What one could consider complete satire is a slow burn towards a true future of the same consequences. For the virgin viewer, Black Mirror is a beautiful world of advanced technologies.
Unlike the positivity of Back to The Future, Black Mirror travels towards the terrible abuse of technologies designed for convenience. And all these are almost happening or are already happening in our world.
Addicted to Instagram? Love rating Uber drivers and individual service providers through your smartphone?
'Nosedive,' the first episode of season three, is the sequel of a culture that already exists today. Combine Instagram and Uber's rating towards a person's attitude towards you and you got their whimsical world where personal ratings can get you huge discounts... or social rejection. If you're not nice - or you are underrated - then you will never have vindication unless your numbers change.
Another episode that perhaps is truly happening today is 'The Waldo Moment,' being the third episode of season two. A comedian behind the voice of an atrociously humorous and vulgar bear named Waldo has his bear run for office as a challenge against existing political institutions. Like a totem of societies' sentiments regarding the status quo, this bear wins.
While the show takes the figurehead to great heights (using the bear being a major global influence tool by the CIA), the victory of Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump is parallel not just to how WWII possibly began, but also his attitude being similar to Waldo the Bear himself. Decider writer Meghan O'Keefe even suggested that Netflix subscribers in the US watch it before election day.
These horrors are just the beginning not just for the series but for the rest of the world. 'The Entire History of You' uses total memory storage of all your memories for later curation and access. Google Glass may feature these technologies in the near future. The episode '15 Million Merits' is barely disguised as the future of 'freemium' applications and media with horrifying consequences.
Maybe the world won't be as dark as Charlie Brooker's 'Black Mirror' depicts it to be. But the similarities are just too striking.
