It was a Friday afternoon, my partner had the afternoon off, I was kicking back on the sofa and we stumbled across Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror episode, Nosedive, on Neflix.
I personally have an intertest in Charlie's anarchic style of video mash-up and writing, and hands down, it was better than having to sit through The Great British Bake Off! Having said that, I'm not a huge fan of Charlie's work, just someone who likes to watch good telly. Call me old fashioned, but there's good viewing and then there's just utter thoughtless shit on the box. And Charlie uses thought and lots of it, capturing the very real essence of social media rating systems. Showing us how we live in this not-so-fantasy world that was played out in this short but beautifully portrayed and powerful film.
For myself I would put me around the 1.4 rating, still struggling to get to that all important 4.5. I mean who's going to rate a 1.4? Regardless of their skills or hard work through out the years.
As I watched I got a familiar sense of it's not what you know but who you know, and it's better being friends with the hip and cool "In Crowd" in the vain hope that they will pass you up the ladder and boost your ratings.
To be honest when I post a video, or piece of music, or a write an article, I'm the first one that likes it, hearts it, or thumbs it up. I have to - I'm more or less the only fucker who's going to read it, watch it or listen to it. Is that shameful or just trying to save face, or am I just proud of my work? Like I said, I'm a 1.4. We do what we can, every little helps because nobody watches a YouTuber with a thousand subcribers or follows a Twitter account with a few hundred followers - are you fucking mental? They're obviously shit and are never worth a few minutes of your valuable lifeforce and you couldn't possibly been seen to be in direct involvement with them because this would harm your virtual street cred.
I guess the saddest thing here that rang true for me was the main character called Lacie who tried so hard to get her rating up by pretending to be someone she wasn't and to be in with that higher society of friends to further her dreams.
That is me as my comedy character "Kathleen Dawson". But oddly enough, Kate is liked, hearted, and thumbed up tenfold over me, the man who's underneath it all. I actually have had the opposite result over the years and Kate is easily a 4.8 on the media social scale. And all I am is that person in the final scene screaming "FUCK YOU!"
Anyways a brilliant piece and I expect nothing less from Charlie Brooker. I happily rate this as a 5.0, all the stars.
Very good Brooker, now GO AWAY...!
