Black Mirrors in Our Society

I've had the joy of watching a few episodes of Black Mirror recently (mostly missing the beginning of each episode), and I thought the creators did a pretty good job of making criticisms on today's society and our obsession with technology. Naturally I am a lazy person, so I feel that I am not going to go as in-depth as other's may when it comes to comparing the television series to real life. From what I saw in the three episodes that we watched, I thought that the writers made well constructed, valid points when reflecting on our society.

Charlie Brooker, writer of Black Mirror

In the episode "15 Million Merits", Black Mirror's writer Charlier Brooker shows his audience just how obsessed we are with our appearances, and how as a society we tend to bite more than we can chew. By creating characters who are obsessed with the looks of their avatars, he mirrors how we as a society obsess over the image that we perceive to our peers. Characters in this particular episode spend most of their hard earned money on material things just as we do; they update their avatars and seek approval from their peers on recent purchases. 

Brooker also illustrates how most people in society will alter their morals in order to stop living their mediocre lives on the hamster wheel. With Hot Shots giving their contestants "Cuppliance" (literal compliance in liquid form), it is next to impossible for these people to turn down offers given by the show's judges. With contestants working hard and striving for 15,000,000 merits in order to be on the show, it allows the viewer to see how the characters will do next to anything to stop living their mediocre lives. That's where the Cuppliance comes into play. I personally feel that it does not matter that the contestants were drugged into agreeing to better opportunities, they still worked for the 15,000,000 merits because they no longer wanted to live their lives in a 10x10 room.

In the following video the protagonist, Bing, illustrates to all audiences just how messed up the system is. As he is touching upon points in his reality, it also sheds light on our's as well:

I agree with Bing's speech because I do believe that as people all we do is consume. When a piece of reality is given to us we cower because we don't know what to do with it. I am not going to pick apart his speech because the whole thing is brilliant and I couldn't agree any more with what he is saying.

Although we are not completely cut off from reality due to technology, we do have an obsession with it – much like the character Ash from Black Mirror's episode "Be Right Back". Yes we can share our life experiences and explore places that we may not be able to explore via video, but there is a certain point that most people reach where their devices have completely consumed their life (much like Ash).

If you watch this clip from the beginning to about 7 minutes (I couldn't find an shorter video) then you can see how out of tune Ash is with reality due to his device. People in today's society, believe it or not, are just as bad:

I believe that Brooker does an astounding job with his writing and I do fully agree to the message that he is portraying to the people. This satire television series hits pretty spot on to how we are as a society, and it's actually quite frightening in a way. I just hope that we all don't become so reliant on technology that we turn into the people from Wall-E, because let's be real, that would be way more terrifying.