I watched Black Mirror’s episode titled “Joan is Awful”. I had many friends discuss their love of Black Mirror a while ago, watched a few episodes, but never really got too into it. While it was entertaining, I think it was just more of content I wanted to avoid to keep my peace. However, as that content is now the main focus of our class, what better way to get into it than dive right into the icy lake.
This episode was hard to watch, mostly from secondhand embarrassment, but made some incredibly important points to the viewer. Before we get into the lessons learned, I have to bring up that watching people make terrible choices when their life falls apart is difficult, especially when they didn’t deserve it all. Essentially, Joan is this very average person and unfortunately makes some bad choices. Later, she discovers a show that is about her, played by a famous actor. Long story short, there is a crazy quantum computer that is creating a multiverse of stories about people and barely anyone is real. This is something I found to be a crazy thing, mainly because that is terrifying to think about how some people might react to the fact that their whole life was and is a lie. Anyway, one of the most important things that was highlighted in this episode was people clicking the “sign terms and conditions” button. Most often, almost everyone I know of, including me, scrolls right by the fine print and clicks “agree” or “continue” without too much of a care. The reason that the show about Joan was made is because in the terms and agreement conditions for her streaming service (ripoff Netflix), included her essentially selling her entire being over to them. While I have gotten much better with reading more of the fine print, this was definitely a wake up call to do so more often and much more carefully.
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