in the “Black Mirror” episode Nosedive the show discusses an alternate reality where your social media activity and presence determined how you were judged in life as it controlled almost everything.

Throughout the episode, we follow a character named Lacie who, assumingly like everyone else, is putting on an image of her to the world that is not true. Her life doesn’t seem awful at first, but it takes a spiral when she is told she can get a 20% discount on an apartment if her rating is raised to a 4.5 from a 4.2, very similar to influencers and celebrities who are given discounts just for who they are. It also reflects on real life, how someone with more Instagram followers is considered more valuable than others. Throughout the episode, her score ends up plummeting after a few imperfections lead to major mistakes in her life. Towards the end of the episode, she ends up disturbing the wedding she was supposed to be a bridesmaid at filled with high-rated individuals and her low scores end up getting her put into prison. There, her eye technology is removed, and she is starting to have genuine feelings that aren’t based on social media perceptions for the first time. As she smiles her first genuine smile, she and another prisoner start trading insults, and the angry yelling turns into smiles as they are both feeling free for the first time in their lives.

I watched this episode a while ago and really enjoyed rewatching it because its message about social media is completely true. When someone has quite a few social media followers, most people’s first impressions are that they must be extremely important, and that is reflected in this episode as those who have high ratings are treated as upper class and more important people compared to the rest. It makes me pray that we never get to a point like this with our media and this remains a fantasy in this episode.