I’m two minutes into the Black Mirror episode entitled “Nosedive” and I’m already shook. While I am well-accustomed to the dystopian drama television series, I am always surprised at the multitude of each episode’s shock value, having the seemingly impossible ability to be so close and so far from our present reality. This episode was no exception.
The story revolves around our protagonist Lacie (Bryce Dallas Howard) as she attempts to better her personal and social life through the tedious task of seeking approval from those around her. In this world, your social rating means absolutely everything. Your very identity is attached to a numeric scale, with 5 stars being the highest, that determines almost every aspect of your life. From living conditions to job opportunities to car rental services, your rating indicates how you should be treated, thus, influencing the quality of your life.
Lacie begins the episode around a 4.2 rating, which all things considered, is not a bad stance at all. While watching the show, I couldn’t help but wonder about where my rating would stand on this warped social scale and concluded that I, like Lacie, would likely be in the mid 4 area. I’d like to think I’d be quite comfortable with that star value. Lacie, however, is not.
As Lacie complains about her 4.2 social rating, I couldn’t help but wonder about another character who lost his job because of his lower 2 ranking. This character, who was also black and gay, seemed to be going through a lot worse of a situation than Lacie. He was shunned, friendless and jobless, and still the main conflict of the show was Lacie not being liked enough. Perhaps even this virtual social ranking still disproportionately affects the black and LGBT and yet, the white woman is still complaining.
She lives her life in a constant state of wanting to be amongst the elite. Signs of this yearning are subtly sprinkled throughout the season opener in shots of her admiring those on social media, who rank in the upper 4 category. Her main attempt at a leap to the other, more affluent, side of life comes in the form of her efforts to move out of the living unit shared with her brother, and into a more wealthy part of town. When she discovers that she needs to bump her rating up in order to be considered for a reduced rent payment plan, she embarks on this journey of virtually sucking up to anyone and everyone around her, in hopes that they will return the favor and increase her rating. As you can likely presume, this plan of action has no choice but to end in disaster.
Merely witnessing Lacie’s superficial way of interacting with those around her was painful enough. Coming to the realization that her behavior was not so different from that of my peers, and even myself at times, was just the icing on top of the cake. So often do we act only with the consideration of how our actions will be perceived by others. Lacie simply became a victim of this exaggeration of a habit we all know too well. We all pretend that our lives our better than they actually are by painting them in unrealistic colors on social media. What’s even worse, is that we spend so much time complimenting others on their inaccurate online personas, even though we know good and well that their life cannot possibly be that picturesque.
Social media has this strange way of making us pretend that life is perfect, even when we know for a fact that it is not. We judge others by their internet profiles rather than genuine interactions that we have with them in person. For Lacie, she took careful consideration into ensuring that every detail of her online identity was exactly how she wanted it to be. Even down to the way that an image of her breakfast looked. As I watched her meticulously bite into her breakfast cookie, I held back a laugh. However, I immediately thought to the dozens of friends I’ve seen put great attention into snapping a picture of their meal before even thinking about taking away a bite. The reality is, we’re not so far from this dystopian reality as I’d like to think.
Even the mere color scheme of the show plays into Lacie’s priority of perfection over reality. The vivid pastels of the show are so unlike the color scheme of the real world, that their only possible purpose is to be aesthetically pleasing. As the show progresses, and Lacie falls further down her spiral towards the real world, the pastels begin to dissipate and the regular grays of everyday life begin to set in.
The refreshing contrast to Lacie’s character came in the form of her brother, Ryan (James Norton). Whereas Lacie was consumed with how she was perceived by others, Ryan could not care less. He constantly chastised his sister for her superficial behavior, and behind the jests and insults came a desperate plea from a loved one, begging his sister to remove herself from the grasp of social media. Yet, like many people who have adapted to this technological age, Lacie had to learn the hard way.
I think we’d all like to think we are a Ryan. We’d all like to pretend we’re not as caught up in our social images as we actually are. However, at the end of the day, almost everyone could benefit from taking the moment to stop and consider if they’re acting for themselves or for other people. If it’s the latter, then perhaps it may be best to pull an end-of-the-episode Lacie and start speaking your mind, no matter what that may be.
nyah terrilyn 