Black Mirror: Nosedive, the dehumanization of the future

Black Mirror It is one of those gems of television that, instead of hypnotizing us and making us forget the world around us, motivates us to be more critical of our daily reality. It is not a typical series, there is no connection between episodes, there is no need to watch it in order, it does not force us to do an hours-long marathon and, at times, it is difficult to digest.

Today we bring an episode from the third season titled Nosedivea chapter that, despite its futurism, reminds us enormously of the world we live in. This is not something different in Black Mirrorbecause as the creator himself, Charlie Brooker, has indicated on more than one occasion, his inspiration does not come from fantasy, but from our own contemporaneity.

Nosedive It reminds us greatly of the invasion of social networks that we experience today and makes us aware of how dangerous and unreal they can be.

Starring Bryce Dallas Howard as Lacie, Nosedive presents us with a perfect world, where there are no grays and everything is pastel colors, from clothes to houses and furniture.. Everything is wonderful and idyllic in this not-so-distant future; However, as with social networks, this world hides a very very bitter side.

Lacie is the protagonist of this story, of this ecosystem in which people are measured by their popularity in an application very similar to Instagram, where 0 is the lowest score and 5 is the highest. Thanks to the reviews of others and the network of contacts you can get a better job, buy an apartment and obtain a large number of benefits. What would happen if we took what we see on Instagram totally seriously? What would happen if we started classifying people by their popularity on a social network?

Black Mirroronce again, reminds us of the most hidden side of our world, it puts before our eyes a truth that we know, but that we seem to ignore. If you have not seen the episode, it is better that you do not continue reading, because I am forced to do some spoiler to address the most important issues it raises.

Black Mirror: Nosedive, behind perfection

Every day, we consult Facebook, Instagram, Twitter… Everyone has their preferences, but it is indisputable that social networks have become, in a short time, part of our lives. They are the image that we want to give to the world, what we would like to be, but we are not; the best side of our daily life.

In Black Mirror, The star application is used to rate people, very similar to the likes of Instagram, with the difference that these points are social points, They work beyond networks and determine your life in reality.

Lacie is a popular young woman, although she is not part of the elite, she has a good job, but her life could be much better. She is completely hooked on the Internet and constantly tries to catch the attention of an old childhood friend, Naomi, a beautiful young woman with a perfect life who is about to get married.

Voting can be public or anonymous and the repercussion of having a bad grade can be devastating. For this reason, all the inhabitants of this world try to behave according to the rules, to be kind and to appear to be “perfect”.

Let’s think for a moment about Instagram, in the accounts we follow, in the most popular ones… all of them are full of false happiness, of painfully perfect beauty, What would happen if we transferred this to real life? We can try countless filters to look good in a photo, we can measure everything we publish, but we can’t please everyone in our daily lives.

Nosedive It means transferring the codes of our social networks to the real world, where we would not only act falsely trying to please and showing our best face, but those likes that we receive on Instagram or Facebook would serve to determine our social position.

In Black Mirroreveryone acts correctly with others, with a cordiality that is annoying because, deep down, we know that it is not real, it is pure selfishness. They do not try to please or help, but rather try to improve their own image..

Naomi proposes to Lacie to be her maid of honor at the wedding, Lacie accepts without hesitation, despite the insistence of her brother who reminds her that Naomi hurt her a lot in the past. She lacie she needs to go to that wedding because she will be full of people with very high scores and she will be able to achieve the 4.5 needed to be able to finance the apartment she is interested in.

Naomi, for her part, does not invite Lacie because she is a good friend or to share childhood memories, but rather she does it because she thinks it might be interesting to bring a friend from school with a 4.2. Nobody really acts, nobody thinks about the other, there is only the “I” and the image that I project of my “I”.

Stopping being slaves

This extreme concern for image, for the projection of ourselves towards the world, reminds us enormously of our reality. Nosedive It is not improbable to us and, surely, it reminds us of situations experienced by ourselves..

We all want to share images of a succulent meal, a wonderful night with friends, an unforgettable trip, a simple coffee on a terrace… We measure absolutely everything we publish, we think about who will see it and what others will think.

We live in a world that, every day, is a little less human and more technological, but luckily, we still maintain contactthe daily interaction with our colleagues and friends and we have a small space to be ourselves.

We all know what we want to be, some even have someone to imitate. But is it really what we want? Throughout the episode we observe how Lacie’s personality is extremely conditioned, she does not choose her own food, she eats what is socially okay; She doesn’t like the cookie that comes with the coffee, but she pretends she does. This conditioning, This new way of interacting and the extreme falsehood make the characters unable to handle a conflict, to speak their minds for fear of lowering their score.

Black Mirror masterfully immerses us in a contemporary masked ball, of filters in real life, where everything is pastel, everything is apparently perfect, but no one is really happy. No one can be so happy, no one can be happy always and no one can adore everyone.

This extreme Instagram, together with the wedding invitation, will make Lacie become obsessed with popularity, something that will be cut short by a series of unforeseen events that will lead Lacie to be herself, to put aside the mask, becoming human.

It is human to have feelings, not to think the same as the next person, it is human to express anger. But in this perfect world, the human has no place. Lacie’s fall is nothing more than a liberation, she ends up in jail, but she is free.

It’s not the walls that oppress her, it was society, and once she’s out of it, she can finally scream, she can be herself. The final scene in which Lacie “has lost her mind,” when she realizes that she no longer has her cell phone and goes into a screaming loop with her prison buddy, is a liberating, hopeful scene. There is no greater prison than oneself, there is no greater slavery than a dehumanized world.

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