Ow yes 'Black Mirror' is back with an vengeance and the first episode of the new season is just one that strikes the immediate stae of where we are all living in.
For the people who are not familiar with the concept of 'Black Mirror', this is a series written bij Charlie Brooker where every episode is an individual story. That also means that every episode has a different cast, has a different length on the duration of the episode and a totally different topic.
In general this serie makes you itch. Some episodes are a bit more absurdic, but a lot of them really strike to home and where the current state of society is. I mean....a while back there was this episode about the social crediting system and later on I saw this 'real' documentary about a city in a big country where people would loose their social credits when crossing a red light.
Doesn't sound too far from home all of a sudden anymore right?
People.com
Well specifically this episode made so many things itch as they are more than true at the moment and that is a perfect moment to dive in a bit more.
Warning: this containers a lot of serious spoilers about the episode so if you don't want to know this..Stop scrolling from here!!
But ow so true
It all starts with these super common people Mike and Amanda living their normal life until Amanda gets this serious brain injury. The only way for her to survive is where this commercial company Rivermind comes in to cloud function her brain. The subcription to this package from the commercial company is $300 per month and it comes with some boundaries of what it is capable of.
As you can imagine that is where the issues start and where you can start relating to it in the 'real world' as well. Because now it is a subscription to a program, but the reality in the world ofcourse is that a lot of people are very much dependent of some sort of medication which is only manufactered but 1 company having all the rights to do with it whatever they want. How many people in countries like the US are a slave to their medical bills? More than you would like to see.
And ofcourse when Amanda starts blabbing out these advertisements isn't this just the same as when for instane influencers have to start doing ads to pay their bills because the rest isn't bringing in enough? I see so many similarties to a normal day in there!
Variety.com
Or what about when the price of the package goes up big time and you have go up with it? Literally exactly this was done by a streaming service that I use as well. 'Ow your old package is now only in shit quality available. To have access to the quality that you would normally use, that will double the price for the same thing you have been using up until now'
Only that streaming service is for my TV and this is for her brain. Kind of a murky area right?
Or what about Dumdummies
Didn't you also have to think with dumdummies about the dark side of the internet there as well? Where people do stupid tasks and the internet pays for this?
I immediately had to think about Only Fans or those foot fetish pages where people sell a bit of themselves for a buck because by now they are depedent on it.
And that is the thing with this 'Black Mirror' episode. Sure the concept of the software into her brain feels kind of surrealistic, but on the other hand.... Everything around it doesn't. It feels like every day life
The life where Common People get cornered. Just watch it and see all the similarities!
