Black Mirror “Nosedive”
The Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” is about a middle-aged woman who lives in a world where people rate each other on a social media network that is on their phones. This rating app becomes a part of the society and culture of this future reality that they are living in, as it becomes a popularity contest between everyone in the town. The rating each person gets symbolizes the social class they are categorized in where a 4 and above rating is considered high class while those with a 3 star is middle, and 2 star is lower class. These ratings reflect their social standing, economic standing, and overall lifestyle.
Throughout the movie the main character becomes so caught up in her ratings, posing a forced image and lifestyle in order to receive a higher score. This popularity contest gets so in her head that she actually goes crazy.
This idea of an online popularity/rating contest that reflects your image and lifestyle is very similar to how people in the real world do the same on social medias such as Facebook, snapchat and especially Instagram. This dystopian reality seen in the show is already happening with the use of social media where people post photos based on what they want to show people and how they want to be seen. This causes a dystopian reality since how people are perceived through their Instagram page can be very different from their real life, as often you are only showing the good, often making your image very deceiving. There is already so much competition on Instagram where people are so desperate to have thousands of followers and get hundreds of likes on their photos. How many followers and likes you get is a reflection of your social standing within society; the more likes, the more popular, the more good you look. With Instagram being a platform for sponsorships and can be seen as a way of marketing yourself, it is very likely that this dystopian reality will become even more like in the show, where this popularity contest takes over their lives.
As an action in order to prevent this false reality that people pose through the use of social media, it is important to disconnect from our phones and the media. Social media is making it so much harder to separate virtuality from reality where it is starting to become an issue in human socialization and interaction. Everything is on online and on our phones where people become to lose skills and qualities of living in the real world and replacing them by hiding behind a screen as a portrayal of themselves. There should be a distinct disconnect from social media and reality and it is very important for people to separate themselves from technology in order to prevent them from losing themselves within the real world.
It is also important for people to realize their own unique personalities, separate from what is seen as popular and cool in the media. Media users need to realize that they do not need to conform to the standards seen online and rather stay true to themselves and post what truly represents themselves as a person and what makes them happy. It is also important to realize that your worth is not based on how many likes or followers you have and that people do not need approval from others.
Overall, it is important for people to stop themselves from getting caught on in the social media in order to prevent this dystopian reality from becoming a bigger issue in todays society.
