Black Mirror: Nosedive Analysis
Nosedive provides an interesting perspective on social identities and socioeconomic identities. Lacie’s social identity in the beginning was overall a positive one. She does not seem to break from her positive demeanor unless she is in front of her brother, where she actually feels like she can be herself. In this episode of Black Mirror, your social rating determines the job you get, it determines where you live, your friends, and can give you major boosts in life. If you are well liked by everyone and have a high social score, you can rise up in your career. You are also able to afford more upscale living at a better price. It is the complete opposite if you do not have a good score. You are ostracised by society, you are not allowed to fly or drive a stable vehicle, and you can even lose your job. This usage of technology, that is similar to social media actually determining your life, is a terrifying way of living.
In this society, people’s social identity is comprised of a profile that can be viewed by anyone, and an overall score based off of interactions with people. If you post a nice photo on your social media account, you get rated. If you get 5 stars, your overall score increases. There is an interesting scene in the show where Lacie receives only 4 stars by one of her old friends that has a very high rating. She was very upset by this, as she would love to have her friend’s approval. Her friend has extremely high socioeconomic status. She is a pretty, skinny white woman who lives a wealthy lifestyle and has a fiancee, and friends with similar livelihoods and ratings to her. She has the ideal social media profile with several pictures that have received high ratings. Lacie is jealous of this because she is very unsatisfied with her life. She is so unsatisfied that she wants to live in a community where she could have a simulated husband, and a simulated life. She does not seem to want to live in reality, and very much plays into this digital, superficial world at the beginning.
This episode of Black Mirror was a very interesting critique on what could happen if social media ran your life, and if the only thing that mattered is how people superficially see you. The purpose of this society is to encourage politeness and kindness, but also promotes extremely unrealistic expectations. Not everyone has a flawless social media account or fits into the unrealistic beauty standards that media promotes like Lacie’s friend. This system is elitist because only those that fit the social norms of the society are able to succeed. People that are different in any type of way, like if they don’t like posting pictures and are not cheery or smiling 24/7, would not succeed in this society. This society thinks that this system is the perfect solution to promote a stable community, when in reality they are making people live a lie. The livelihood and well-being of the people in this community depends on how well they play into the system.
Another notable point of this society is that people rate each other based off of whether they think their conversation with someone was genuine or not. There is a scene where Lacie is trying to increase her rating so she is being overly kind to a desk agent. He looks at her strangely and gives her a low rating. She asks him why he gave her this rating, and he said it was because he didn’t feel like she was being genuine. It is ironic considering if you were to genuinely react to someone saying something impolite to you, like by becoming frustrated or irritated, it would work against you.
In conclusion, Nosedive helps us understand the dangers of taking social media too seriously, and how it can drive someone crazy. In our current society, social media can be a fun tool, but it can also be a frustrating or trapping tool for many. There are so many videos of famous Instagram stars that have decided to completely delete their accounts, because of the overbearing pressure to constantly put out good content and look a certain way. They would describe how they would bully their siblings into taking photos of them, and how social media caused them to have body dysmorphia or eating disorders. This further proves that someone’s social media account does not always represent who they are. The difference between social media and this society is that you still have the ability to judge someone for who they are in person, whereas with the society in Nosedive, social media transcends into the real world. The only time Lacie felt free is when she was arrested and removed from this system and was able to freely communicate with someone in prison. Prison from this society was freedom.