Netflix’s Black Mirror is a show touted to be the sci-fi reimagining of what the future might look like. Predicting patterns of human behaviour, it theorizes about technology’s impact on our lives and shows the possibility of horrors inflicted by artificial intelligence. It truly is one of the best shows to have happened to us. Sure, plenty of Black Mirror episodes are quite bizarre and completely outlandish. Too crazy to ever actually happen in reality, but what about the ones that aren’t? What about the ones that feel so close to reality in the future! So here’s a list of Black Mirror episodes that feel so much like the future that they scare us!
1. Nosedive (Season 3, Episode 1)
Nosedive has to be one of the ‘most close to reality’ episodes of the series. Its premise of a world in which daily interactions are rated on a social network is quite similar to that of our real lives. Apart from apps like Facebook and Instagram, where a person’s popularity is directly related to the number of likes and friends on social media, we’ve also normalized rating in our society through services such as Uber. In fact, the Chinese government is even developing the Social Credit System, which is an influence system that will develop each citizen’s “Personal Credit Score”. Isn’t that insane?
2. The Entire History of You (Season 1, Episode 3)
Memory is a tricky thing. It sometimes may be biased and often unreliable. The way one person remembers an event almost always differs from how someone else recalls that same event in their mind. But what if technology could fix that? What if, when you interrogated your boyfriend/girlfriend about who they’ve been texting late at night instead of banking on their playback of events, you could actually watch those interactions in real-time? That’s what The Entire History of You is all about. A chip implant that lets you record your daily life and watch someone else’s life unfold. However, we feel sometimes; ignorance is bliss.
3. Hated In The Nation (Season 3, Episode 6)
This show is the master of taking a fun concept and turning it into a literal nightmare. This is exactly what happens in Season 3’s Hated in the Nation. The episode centres on a pair of detectives trying to figure out who’s responsible for unleashing killer robotic bees on the population. Bizarre? You bet. But the actual problem, that sadly seems like a possiblity is why these bees are let out. They’re not just targeting citizens at random; instead, they’re controlled to murder the people who are hated the most on social media. If your name pops up in the designated hashtag enough times, you’ll be their next victim. Can we see this happening in another 7-9 years? Totally!
4. Playtest (Season 3, Episode 2)
Virtual reality pretty popular among the gaming community, and it’s beginning to impact other areas of our lives as well. But what if VR could end up hurting you? What if your worst nightmares are played on a loop and could physically cause harm you? Playtest depicts the story of a man who volunteers to take part in a study that asks him to accost his darkest fears almost as if they were real. Which ultimately leads him to lose track of what’s imagined and what’s not. So, the point of the episode is that we, as humans, are moving towards a life that feels more like a videogame.This hits home!
5. Hang The DJ (Season 4, Episode 4)
n a world where human interaction relies upon a technological interface, the idea of dating feels especially terrifying. Hang The DJ is based on the idea that algorithms can predict happiness to a whole new level. It follows Amy and Frank, two young adults who sign up to participate in the “System,” which is an environment guaranteed to help you find your soulmate. It works on carefully collected data and estimated calculations. The catch? You may have to go to bed with a bunch of frogs before the AI can match you with your prince! We all know dating is scary enough as it is. But the idea of testing out dozens of potential suitors just because a computer told you to do so, suffering in bad relationships for an amount of time determined by some all-knowing piece of tech, that just sounds exhausting. But this episode surely depicts a reality we can foresee!
6. Arkangel (Season 4, Episode 2)
Marie is a single mother who embeds a monitoring device in her little daughter’s brain after she goes missing for a brief while. The implant lets Marie track her daughter’s location, blur out certain language and imagery, and see the world through her child’s eyes. While it proves useful for some time, but eventually it begins to hinder with the girl’s interactions with her friends and her ability to evaluate dangerous situations. Marie agrees to disable the device and trust her daughter, but years later, as a teenager, Marie’s daughter exhibits some concerning (typical teenager) behaviour. So Marie reactivates the implant. Her daughter eventually discovers this and nearly beats her to death. What’s truly alarming about this episode is the knowledge of how many parents, even in the present, would choose to inflict this kind of technology on their child just for the sake of their own peace of mind.
7. Shut up and Dance (Season 3, Episode 3)
Shut Up And Dance was disturbing on a whole another level. This episode took the already existing and terrifying concept of the dark web, and cyber bullying twisted it into something completely different than you would ever expect. The fact that the protagonist was a terrified, teenager who pees himself while attempting to rob a bank didn’t help either. Considering that, at that age, many of us would have even responded in the same way out of fear, makes this episode horrifyingly realistic. The ending of this one will shock you! And believe us when we say, you wouldn’t have seen that coming. But it is! In the near future!
8. The Waldo Moment (Season 2, Episode 3)
Many have compared Waldo, a CGI cartoon bear who rises in politics thanks to his populist ideals, to President Donald Trump. And we think the comparison isn’t entirely untrue! Both go from being entertainers without political backgrounds, who grow in popularity. The only unrealistic aspect of this episode is that Waldo is an animated character. But keeping in mind the types of candidates who’ve run for office around the world in recent years including reality TV stars, bodybuilders-turned-actors, and comedians — a Waldo-type real-life candidate doesn’t seem that far off.
9. Smithereens (Season 5, Episode 2)
Smithereens, a story about an anguished rideshare driver who takes a passenger captive while demanding to have a word with the CEO of a large social media firm. Everything in “Smithereens” is probable. Also, since we are already familiar with the live events unfolding on a social media platform, this episode seems even more realistic. So be prepared to witness this reality in the near future. Don’t say no one warned you!
Featured Image Source: Vox
