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Black Mirror S3E01 "Nosedive" discussion thread
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Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 1 - Nosedive
A woman desperate to boost her social media score hits the jackpot when she's invited to a swanky wedding. But the trip doesn't go as planned.
Warning: this thread contains spoilers about this episode! If you haven't seen it yet, please watch it and come back to this thread later.
You can talk about past episodes, but please don't discuss future episodes in this thread!
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
- How does the title relate to the episode itself?
- Are there any similarities between real life events and the episode?
- Are there any references or easter eggs in the episode, such as references to past episodes?
Real life examples of social rating systems are the now-defunct Klout and China's Sesame Credit.
Other than those it's ubiquitous but confined to separate platforms. The ratings of Uber drivers and passengers, for example. Or the reviews of hosts and guests on AirBnB.
There are apps like Tindr which require a Facebook account for signing up. You have to buy in to that system and give up your privacy if you want to jump into that dating pool. The amount of connections you have and the images you share are there to provide social proof of your (in)eligibility.
I'm sure there are many, many more examples.
just FYI, Tinder doesn't require a Facebook account anymore.
Thank you for the update :)
This episode messed me up more than any of the other ones, because it seems the closest to our current reality. In some ways, we’re already there.
The truck driver made me feel at peace, though. I’d honestly choose her path if we were required to use a credit system.
I'm not sure if I'd call it prescient. as far as I know, it was inspired by systems that are already being used, like the one in China.
Very good episode, the premise is plausible and relatable to an extent. And Bryce Dallas Howard is is amazing in this one.
I also like the fact that through all of the popularity contests and pettiness, there existed the group of people who sort of just said fuck this system and lived just fine 'normally' like her brother and his group of gamer friends that have a small part.
The parts where an interaction happened and they just kind of look at each other waiting to be like okay I'll give you a 5 was fucking hilarious to me. The second half total and complete meltdown was amazing as well. I honestly thought the speech at the wedding was somehow going to be saved and she'd get a ton of likes or whatever but of course it's Black Mirror so she goes to jail for having such a low score and gets to swear across the hall at a fellow prisoner who no longer gives a fuck.
Episodes from here on out get harder for me to rate fairly as I sort of binged them all at the same time and thought it was all great, but I'll give this a 4/5
Sooooo.... You rate this episode a 4/5?
I guess you could say it's not a "premium episode"
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Probably one of the more relatable episodes so far. As someone else already mentioned, a similar system and service today is the ranking system with Uber between the drivers and passengers. I wouldn't be surprised as with the recent approach by the Chinese government, that in the near future this social credit system would expand elsewhere.
Definitely a favorite.
The heart of this episode isn't the futurism. It's the humanity. (But that's Black Mirror in general, humanity under the microscope of tech.) Judging each other, being insincere, caring about appearances and reputation, trying to ingratiate with the in crowd and mistreating people are all behaviors that have been around since the damn of time. The rating system formalizes it and puts a number to it.
And the tech makes it enforceable in a sort of impersonal, non-confrontational manner.