Master of Phone

The problem with trying to be a Jack of all Trades

There’s a scene in Master of None where the main character Dev (Aziz Ansari) spends an agonizing 45 minutes deciding where to eat tacos.

He looks up reviews on Google, highlights comments on Yelp and texts multiple friends about his “TACO EMERGENCY!” to help with his decision-making process.

In the end, Dev and his friend Arnold decide on a taco truck — only to be stymied by endless choices on the menu. Dev pesters the taco truck cook with questions about recommendations, the most popular orders, and how happy customers look when they order certain items.

The taco truck cook wants no part in helping Dev make a decision. He’s clearly annoyed that Dev is distracting him from the wrestling podcast he’s trying to listen to on his phone.

This scene encapsulates an overarching theme of the entire series — technology leads to too many decisions leads to analysis paralysis leads to unhappiness. It’s the paradox of choice in the information age.

Throughout the series, Dev’s phone become a character in itself. Dev has close friends around him to provide advice, but usually he’d much rather listen to his phone.

This theme is introduced in the very first scene of the series when Rachel and Dev are hooking up and the condom breaks. While still naked, they both pull up Google on their phones to decide how to handle the situation, only to find contradictory information on different sites. Dev goes with his website rather than what Rachel suggests. The title of the episode is Plan B, which has multiple meanings.

Later, they miss a flight when Dev convinces a cautious Rachel to grab coffee instead of heading straight to the airport because Waze says it will only take “12 minutes.” Predictably, they miss their flight.

“Waze said 12 minutes,” he repeats incredulously at the ticket gate. “It accounts for traffic. I don’t know what happened.”

There are plenty more examples. In another episode, rather than inviting one person to a concert with him, he texts three women the same message. In the end, he rejects all three of them and circles back to where he started. The choice he does make ends up in disaster.

The themes of Master of None aren’t subtle. As the name suggests, Dev tries to be a Jack of all trades. He doesn’t want to limit himself to just one possibility. And he ends up being a master of none.

The logo for the show suggests this, too. Dev is haunted by the infinite versions of himself.

Of course, we are all Dev. We have the ability to make life-altering decisions at our fingertips at all times. You could look for a soulmate or book a flight to the other side of the world with a few swipes or taps.

Or you could just scroll through your feeds, watch other people living their lives online and have the existential dread that you’re not doing enough and end up doing nothing at all.

And it’s that tension between feeling like you could do everything and nothing that can make you unhappy. We know we’re sometimes better off with fewer choices, but we look to maximize our possibilities anyway.

In this instance, the voice of reason is Dev’s dad, who is played by Aziz Ansari’s real-life father. He is someone who had an arranged marriage and as an immigrant never had the luxury of too many choices.

He simply but elegantly tells Dev what he needs to do from his own perspective:

“You have to learn to make decisions, man.”

In the information age, that’s easier said than done.