A review of the Black Mirror series and its reflections on our reliance on social media.
The digital sector and social media in particular has come a long way in five years. The speed of evolution has been nothing short of spectacular; MySpace the early pioneer and wunderkind has gone from hero to zero in less time than it took for the world to work out there was something a bit fishy going on at the News of the World. Like that great bastion of the old print media world, MySpace’s time has come and it has been discarded by a consumer generation fascinated by novelty and constantly searching for the next social media fix. Some would argue that the demise of MySpace is simple Darwinism; survival of the fittest where MySpace proved to be anything but an athlete and certainly there is merit in that argument.
The other competitors are still going strong, with Facebook a good couple of lengths clear of Twitter and YouTube, but now nervously looking over its shoulder at the new challenger, not just Google, but Google+ no less. Only time will tell when the race is won or indeed if the race will ever end; more likely the race continues until more and more die from exhaustion and new challengers spring to the front.
The social media future is as yet unknown, only a bona fide genius (or madman) would profess to have a blueprint for what the landscape will be next year, let alone in five years from now. However, a potentially prophetic vision of what that future could be was recently portrayed with customary acerbic bite by Charlie Brooker, in his excellent series Black Mirror on Channel 4. From his early career as a video game reviewer, to the Ten O’clock show (via some of his finest misanthropic work in The Guardian, the excellent Screen Wipe series on BBC2, and series of book deals), Brooker has more than fulfilled his apprenticeship as an observer of society. More than observer in fact, Brooker could lay claim to have his finger on the media pulse of society today, and particularly the youth fascination with social media. With tens of thousands of Twitter followers and a passion for video games, Brooker cannot be accused of knocking it without trying it. He has immersed himself in all things digital, all things social and all things media, which is why his portrayal of such dystopian futures has such resonance in Black Mirror.
The first episode was set squarely within the confines of modern day Whitehall and Thames House, combining the post-Spooks fascination for the security services with political blackmail, terrorism and a splash of celebrity royalty. It was pulp fiction at its best and as a coup de gras, included a most preposterous scenario in which the fictional Prime Minister of Great Britain had to defame himself in congress with a pig, in order to rescue a celebrity princess. It was over the top and ridiculous, more silly and preposterous even than Spooks itself. However, the role of social media and consumer appetite and demand for salacious celebrity-obsessed trash was the star of the show. Thanks to YouTube, Twitter and the appetite created, once the story had got out via YouTube and Twitter, it reached unstoppable Tsunami levels, leaving the Prime Minister only one option – to satisfy the mob and consummate his porcine obligation. The crescendo delightfully illustrated a population glued to their television sets to watch the bestial act, revelling in their fix and yet, as the reality at what they had demanded to consumer became clear, increasingly disgusted by their habit. Subtle it was not, but a relevant and timely portent all the same.
The second episode was a more gentle affair, but delivered a much clearer vision of a dystopian future, brought about by society’s demand for novelty and the quick fix. Timed perfectly to run immediately after the X Factor final, the second episode portrayed a future in which society peddled exercise bikes to earn virtual credits that in turn would be elicited from them by the advertising Big Brother in the form of virtual clothing or hairstyles for their virtual double. There was no escape from Big Brother; in their habitation cells, advertising messages and live feeds from salacious channels or talking heads from X Factor contestants were constant – the penalty for skipping the advertisements being the removal of significant hard-earned credits. Big Brother knew everything; if a user closed their eyes to avoid the horrific pulp fiction, the advertisement simply paused until their eyes were open again, taking the advertising sector’s current obsession with providing “eyeballs” to the extreme.
The finale concluded with the abandonment of innocence and morality, as a nation and their virtual doubles, obsessed with celebrity through the X Factor styled Hot Shots, gave in to the inevitability of their addiction. It was dystopian and depressing in the extreme. It was delivered with the subtlety of a sledge-hammer, but equally with the wit and passion that is synonymous with Brooker’s work to date. Whether Brooker is a genius or mad man we have yet to learn, but the social media tsunami is only gathering speed. When the wave breaks only time will tell, and whether the aftermath is a dystopian landscape littered with the debris of humanity, or whether social media will in fact become the very embodiment of democratic free will, the ultimate socio-economic model of free-market supply and demand remains unclear, but if there is one thing we do know; we won’t have to wait that long to find out.
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