In “Nosedive”, an episode of Black Mirror, an exaggerated version of our current world is displayed. In this dystopian society, in any given interaction, people can rate each other on a 1-5 scale. One’s average rating determines their socioeconomic status. The main character, Lacie, sees an advertisement for a new luxury apartment and upon seeking it out, is told her rating is too low to live there. Therefore, Lacie becomes obsessed with putting her ‘best’ (most fake) self out there so people will rate her highly and she can hopefully get the apartment. She gets the opportunity to be the maid of honor at her childhood friend’s wedding (who is very highly rated). She sees this as the perfect opportunity to get her own rating up and eventually get the apartment, however, she happened to have many unfortunate interactions right before the wedding, causing her rating to go down, and soon enough, her invitation to the wedding was revoked by her friend. She sneaks into the wedding and clearly has gone crazy due to this unhealthy obsession. Her rating falls below a one, and she is arrested.
While this episode is definitely far off from where we currently stand in terms of our relationship with technology, it is not absurd in any means to relate this to our current situation. Although it is not the same, ‘liking’ someone’s post on social media in a way feels like getting a rating which in turn causes us to perhaps feel more ‘popular’ or attractive. While this is not determining our socioeconomic status, it does in some way separate us in some sort of hierarchical way.
Although I did not watch this for class, I have seen the show and am familiar with some of the common themes. I agree that our social media status somewhat plays a role into a type of hierarchy, and I think some social media platforms are reacting to this by allowing users to hide like counts or not allowing comments. I am interested to see if these social media changes will lead to more broad changes in social media culture in the upcoming years.
I think this is especially relevant this week because of everything that is happening with Facebook. Recently they stopped developing their kid version of Instagram because of leaked research that shows how poorly Instagram affects teen brains and leads to depression. So while this episode is certainly exaggerated, it is also realistic in a very literal sense.
This was a super interesting blog post to read. I did not watch this episode, but you clearly summarized it and I have watched other episodes of Black Mirror.
I agree with the others that commented already. Specifically, I can also see the impact of social media hierarchy and people caring about how they are perceived in our society today. While this episode seems extreme, I do not think the underlying themes are that far off in regards to people going to extreme lengths and/or having extreme emotions tied to social media. For example, people care a lot about likes and what that means for their presence on social media, so this is tied to the hierarchy and quantifying of superficial behavior.
This sounds really interesting. While I did not originally watch this, I think I will now. Although this is fictional, it seems eerily realistic in some ways. I think a lot of the time, people on social media will depict a different version of themselves to garner more popularity. We portray ourselves as masked. How much of what people put online is actually real? This makes me wonder how strong our connections to people online really are. Although we may be mutual followers, how well do we really know each other? And how much of what we know is real and genuine?