 3rd and 4th seasons.
I personally think the best black mirror are the things that could believably happen. Like in play test it's hard to believe that the protagonist wouldn't have been asked to leave his phone outside or that a major company would fail to provide a signing page giving a perfect opportunity for him to switch his phone back on. Or that person watching the camera in the room wouldn't have noticed him taking pictures of proprietary technology.
I'd say that arkangel is my least favourite episode in black mirror because the people don't behave like real people. The mother for instance could have confronted her daughter lying to her seeing as she had called her friends mum and could have used that as the reason why she knew her daughter had lied. They could have had a conversation about contraception at that point. The whole second half of the plot didn't have to happen
Imagine that first episode discussed, framed around the husbot. Maybe even only telling us what the husbot knows.
The arkangel one is more of a metaphor for how parents will try to protect and shelter their children the same way, but not to the extent of the technology in the show, and only end up harming their child. Obviously this tech is not realistically going to exist, but parents who are overbearing, watching their childs every move, and sheltering them from reality are much the same as the arkangel.
Big Joel, did you not get the whole point of the VR episode was not technology killing us or hurting us in someway. It was about trying to avoid dealing with trauma and how video games or traveling the world can provide that escapism. It wasn’t specifically about tech, it was about escapism as a concept.
People act a lot like the protagonist in nosedive. Obviously it pushes it to an exaggerated level but you're opinion that "people don't act like that" is very subjective. Some people do act like that, and many do unconsciously
I agree that the shows overall quality has fallen since coming to Netflix (and especially this most recent season....yeesh), but only slightly- and for entirely different reasons than the ones you give here. With each of the episodes you analyze here, you seem to have misread their themes, and thus the entire episodes.
12:00
I'm late, but I don't think that her actions were too much to feel genuine. The protagonist's mother killed her child by drugging her. That'd about do it for me, and I'm not a violent person at all. Good points otherwise though. I too was wondering why I couldn't get into the later seasons and I think this answered it for me.
Oh come on, Nosedive was awesome !!