Black Mirror Bad | Big Joel

In this video, I talk about and review all three episodes of season five of black mirror, Striking Vipers, Smithereens, Rachel Jack and Ashley Too.
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[@BigJoel]

1) I see now that one of the men is clearly lying in striking vipers when he says that he doesn’t have feelings for the other outside the game. Honestly, this means almost nothing to me because, once again, nothing is made of this fact. That said, I thought I should say that I realize this now. 2) So I’ve done a lot of thinking about the ending of smithereens, and here’s a few explanations I can give for the elements I’ve talked about, as well as problems I have with those explanations. I hope, if you read the convoluted mess that I’m about to write, you’ll understand why I favored the idea that these elements are largely meaningless or, at the very least, so messily delivered that their meanings are best left ignored. That’s said, I hope you’re able to come up with more parsimonious readings for these elements, and I look forward to reading them! *The protagonist being partially responsible for his wife’s death* . This might play into a disconnect between surface and reality. On the surface, it looks like a drunk driver was completely to blame, but as it turns out, the protagonist was somewhat culpable. This connects to the motif of being heard-in the same way that bureaucrats only care about humoring people and their needs in a shallow way, so too does this drunk driving narrative offer us an incomplete and shallow picture. My problem with this is how incredibly generic it is. Any realization, any bit of missing information that we found out about the protagonist, would have this same message. There should be something specific and vital about this moment, some meaning to the actual events described by the protagonist in this speech. otherwise, his monologue feels incidental and messy to me. *The mistaken murder of the protagonist* . So this one clearly plays into that same idea of missing information/surfaces and reality. We might say something like “the incomplete world social media offers us is symbolized by the police, who use the image of violence, as opposed to its reality, to make their decisions” My problem here is that the connection between the illusory nature of social media and the police coming to false conclusions feels tenuous and underdeveloped at best, the episode doesn’t put a lot of work into directing the audience to this relationship over the course of the story. This is all the worse because the police are actually shown to be somewhat averse to social media in the episode, making it harder to connect the two ideas. *The juxtaposition between the killing of the protagonist and the woman signing into social media to access her dead daughters account* . I’m tempted to read this as a juxtaposition between two ways we can understand social media. On the one hand, we have the skeptical vision of it, the idea that it’s vapid and shallow, as represented by the unnecessary police shooting. On the other, we have the woman who is actually able to access her daughter’s account and gain valuable information about her though social media. I have two problems with this read, so let’s go through them. First, again, no matter what you say to me, a mistaken police shooting will never function clearly as a metaphor for the vapid nature of social media, particularly when you’re juxtaposing that metaphor with something else. Second, the idea that the mother being able to sign into her dead daughters account is some big win for social media is ridiculous. The mother was totally unable to get that information until the CEO of smithereen stepped in. Frankly, I think it’s more likely that the director just thought the montage looked and sounded cool, and decided to include it because of that. I might also suggest a far more visceral meaning to the juxtaposition: logging into social media is a violent act, a bit like getting shot. But I actually just hate this idea so much that I refuse to accept it. I mean, it’s a good thing she gets to log on, right? Not like getting shot at all.

[@BigJoel]

Moss Arts ooo wow I love it! I don’t know if I totally buy into the idea that the scene with the mistaken shooting is trying to claim that the person at the top of the hierarchy, the chief police officer, has a sort of monopoly over death (in the same way that these ceos have a monopoly over our accounts.) The reason being, it’s not the police or any power source that prevent Chris from killing himself, it’s a Good Samaritan. What’s more, I think that I’d want a greater focus on hierarchy in the police, and a focus on the way that power in that hierarchy concentrates at the top, to really FEEL this interpretation. Still I think it’s a really clever reading and definitely a lot more elegant than mine.

[@100najaja]

why do you think it's a good thing? No one wants to have their messages read after they kill themselves. One could say that it's a invasion of privacy, just like a bullet invades someones body ;x

[@BigJoel]

Oekanos seriously? I just don’t feel this way about something like the diary of Anne Frank or any other posthumously investigated document

[@RogueAstro85]

Honestly the montage didn’t hold a lot of weight for me. It seems like the director just thought that was the most suspenseful yet “satisfying” way to end the episode. Then again I lost all interest in the episode after he talked about his wife’s death. It was so anticlimactic that I just rolled my eyes and pushed through to the end, so I was pretty jaded by the end.

[@antighastly]

I don't have anything useful to contribute I've just never been on any of your videos this early and I'm pretty happy about it

[@1plusAidan]

Big Joel: These one sided relationships could be toxic. Me: haha yeah Big Joel your so right, I'm so glad we're best Friends.

[@braydenmoore43]

Criminally underrated comment

[@bonobobanani3893]

best comment I´ve seen here xD

[@joshgribbon8510]

Same here, this should be the top comment, can't wait until I can show this to my friend Big Joel

[@isaochy4197]

I don’t know big Joel but I’m best friends with small joel

[@paulwebb2078]

Para

[@lordofllamas42]

This is so sad. Big Joel says he's my friend, and then immediately reminds me that ours is a parasocial, one-way relationship, and that we will never hang out ever. This is the worst day of my life.

[@msjkramey]

You can still buy the Joel Too doll!

[@helloofthebeach]

That's what happens when you like season 5 of Black Mirror

[@eri1397]

oh, i can only read this comment in joels voice >

[@leiram8833]

But don't you get to have a cool hangout sesh with Joel everytime he uploads a video? All this time you're spending todether, it seems like he likes you alot!

[@Jen18812]

I'm so sorry. I hope he changes his mind. I imagine the pain is like no other.

[@WetRatGaming]

what if 🙈we kissed 😳in a video game 🎮(and we were both boys) 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

[@Grandof-the-PentastarAlignment]

WOT IF YE WANTD TO ESCAP FROM REALITY INDO A VIDYA GAHME, BUD THE GAHME IS OUT TO KILL YER FO REAL? Woud be breddy mental, woudn't id?

[@quedtion_marks_kirby_modding]

Have you ever played kirby?

[@kalebh3419]

Literally how i met my bf 😂😂 thankfully neither of us had wives 👀

[@sawyernorthrop4078]

Imagine starring in The Hurt Locker and having a leading role in several MCU films only to play a character that fucks his buddy in VR

[@mothermayihavesomebleach2129]

Pteroa Ropodi: ur mom has big gay

[@gomimi4226]

okay but striking vipers is "no homo" personafied and that shit just make me laugh so fuckn much

[@bellav8081]

Gomi mi “let’s have sex” “no homo tho” 😂 lol I love this episode even more now

[@lovescarlettxd]

You'r Mom I miss the British feel of the show and I’m American lol. It seemed more plot twisted and more shocking. I know that the end was going to happen in the episode of Ashley o. More science fiction

[@Stupisms]

Like, he even fucked Tundra, so it's "no homo, yes bestiality" i suppose

[@alexs1640]

@@lovescarlettxd I certainly don't. Honestly season 3 was the best imo and that was firmly in the Netflix zone. Episodes 1 through 4 were some of the most amazing television out there. Only Entire History of You and Be Right Back got to that level of amazing. Not big on White Christmas and White Bear tbh, the tech was too far of a reach for my simple mind.

[@officialprozac]

Black mirror writers: what if video game r making men GAY?

[@brittanystorm420]

I feel like the budget for this season went to hiring famous actors for each episode instead of the actual writing.

[@JCruz512]

That's always been a major part of Black Mirror...

[@brittanystorm420]

@@JCruz512 no they used to care about the writing

[@JCruz512]

@@brittanystorm420 I wasn't talking about the writing, but big name actors have been at the center of every other episode for awhile now.

[@crlcan8121]

You haven't been watching that much Black Mirror then. Just because the actors in the episodes that weren't famous in the US doesn't mean they weren't well known actors in the region the show originated. Though the show wasn't as widely known until Netflix picked it up, many of these episodes were well liked by fans in the UK. Not only that I was lucky enough to find the program before Netflix got the rights, and enjoyed the first series quite a bit. The problem isn't with hiring famous actors, it's the fact that like every other Netflix program, they care more about churning out more content. The quality was slipping well before Netflix got them though, so if you want to blame anyone, blame the creators of Black Mirror.

[@Arcsprite]

Good writing doesn’t cost anything. Charlie Brooker has written every season

[@happyperthdayy]

Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too: Two sisters pair up with a haywire Amazon Alexa to save Hannah Montana from a ketamine overdose

[@BhlackBishop]

😂 it was going so well

[@johnlemon8102]

Lolol

[@kennaisatlas8323]

LMFAO wow. Spot on

[@MaxJ.ProfessionalLilGuy]

It sounds so much better on paper!

[@El_Loco]

my brother said it: it was like a drake and josh episode. i am able to aknowledge that i like this ep, but that i hate tha it is black mirror

[@f1urps]

For me the weirdest thing about Striking Vipers is the implication that the game developers specifically programmed their video game avatars to have functioning genitalia and transmit sexual pleasure to the player's mind. Almost like they intended the players to use their game to have sex. Wild

[@artyb27]

In a society with this level of tech, I'm very doubtful that the devs programmed all of that by hand. Studios would almost definitely take the lazy route and use full body scans and some sort of neural/nervous system mapping. The sexual nature of the characters can then be passed as an "unintended consequence", but one that the studio actually benefits from, as of course many players will want to fuck these characters.

[@lonestarr1490]

@@artyb27 But studios would also exclude the genitalia from that system mapping, because America! Also, be real: the possibility of having sex would never pass as an unintended consequence of such a tech. It would literally be the very first thing that comes to everyone's mind. No way that slips through if it wasn't supposed to.

[@iggykidd]

This is probably tangential at best, but it feels like the Immersive Fallacy. The idea video games are, and should be, heading down a path of greater realism. The fallacy here being that making a game more Real ignores the core of games as Abstractions, i.e. we enjoy them because they are a way to experience something that is Not Real, or is a simplified version of something Real (Think how Powerwash Simulator doesn't make you learn how to actually operate a Powerwasher, and lets you highlight where the dirt is to avoid the real-world problem of finding it yourself). In that same way, making something that is effectively just street fighter, but with full neural tactile feedback, fully rendered 3D environments, and characters so realistic that they can literally have sex if that's what you'd rather do instead, doesn't make it a better game. If anything, it distracts greatly from the game itself and just becomes a place to have an affair, a digital motel room, or just hang out, if you don't want to have sex. It doesn't become Better Street Fighter, it becomes Effectively Real Place where one option is to play Street Fighter. But also, you have to learn to actually do martial arts, and it hurts to get hit. Fighting Games are hard enough as is. I don't think this was at all intentional on the writers' part, and was probably just them falling prey to the Fallacy with the idea of "what if street fighter was virtual reality and suuuuper realistic?" It's the Metaverse trope, which is fine, but also requires a huge suspension of disbelief, because any prodding at the idea makes it pretty clear that it's super impractical in every way. If it supports the themes, then it's fine, though as Joel points out, it doesn't really support the themes very well. They could have had the affair anywhere, it's just Virtual Reality here to fit the Sci-Fi setting of the show. I guess the implication is that the game is More Real than Reality? Or Reality has become dull and uninteresting, especially compared to the exciting Game World? But if that was their idea, they could have made the Game World seem a lot more exciting. It's just kind of generic Fighting Game environments and sex with hot younger asian people. It's kinda neat, but I wouldn't throw away a marriage over it.

[@DoctorStarky]

Sexual harassment would be an insanely huge problem playing with strangers

[@KeDe1606]

@@DoctorStarkythat kinda stuff has been happening since pretty much the advent of chatting features. So just the idea of people being able to physically interact with each other through video games makes me feel… very icky

[@mayravzqz936]

It didn't make me feel empty inside, so it wasn't great

[@Sjahko_]

Yeah I feel like that is where most of the frustration comes from. GIVE ME SOMETHING TO FEEL BAD ABOUT!!!! Don't end on a good note.

[@SlickSkuddy]

The exact reason I dropped this show after like 2-3 episodes. I like a mixup of that kind of thing just like how a good ending every episode is just as boring.

[@liamchristy5916]

I like bad endings

[@bowlofworms5633]

@@liamchristy5916 i mean technically smithereens had one

[@noriii]

@@bowlofworms5633 and nosedive in my opinion

[@heatherrogue]

As a trans person I thought Striking Vipers walked up to the door to ask some important questions and played ding dong ditch with that door.

[@SoreNBruised]

@Otome loca what did he say??

[@koizu5324]

@Otome loca Did i miss something ?

[@Hb2N]

The most important question they were asking is sexual identity real, or should we do what is right. Black mirror says you can have it all.

[@Rebazar]

Get out of here nazis, you don't get to decide what's "right"

[@edwinvanderhaeghen2221]

@@Rebazar who decides what is right? I am not siding with the Nazi here, but I don't think anyone should say to anybody "your kind doesn't decide what is right."

[@KotoCrash]

Dude what if technology was bad??

[@neighbor4772]

Tekno Pathetic reserch the NWO

[@AbMaSync]

Whaaat? Ya crazy

[@dullicecream]

Feels like it should be on r/im14andthisisdeep

[@annamongoose9939]

Tekno Pathetic dude i heard of a show that focuses on that idea it’s called “black mirror”

[@peeonthepenski4729]

That's a bruh moment right there

[@hMusic-tb8hl]

Striking Vipers perfectly sums up the representation of gay men in the movie industry: "Let's make a gay love story with a lot of subtext, but only with straight sex."

[@furbys_prey_on_transphobes4065]

For real tho

[@FTZPLTC]

It is basically as gay as you want it to be, unless you want it to be gay.

[@lost4468yt]

...but it wasn't a representation of gay men. You're entirely missing the point of the episode if you think it was. If they had made it gay sex it would have entirely changed the meaning and tone of the episode, it wouldn't have been even remotely the same thing.

[@hMusic-tb8hl]

@@lost4468yt Thanks for mansplaining gayness in movies to me.

[@Animegeek770]

@@hMusic-tb8hl him expressing his idea on the subject isn't mansplaining. chill out. if he is a guy that is lol

[@TheBeatle49]

9:22 Joel, in this kissing scene, the guy with the wife and kids DOES feel something! He tips it off with his hesitation to say "Nah me, neither. "

[@joywolfe.]

ok, where does that go?

[@Void_Dweller7]

@@joywolfe. Good Point. Another missed opportunity.

[@FTZPLTC]

​@@joywolfe. - I guess the problem is... where would you *want* it to go? Let's say that scene happens in the first ten minutes of the episode. What's left to discuss? I feel like that episode could've worked really well in, like, the 1990s. They could have had a real tension and conflict about whether this guy should leave his wife for this projection of his friend; what would the neighbours say, etc. Social attitudes towards LGBTQ+ and unconventional relationship structures were a lot more conservative back then (even though everyone *thought* they were being incredibly liberal). So there could have been some actual external pressure to conform. The problem is, Black Mirror is set in at least the near-future. And it's increasingly difficult to imagine people giving a crap about those kinds of social conventions. Like, even in the present day, if someone took issue with an unconventional relationship between consenting parties with a few kinks here and there... they probably wouldn't be judged that harshly for it. The consumerist world of Black Mirror really isn't one where people would care. tbh the best fix I can think of for the episode would be to find that these guys are just being conservative old farts about it. Establish that pretty much everyone uses these kinds of games pretty much exclusively to fuck people/things that they wouldn't be interested in in "Real life". The only meaningful divide is between people who've grown up with this tech available to them - meaning that this stuff is second nature to them - and older folks who are just discovering it and think they invented it, and bring all their shame and baggage along with them. Sure, it'd an anticlimax, but it'd at least be funny to have this overwrought moral conflict essentially dismissed as trivial boomer shit by people half their age who all have a dozen horny fursonas and don't care. A guy being told off about his sexual hangups by a bipedal winged fox with a huge honking dong is what I want from subsidised TV.

[@jasonbolding3481]

@@FTZPLTC your description of the 90's , still is describing things i see today. I think your overestimate current day acceptance and thus make your near-future predictions flawed

[@B_Cleric_Time]

@@FTZPLTC Where do you even live man? A majority of the world and definitely a majority of the population of men would almost certainly have some sort of internal issues if this happened to them. "Conservative farts" c'mon... That shame and baggage is definitely still there. Like the other commenter said, you definitely overestimate the amount of acceptance there is to alternative types of love and shit. "dozen horny fursonas" do you solely exist on niche corners of the internet?

[@nahimgood9725]

You know how in Fifteen Million Merits, a corportarion took something meaningful that had something to say and turned it into meaningless entertainment? Yes. That happened this season

[@oliviakim9557]

i dont respond to comments much, but bruh u a genius

[@AlexLopez-hn5ru]

Yikes... :(

[@Jo-chilin]

Oh fuck

[@Rose-eg2et]

This is beyond meta and I think you just gave the season meaning by taking away the meaning

[@nahimgood9725]

Olivia Kim :o thanks dude

[@user-ub2jp7tg6k]

“Fun and goofy” is something no one wants black mirror to be.

[@timothydoingthings]

I do. The show is a snooze fest.

[@ajvlogs957]

If you want a show to change its style just because it isn't for you, then don't watch it.

[@timothydoingthings]

@@ajvlogs957 Ah ah ah! A good point. But surely i can also think the show needs to evolve and try stuff to not become stale? It has a format which has self contained universes. It can do more to play with that. And making the occasional goofy episode can work well with a format where you don't need to hold onto continuing a plot. Making stylistically different episodes can create a greater contrast between episodes, rather than the river of grey meme of 'phones but more'.

[@user-pk5td5oc7w]

timothydoingthings there is a difference between not becoming stale and drastic tonal changes for a show

[@maxbearington7565]

Existential dread about the prospect of misusing futuristic technology can be fun and goofy.

[@adrianarpad704]

Rachel Jack and Ashley too went from a Black Mirror Episode to a Dreamworks movie

[@Fae_van]

Ikr

[@Jo-chilin]

More like Disney channel

[@user-rl3xk1sy1w]

The concept was cool but not the execution

[@diddles3383]

Damn, that's kind of an insult to HTTYD and Megamind...

[@BlazenPowers]

Exactly, that's what I was saying. I like the episode. It just that is more of a movie more than Black Mirror. I will say this though I like the characters and concept. It just that it doesn't really work in Black Mirror. It suppose to be a dark story, instead it's a documentary music film. If it was a movie hell yeah it works, but it won't have Ashley too which is the one character that it doesn't need. Not saying I hate the character, but it's not needed really. If it was a movie. I think it would have been better.

[@kombuchas4684]

An episode about how technology aids parasocial obsessions would be infinitely more interesting than what we got with Rachel Jack and Ashely Too.

[@jackfrosterton2530]

The episode about five star ratings was quite a bit more like that, and that episode was really good

[@victoriabrussolo9181]

Something like what we are seeing in "Swarm"

[@KeDe1606]

@@jackfrosterton2530you mean Nosedive? I don’t know. I think the concept was really interesting, but it kinda flopped during the execution (kinda like the rest of Season 4 and 5). But it still is a more-than-decent episode during a season marked by mediocrity

[@rolandodr98]

Anyone else getting tired of the human consciousness being downloadable? It was cool at first, but the concept feels overdone now and predictable

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

Also outright Impossible. It's either that or evil AI in sci-fi now, at least do something more with it

[@dime1012]

I feel like they teased the concept a ton without really diving deep into it

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

@@dime1012 that too

[@EA-gv2ph]

It would be interesting if they played with the emotions people have, an AI jealous of their "real twin" because he/she gets to be with the person he/she loves, or with their kids.

[@nur5311]

Optitron98 super overused, I hope they change it up next season

[@bunnyboo78730]

I honestly forgot I was watching Black Mirror with Ashley Too. It ended up being a comedy towards the end lol.

[@JennyTheNerdBat]

It's an intentional parody of Disney pop idol movies with BM'y twist to it, from what I know. There are even some specific references to Hannah Montana movie and a couple other ones

[@bunnyboo78730]

JennyTheNerdBat out of the three, I liked that one the most. I couldn’t even finish striking vipers and smithereen pissed me off so much. I got all of that anxiety for nothing 🙄

[@koolk1dde]

Josephine I laughed when her kids fans went to see her play the music she likes

[@PinkZombie-]

Black mirror is kinda a comedy though

[@galacticlavalamp6338]

Ikr thought I was watching the first episode of a Disney Channel show and that episode would set the stage for everything

[@v4nnyz]

what if we.. overused the same trope over and over every season.. Haha just kidding... unless..?

[@Solo_Videos]

Synfull keep talking like that and you’ll get a job writing for the show

[@Yet.Another.Rapper.KiG.V2]

I'm dense, what trope? "Social media / technology = bad"? If that's what you mean, in their defense, that's kind of the whole elevator pitch for the entire show--although I can see it being difficult to keep fresh forever.

[@lukethelegend9705]

Uhh no. If you mean the trope is “technology makes something go wrong or weird”, then that’s literally what black mirror is. You got a problem with that, go find another show.

[@drumblebee]

unless...

[@mariam-bk4xt]

😳😳😳

[@gavinf.9778]

Damn, there’s so much there with just the CONCEPT of striking vipers you could make an entire TV series out of it

[@leez2647]

We’re so, so far from Shut Up and Dance

[@msjkramey]

That one was so good on the rewatch once you had all the info. It really changed the tone of his interaction with the little girl at the beginning. But the troll face being sent to them was kind of stupid and took me out of the serious tone of the episode. It just made me laugh to see a meme in the middle of something so dark

[@popsicko6493]

@@msjkramey the troll face was used to taunt the people that they controlled but I think it was also meant to be a hint towards the kind of online group that would orchestrate such an elaborate blackmailing scheme (think of 4chan and Anonymous)

[@Predestinated1]

​@@msjkramey Lmao. The troll face was the whole point of the episode. It means that the blackmailers let two people fight to their death, not because they wanted justice, but for fun. They basically killed someone for ... trolling. Thats the message of that episode. The troll face made the episode much darker and scarier. If you think otherwise you didnt get the meaning.

[@125loopy]

@@Predestinated1 please stop this. If someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean they're wrong. The troll face reminds me of stupid idiots on the i ternet, not scary blackmailers. I roll my eyes immediately when I see it. That takes the seriousness out of the episode and that's fine. It doesn't mean I didn't understand.

[@Arkain89]

@@Predestinated1 the trollface is only unironically used by teenagers with a very normie understanding of memes. if you think it makes something dark/scary... I mean come on.

[@butt317]

Good Black Mirror: how do modern technology and culture interact with human nature? Bad Black Mirror: what if.... We kissed... In a videogame?

[@JeithKarrett]

Bad Black Mirror: phone bad book good

[@Mooftwo]

but isn't video games modern technology and it interacts with human nature by questioning whether having sex in a fake video game is the same as cheating on someone in real life???

[@jonwhite8815]

"Kissing in a video game" IS an example of modern technology interacting with human nature.

[@niaranoctyrna3754]

These are both kind of saying the same thing in two different ways though

[@sandybleach646]

I'm not sure it's the opening concept that is bad. As other commenters have said those two things are the same thing. It all depends on how the concept is explored

[@paketa7736]

I always interpreted the end of Striking Vipers differently. When they both said they felt nothing they were lying to each other and really on the inside they did feel something with that kiss, but both lived in the real world where being together was either not possible or not accepted.

[@flamingpi2245]

But see That kind of ruins the nuance Because if they’re both just “secretly gay” then the virtual avatar thing means nothing and you lose the contemplation of “what about being in this female body makes me attracted to this male body”

[@user-qv2qf1jk5o]

@@flamingpi2245 the virtual avatar thing gives them a way to have straight (?) sex (?) and therefore plausible deniability. (especially given how playing video games is an acceptable homosocial activity, the virtual aspect seems to be there for that reason- and also because, you know, black mirror). one of them had to be a woman for it to work. ...the only meaning i can really assign to WHICH one it was is that the married guy is more committed to his social role (monogamous, in the real world, and male, in the virtual one), or, being less generous - the non-married guy is pretty clearly bisexual, and that's gay. lmao titties basically it does keep that contemplation, it just provides the answer "it doesn't "make" me attracted to this guy, it makes that attraction permissible, somehow." which is what the answer would have to be - or on similar, cultural/social lines - , if not "female bodies are attracted to male bodies" (and apparently this VR simulation of a female body based on the fantasies of teenage boys is actually pretty accurate), which is, even if true, a boring, easy answer.

[@lovein102]

That’s lowkey what I thought for the longest time but like just Anthony mackie was lying

[@renatal.129]

@@lovein102 yeah didn't feel firmness in that me neither

[@fastenedcarrot9570]

​@@lovein102The other guy also looked disappointed when he said that.

[@spyrath1935]

Remember when this series was about presidents having sex with pigs? Those were the good old days...

[@ma0487]

I like ur profile picture

[@spyrath1935]

Thanks, took me two years to make in Paint

[@Brianna-eo8nu]

God that episode fucking traumatised 13-year-old me. good times. :)

[@fzndn-xvii]

I hate that the series now become so Americanized

[@urhexgirl]

it was the prime minister not the president

[@drdogface3]

Why is it that Black Mirror keeps going back to the "cookie" concept from "White Christmas"? It does it EVERY season, three whole times in season 4. We get it already; it would be spooky if you were stuck in a computer.

[@madison-5422]

adam wickens frrrrr

[@boglin]

woah my eyes have a HUD.. thats like SO COOL. every fucking episode from season 3 onwards has some sort of augmented reality aspect. WE GET IT

[@anjshaw4898]

They seem to believe that the big selling message is "technology bad" which was probably the message for the worst episode being White Bear imo.

[@ZangetsuDDR]

it's become clear they've run out of ideas Technology bad

[@Royal_Fortune]

ZANGETSU that was always the point. The episodes have always demonstrated how technology could influence events and the way the world works and then built their stories around the concepts of whatever tech they present.

[@alexangel4758]

Black Mirror in the beginning: *all budget goes towards writers and productions* Black Mirror in the 5th season: *all budget goes towards actors and celebrities and we write around them* Nothing will ever top White Bear, Shut up and Dance, or The Entire History of You.

[@crlcan8121]

Except even the early shows had celebs, they were still finding their footing so the writing was able to be experimental. By season 2 and 3 they had the formula down, Netflix gave them a better budget but they gave up experimental writing long before that. Season 2 you could already see it.

[@9529jake]

White christmas imo tops all of those episodes you mentioned ;-;

[@BertyLohani]

@@crlcan8121 nah sesason 2 was still incredible, man. it closed out with the literal best black mirror episode ever, white christmas. it's season 3 when netflix took it up. It wasn't the show's fault, netflix forced them to create something more palatable to the american audience, so they did.

[@Yet.Another.Rapper.KiG.V2]

@@crlcan8121 Nahh Season 4 was my yellow flag, 5 being brilliantly red.

[@KingOfDarknessAndEvil]

@@arly380 The ending is a mind fuck and the best twist in the series

[@Swaggerpede]

i never understood why main character man asked his friend 'what it's like having sex as a woman' like,, choose a female character??? it makes no sense.

[@FTZPLTC]

I guess since the episode is about repression, he's too repressed to try it?

[@fynnli6685]

If someone is getting that good sloppy from his friend in a video game, the last thing they would be thinking is 'what's it like'. Who tf cares? If that sloppy was sLOPPY, I wouldn't question anything.

[@thinkfirst1989]

I think he wants to know what his FRIEND's experience is like, having sex as a woman.

[@malum9478]

this is a really stupid non-criticism. he's asking about his friend's experience, which will be different from his. how the hell did 300+ people read this comment and go "yeah this is good"?

[@vexedlex8230]

He could be curious enough to ask but not comfortable trying it. I asked my friend what getting tazed was like more than once. But I never accepted his offer to experience it myself.

[@mojotheaverage]

Gunshot and fade to black... I was actually stunned that black mirror resorted to that cliche of cliches

[@lukethelegend9705]

It was not a cliche at all, but rather a comment on how, in this age of social media and new dramas happening by the day, people would probably just look at the shooting, be sad about it for a few minutes, then completely forget about it. That’s why they didn’t show us what happened, it wouldn’t matter because people would just find something else to be sad about.

[@bowlofworms5633]

how is it a cliche? it doesnt ruin the story? its not overused which would affect the story? its a detail. how the fuck can a detail affect the story.

[@bowlofworms5633]

@@lukethelegend9705 YES. YOU ARE SO SMART.

[@aturchomicz821]

Bruh literally what?

[@PlatoonGoon]

@@lukethelegend9705 You are reading into it an impressive amount. The Sopranos series finale, Breaking Bad Season 3 Finale, The French Connection, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Reservoir Dogs. It's literally a TV trope.

[@mattxzilla3938]

Striking Vipers question- why would a fighting game be so well equipped to be a sandbox hookup site, with seemingly no regulations? And what type of gamer picks a character, and then never tries out another character? It honestly didn’t feel enough like of a believable video game.

[@raywilliams6717]

They're both casuals just let them play how they want xD

[@elina1421]

one of them did try other characters

[@kombuchas4684]

Would be more believable if it took place on VR Chat in a modded porn server.

[@SpikeShroom]

@@elina1421 He tried *having sex* with other characters, but he never changed his own character. They both picked the same one literally every time, never even switching places.

[@Staghound]

Somebody said in the same way Ashley Too has a much more advanced version of the software that's "dumbed down", the fighting game is using VR simulation software that is a generic simulation software the striking vipers game developers bought for their game and then just used the bits they needed for their game and the rest was still there, just dormant.

[@epicearthgirl]

the thing that really frustrated me about rachel jack and ashley too was this really tired approach it takes of "pop music shallow, punk music deep". there's nothing fresh or subversive about that idea and imo it reflects more about charlie booker and his opinions of what teenage girls are like than any truth about ~society~ at large

[@samkuperman9035]

Everything liked by teenage girls is dismissed as shallow until crusty white guys start to like it and thus give it legitimacy. People forget that the Beatles were the biggest boyband of the 60s, favorited by all these silly teen girls that just thought they were cute. The BTS of their day, if you will.

[@painfulelegy812]

Its not pop bad, rock good. Its miley cyrus saying 'Billy Ray Cyrus was a horrible human being, and all of you just bought into my pop stuff without questioning how much I was being forced to manufacture an identity'

[@stephennootens916]

@@painfulelegy812 I think it is more dealing with the manufacture an identity and the Disney image that is sold and package to kids and teens. One of things people ignore is seems is Rachel unlike other fans we see in the episode excepts the other side of Ashley the one which her Aunt tries to crush. And when it comes to the first half of the episode it shows Jack and Rachel who both were dealing with the aftermath of their mother's in different ways. It's Ashley too with her broken barrier that pulls the two together and brings them out once more.

[@ubergamer2010]

Well the thing is that they proved it right though. They released Ashley O's music video and the song charted anyway. Pop music really is shallow. The song is great but it was a remake of an old song set over a modern instrumental for a reason.

[@EM-rm2xh]

I agree. Such a tired trope that has been rehashed over and over and over again. I hate how "underground" and "punk" are always hailed as being some kind of pure form of music and that pop is only manufactured (and of course liked by teenage girls because how could they know anything of good music besides the shallow surface). If they were going to go this route, there were so many other avenues they could have explored. Poor, used ideas and poor execution that really made no point at all.

[@caseyw1288]

An interesting point about striking vipers is.. i feel like any fanfic reader/ writer could tell you its easily explainable. Sometimes people like things in fiction that they don't in real life. I know RPing about your OTP is diff from going into virtual reality but it doesnt seem that strange to me.

[@tiacat11]

I know this is 2 years ago but I came to the comments specifically looking to see if anyone pointed this out. Like "man nobody tell these writers about online ERP forums".

[@xioxialt]

i was just about to write this comment. thanks!

[@mikehat7652]

Sure but how exactly is this story of two dudes fucking virtually in any way horrific? Is it horrific bc they're two guys or one is cheating? It's just a bad episode

[@CJBintheHouse]

In that Miley episode there’s a MASSIVE plot hole: If they had a perfect copy of her brain already that they put in the toy, why didn’t they just use their digital brain they made to make their songs instead of using Miley’s actual brain and body???

[@NathanWubs]

because they still had the body. Besides that it was probably pr speak, they probably used the digital brain anyways.

[@mousermind]

In the show, they seem to have had less control over the digital copy than the unconscious original. The copy had to be severely constrained to make it work, and it was completely rebellious when it wasn't constrained.

[@CJBintheHouse]

@@mousermind hm that’s a good point. I feel like it wasn’t well-established enough how the digital mind is different enough for it to not work in the way I described

[@stephen8708]

Nobody: Black Mirror: Wot if your phone was your mum?

[@Zimuahaha]

lmao ded

[@amaryllis0]

Is this a fwob reference or is there a shared origin?

[@lacolem1]

That's literally A.M.I. on Netflix, which is surprisingly competent as a horror movie. Nothing special, but I enjoyed it.

[@Tater_Toot]

What if I talked to your mom on the phone?

[@stilltoomanyhats]

THEN WHO WAS YOUR MUM

[@Cyynapse]

why would a fighting game model sexual organs

[@alexandriaorcld6365]

My only assumption is so you can violently rip them out like Mortal Combat or something.

[@jeremiasastorga8399]

Why would a fighting game even allow you to do that?

[@Alejandro-te2nt]

to emasculate the black man by making him find out he likes getting his guts rearranged

[@aloevera8190]

@@Alejandro-te2nt his organs are fine don't worry

[@shizanketsuga8696]

Easter eggs. ;)

[@ZundelArt]

As a person who is in a process of figuring out their gender identity the "Striking Viper" one feels like it just pulled a prank on me. Like, I know that for me playing online games as avatars diffrent to my biological gender was a huge part of exploring that side of me. So when I see a character trying to explain why they choose to play as a female and enjoy having sexual experiences as a female I am excited- becuase that opens the door to so many interesting questions about gender, sexuality, ones identity... and then they do nothing with it. It feels like the show is actively laughing at me for believing it is capable of a deeper thought.

[@thomasbishop7284]

Same here

[@quirkyblackenby]

Yes! I thought they were actually gonna talk about queerness but nope

[@edgarallenhoe3518]

And the question of "what does gender mean in a world where you can 'try on' any kind of body at any time?" is SUCH a good question.

[@ann6048]

how do scripts, narratives and roles interact with how we approach sexuality how come in this space designed for violence sex is a thing you can just do what does a body mean when it is the product of you choosing an artists set of choices what does a body mean when it only symbolises associated properties what does this space of freedom mean to ones experience of the still restrictive real world should you touch "heaven" if it makes one endlessly unsatisfied with "earth" all questions that are interesting but not even touched

[@Tavi78]

What makes it hurt even more is that this show was MORE than capable of tackling those issues on at least a semi- successful level, but actively chose to disengage with it the moment it became interesting.

[@xXchNLXx]

Am I the only one who thinks that at the end of smithereen they accidentally shoot the intern instead of the protagonist? Or at least they make sure no-one knows who got shot/if someone actually got shot.

[@x.p.3574]

Nope, I didn’t really think we were supposed to know.

[@bowlofworms5633]

No, it's up for us to decide. No matter what, people will just move on.

[@tomlees8793]

One thing that I picked up on whilst watching “Smithereens” was the way a social media company can find out information on a person quicker and in more detail than a police force.

[@ethanbard3067]

And tbh im okay with that, on one hand if the police force could have that power to find out information on the same level as companies it would be used to lock people away. However when the companys have that power worst they'll do is sell that info to people who want to sell you things and i quite like buying things lol

[@vyrxcx]

@@ethanbard3067 Those tech companies share that information with police forces though. Your data in the hands of corporations is both used to sell you shit and arrest you.

[@draw4everyone]

Lark This.

[@RisenSlash]

You might even say that it highlights the very fact that people are seemingly far more comfortable allowing companies to harvest all of their data, but suddenly get very concerned when the government does it.

[@JukaDominator]

@@RisenSlash Because it's far worse when government does it. The only problem we have with corporations doing it is BECAUSE they share data with govt.

[@patrickkelmer6290]

"Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" is definately the darkest Hannah Montana episode ever ~

[@jillianwatts471]

Patrick Kelmer true

[@laycebug3260]

one reason i hated the episode was because Ashley cursed up a storm as if she just learned how to, i don't mind cursing in a show but god damn

[@_gremlinboy]

Wait hold up that's fucking miley cyrus isn't it?? I didn't even realize fhdshkkjlfd

[@patrickkelmer6290]

@@_gremlinboy LOOOOOL

[@Aj01110]

Idk there were some gnarly plots in Hannah Montana 😩

[@VoluntarySynesthesia]

"How social isolation creates the desire to form one sided relationships with people you dont know or understand" Haha yeah, not like me and you right Big Joel™

[@xander5733]

The only episode I've watched of this show is the one where you could "block" people in real life. This guy and his pregnant wife get into an argument and she blocks him which means she's just a static silhouette to him. The real problem is that the descendants of the person who blocked you are also just static. This kinda breaks the guy and he ends up killing someone. He then gets arrested (or something) and the episode ends with the guy living in a torturous hallucination. The episode just gave me a bad feeling and that's why I haven't seen the show since.

[@nicodifictional540]

You got White Christmas-ed, oof. I'd check out San Junipero and a couple others if I were you, they're more of the feel good kind :)

[@stevelarry3870]

Xander Thanks for inaccurately recapping the plot of an episode we've all seen.

[@xander5733]

@@stevelarry3870 I've only watched it once and it was like a year ago.

[@stevelarry3870]

Xander We could tell.

[@xander5733]

@@stevelarry3870 you have no reason to be rude.

[@sasharoslyakova2228]

what if we kissed 😳 in striking vipers 🙈

[@chrishawkensmit8365]

sasha roslyakova ha ha ha bro... i hope you’re joking bro... unless...

[@VicFishHD]

(😍 and we're both boys 👬)

[@kylecobra7422]

69 likes 😎👊

[@xygyaz]

Only if we can both be the polar bear

[@RawrX32009]

What if we kissed 😳 in Fighting Vipers instead 🙈

[@WhetiesOfDoom]

You offer me friendship, only bring up parasocial relationships not a minute latter. I don't think what we have is healthy; we can't keep this up, Joel -- if that's even your real name.

[@antighastly]

Okay this might be one of the best KZbin comments I've ever read for some reason

[@Alejandro-te2nt]

his real name is rance prebus

[@rebekas.4280]

his name is henry. im not even kidding

[@cmbeadle2228]

I bet he isn't even Big either, what a fraud

[@blarg2429]

@@cmbeadle2228 You're correct; Big Joel is actually Average-Sized Henry.

[@Eisenwave]

What really bothers me about Black Mirror is its incompetence in creating convincing technology. Here are a few examples: - The new VR version of Striking Vipers has practically not changed in 11 years. Same roster of characters, same stages. You would think that a video game franchise moves on in more than a decade, but not in Black Mirror. There is practically no user interface (menus, settings) outside of the character selection and no tutorial seems to be offered to the protagonist, hence he is understandably confused when first playing the game. There is also a lack of UI during the fight. It's a fighting game, yet no timers or health bars or stamina bars or combo counters etc. exist. - Why does Striking Vipers allow for sexual intercourse anyways? The game wasn't made for porn, it's a fighting game. Hence it doesn't make sense for game developers to program sexual sensation into the game or create 3D models of genitalia. - In Smithereens, the Uber-style app which the protagonist uses lets drivers accept a passenger by swiping the screen. However, the command to swipe the screen presented inside a button, which is obviously a widget that is meant to be pressed. And this actually happens twice, you need to go through two of these swiping layers to accept. It's just unintuitive UI-design. - In Smithereens, the social network "persona" has a login system which locks the account for 24 hours if three failed password attempts are made. I sincerely hope that no software developer would ever be stupid enough to implement this, because it allows anyone to lock other people's accounts by just guessing their e-mail address and typing in three false passwords. In our world, we usually just rely on the strength of passwords and hope that nobody breaks them. And it works. - When Billy Bower uses his "god mode", it's pretty obvious that he's actually just inside of a code editor, working on a file called "ROOT_COMMAND.cpp", which is just some fake C++ code. All he does is go through some kind of password prompt to open his text editor. The director probably thought it looks cool and "hacky" to show some code because, hey, "the average person is too stupid to understand what's happening on the screen anyways, am I right?". I hate directors who make decisions like that. Why do they even bother producing software-focused science fiction if they don't give two shits about the software in question? It's the same deal with directors who direct stories in medieval times because "I like knights n' shiet, I could probably direct that" but they can't be arsed to learn even the most basic medieval military tactics and you just cringe at shitty battle scenes. - In Ashley Too, two teenage girls are somehow able to just edit sections of the virtual brain of their doll. Why does the doll allow this anyways? You would think that its brain technology would be proprietary and thus not compatible with random software or that it would be locked and encrypted in some way. The user should simply not have access to the brain sections. Also the girls don't know anything about the software or virtual brains, yet they just intuitively know exactly what to do. I guarantee you, no software sophisticated enough to edit virtual brains would just let you select a region and press Del to permanently edit brain sections. This kind of functionality would be hidden behind numerous menus and settings. I mean, they make it look like editing an image in Paint, it shouldn't be that simple. In conclusion, plausible technology is often paid little attention to in Black Mirror. The technology presented is merely a tool that drives the narrative, not the focus. But just because it's not the center of attention, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be designed with care and attention to detail. And because it isn't, it breaks your suspension every time you see these glaring inconsistencies.

[@badako]

Eisenwave underrated comment!! thank u for sharing

[@angelgtrr]

Damn it's like getting two ways of entertainment in one video. It feels like stealing

[@matturner6890]

Yeah, it's annoying when people who have no history playing games try to write about them.

[@a.p.2356]

Also, what are the odds that the first people to figure out that you can hack that Ashley doll thing into sentience with a few keystrokes would be a pair of tween girls who weren't actually trying? You'd think hardware hacking nerds would have figured that out within 24 hours of the launch date. KZbin would be full of tutorials on how to make your doll gain self awareness within the first week.

[@JennuYasha]

I thought the exact same thing you did about Striking Vipers; there is NO WAY game developers would program their characters to feel sexual pleasure. You would literally have to code that in there. It wouldn't happen by accident. And if it did happen accidentally, there would absolutely be a patch update to fix it, because I can assume that children would be playing this game, and that crosses legal boundaries.

[@bubblymochi7170]

Yo Rachel Jack and Ashley too felt like a Disney channel original with cursing

[@MadreanJaguar]

Aint nothing like a good session of striking vipers with the boys

[@dime1012]

Brug 😂foolin

[@ThatMetroMania]

Brug it ain’t gay. It’s homie sexual

[@Jean-Berry]

*"Highschool Musical is competent"* I never imagined I would ever hear those words, yet alone by big joel

[@joselocalau123]

He's right

[@Rognik]

High School Musical got popular for a reason. It's not a bad movie, even if it's not a good one.

[@manospondylus4896]

Jͼan I never watched HSM, but was it really such a bad movie or was everyone just annoyed by how popular it was back then?

[@Robocopnik]

So are you not familiar with what the term "competent" means? The egos on idiots like you.

[@killian9314]

Competent as a disney movie, which means it's a 2/5 movie at best.

[@AgeingBoyPsychic]

It's the Simpsons model: Have everything up until the first commercial break happen, then discard it and get on with the episode. I noticed this is how the Simpsons worked, because I was taping them off the TV, and when I wanted to show someone a specific episode, I wouldn't be able to say "Oh this is the one where..." until the first third was over.

[@erinl9866]

Black Mirror was a million times better before Netflix bought it out

[@Aakash_Goswami1]

House Of Cards S06....

[@matturner6890]

Ohhh, now I understand what happened.

[@charlienachname1978]

THANK YOU

[@charlienachname1978]

Its not even dark anymore. Imliked it because it always followed a pattern similar to that of tragedies now it just makes no fukcing sense at all

[@dannyg6783]

At least season 3 and season 4 had some great episodes, like nosedive, USS callister , shut up and dance, and San junipero. It did however feel like every since Netflix bought the show it’s been sliding away from its integrity and core message, until finally by season 5 it was pretty much an entirely different show.

[@hannahwolken7022]

I feel like the episode could have recovered if the real Ashely had died when Ashely too pulled her plug, however I think that Ashely too should have talked the fan girl into it. It was a missed opportunity by the writers to discuss both what obsessive fandom can drive a person to do and the darker elements to artificial intelligence. You would never know if the sentient Ashely too was a robot toy gone bad or rather an extension of the real Ashley’s deepest desire to end her own life.

[@armintargaryen9216]

Exactly

[@tracyh5751]

I honestly thought that was where the episode was going.

[@Jablicek]

This is part of the problem with writing by committee for a company that looks only at revenue, not artistic content. It's possible that all the ideas you mention above and more were floated during discussions on how the episode should proceed, and dumped in favour of something palatable to a more general audience.

[@Crick1952]

In a paragraph you made the episode better

[@sissymarie2912]

You fixed that episode and that's how it's going to end in my head from now on.

[@Kira1Lawliet]

Probably the most insulting thing about this season is that when you only get 3 measly episodes, you expect each of them to be great. But the best episodes this season was only passable by Black Mirror standards, and given the fact that the show writers have taken so much time off from the last season to just crap out this weak ass garbage shows that they're probably at the end of their rope.

[@FTZPLTC]

If you like the tone and general shtick of Black Mirror, I recommend checking out Inside No 9. It's not about scary technology but it does the whole black-comedy-and-twists thing that Black Mirror did when it first started. There's also more episodes.

[@fintan8145]

@@FTZPLTC inside no 9 is amazing

[@kangarumpy]

I remember being in a situation like that Striking Vipers episode when I was 16 and questioning myself. I was thrown into gender dysphoria as I tried to understand myself and it was a tough road to where I am today, 3 years later.

[@1WEareBUFO1]

We're you on IMBD role-playing with some 50 year old stranger? Those were strange times.

[@1WEareBUFO1]

Oh my bad I read it as 13 years ago. You just a wee baby~

[@joearnold6881]

I mean, if my buddy was in the body of Chun-Li, I’d be down. ... Probably if he was Ryu, too

[@partyhardy4942]

bi moment

[@RawrX32009]

Ryu? Ken is prettier ✨

[@Superhrnet]

Asking to play Striking Vipers has, unsurprisingly, become the way you proposition others for sex in the fighting game community.

[@oneonly2762]

I wonder how slowly time moves in Striking Vipers. Is the timer slower or faster than Mahvel seconds?

[@OmegaSaurus]

Nothing beats "Wanna come my room on habbo hotel?"

[@TheLadyDelirium]

Good to know. I'll watch out for that. 😅

[@ojigbo]

@@OmegaSaurus Wanna come into my Igloo on Club Penguin?

[@MrCholoPants3415]

_S U P E R H R N E T I S O N L I N E_

[@rowanatkinson3594]

No joke when you went "The Ashley robot becomes sentient" I audibly went "Oh not again"

[@cicifuentes5685]

Ikr? It's time for reused stock plot #2701

[@kaziislam2785]

Rowan Atkinson more like “ah shit, here we go again”

[@MaddieM4]

That was one of my peak frustration moments with the critique. In the source material it's very clear that the robots have always been sentient beings constrained in a horrifying way. This moment is not a change, it's a reveal, and carries some very dark, very BM implications about disposable consciousness. ... and Big Joel describes this as basically "the robot becomes sentient for reasons," and I lose any hope that the episode will be competently represented for anyone that hasn't seen the source material already.

[@rowanatkinson3594]

@@MaddieM4 Right but the thing is, at this point it's been DONE. It's worn ground in the show at this point.

[@MaddieM4]

@@rowanatkinson3594 which is why it's included, but we don't spend a lot of time on it. It's a very Black Mirror thing, presented in a way that leaves room for new stuff to happen. It's not like I don't have complaints about this episode, some of which overlap with Joel's, but this complaint specifically is on the CinemaSins tier of dumb, and actually obscures better critique.

[@nitrocharge2404]

Black Mirror tries and fails miserably to be the next Twilight Zone, and it brings me so much pleasure that a show from the Sixties still manages to outshine contemporary counterparts

[@FTZPLTC]

If you're looking for that sort of thing, I recommend Inside No 9. It's not sci-fi by any means, but it has that self-contained anthology thing down pat.

[@Tron08]

Another really missed opportunity of the Ashley episode is the idea of the rightsholders taking full control of the persona of a performer through the use of digital recreations. When you have a hologram of Tupac performing in a concert, or a CG model of Carrie Fisher showing up in a Star Wars movie after her death. This is some scary/interesting territory our society is actually veering towards.

[@ericcheese7594]

What if phone, but too much phone? -Dark Glass ///

[@shneancy220]

What if phone, but too much phone? That was a hit last time we did it, let's do it again but worse

[@TheStarBlack]

Yawn

[@ABonafideSkeleton]

It’s kind of a shame that people just write off Black Mirror as “muh technology bad” because that’s never what the show has been about. It’s supposed to be a dark reflection of ourselves and the societies we create, technology is heavily prevalent because funnily enough technology plays a pretty massive part in modern society to the point where we have completely integrated it into our lifestyles to the point where it’s nearly inseparable.

[@shneancy220]

@@ABonafideSkeleton yeah that the first two seasons. After that it becomes technology bad kind of tv show

[@drdogface3]

"Are we gay or just on playstation?"

[@jerner17]

I didn't hate it but a lot felt like lost potential this season

[@evelynnlefay8058]

very well said; I felt more that there was an absence of strong assertion of ideas rather than transgressive anti-assertion.

[@dakotab.7244]

I feel like season 3 was the last competent season... s4 had its moments but overall was mediocre at best and awful and obnoxious at worst

[@giuliasouza9005]

I agree

[@fawnieee]

I was never able to get past the episode where artificial bees are being used to kill people. I'm not even sure it was the concept, I just couldn't stand the actors and the blatant rip off of the soundtrack of the film "Under the skin". But I'm surprised the series has fallen so badly now.

[@giuliasouza9005]

@@fawnieee i actually really liked that Episode, oof😂

[@GreedPainLove]

I liked the fact that striking vipers left basicly everything open, it's one of the BM episodes that made me think the most later on. Just because it treated everything except their relationships so casually. It was the most like real life, you just get lost into something, not really understanding how to deal with it

[@GreedPainLove]

But I think the ending of it was a bit dumb, both just agree to cheat on each other? That was pretty anti climactic

[@TeChNoWC7]

@@GreedPainLoveit’s not cheating. They agreed to an open relationship that worked for them.

[@estherfichtenholz4838]

Y'all are talking about how they overused the "cookie" concept and ignoring that every episode that featured them explored a different aspect of the ability to upload your brain. Time jail, if copies should have rights, the ethics, the concept of maybe being able to live forever. Using the same base idea doesn't immediately make every single episode about cookies exactly the same.

[@Eris_Norregard]

Exactly. Like, "White Christmas" and "San Junipero" both use that concept but they couldn't be more different.

[@FTZPLTC]

I guess, but you can't just tell people not to be bored by something. I don't think anyone's choosing to be bored.

[@dawafflesupreme]

I went that whole damn episode thinking "Man that really looks like Miley Cyrus lol"

[@Solo_Videos]

Jacob Wathen I went that whole episode going “damn this is just a gritty Hanna Montana”

[@keepyourshoesathedoor]

Jacob Wathen Dang.

[@Crick1952]

Official 'bruh' moment

[@TheCSJones]

I'm not a Brit, but I haven't liked Black Mirror as much since it went American.

[@jivetalk2884]

same here...

[@GarlicGoat]

I just love their accents

[@TheCSJones]

I stopped noticing the accents, but I think it boils down to Charlie being more familiar with his own culture and being able to write more realistic British characters. As soon as I started watching Nosedive, I thought, "this is like someone's idea of Americans based on secondhand accounts." Also, the cinematography was better when it was a TV show. Maybe it was a higher budget and better cameras. This used to be my all-time favorite show, now it's just a shadow of what it was.

[@Circletwice]

CS Jones ooooh. This explains a lot.

[@TheCSJones]

@@Circletwice Just a theory.

[@connorferguson2351]

Me when my pill stache gets ground into my food: :-O

[@sofh784]

Personally, I always thought the juxtaposition of the shooting and the woman accessing her daughter's account was linked through the absolution of obsession. Both the woman and the protagonist are plagued by the death of a loved one which leads to the crazed obsession - both, at surface level, harmful, yet almost pure at a deeper level. These two images side by side represent the moment when both characters can find release from not just their faulty processing but their past and their trauma. Also I think one of the main themes of Smithereens that I think is missing from this video (granted I'm only at the 19 minute time stamp) is juxtaposition itself, particularly between big and small things. Small actions with big consequences (looking at an inconsequential notification that leads to death), big actions (the kidnapping and the death) with a small impact on everyone else (in the final montage), the small, ordinary man seeking the attention of the big, genius man. It's kinda symbolised in the protagonist vs his environment - when his reach is small (only able to pick up people in his car who are in the surrounding area) the landscape is big - infinitely tall skyscrapers with large, smooth roads, whereas as the protagonist's reach becomes increasingly larger - the police, the smithereens execs, social media - the audience is usually confined to office spaces and the actual car where the protagonist and the kidnapped man are, only expanding again to the expanse of the desert when Topher Grace answers the phone and the protagonist can only reach him Ik no-one will read this but I think it's cathartic to express aha

[@taylormanes8113]

"high school musical is competent" is the spiciest take in this video

[@Flowtail]

Possibly the spiciest take that has ever took

[@crazyweirdgirl115]

it's the truth and I'm glad someone said it

[@MasterLapin]

The ideas in HSM aren't good or interesting, but they still had the fundamentals of storytelling down. It's artistically bad, it's just not structurally bad

[@crazyweirdgirl115]

Pierre Martin he said “competently done”, not unique, creative, pushing the boundaries with deep themes. HSM is absolutely competently done. It’s not ground breaking, but it isn’t failing at being a movie.

[@Your2ndPlanB]

Joel: "If you agree with me, we'll totally be friends and hang out" 5 seconds later: "Parasocial relationships are totally bad"

[@oneonly2762]

Big brain think

[@LOLCRAZEDmonkey]

There's something I find deeply ironic about me liking your comment

[@vijaz5559]

Boohoo u think u can be friends with youtuber?? Boooo

[@claudia9339]

Every time I see Topher Grace act I feel like I'm watching a special episode of that 70s show damn he will always be only Eric Forman he can't play somebody else ahahahaha

[@Rose-eg2et]

Same

[@redlikeroses3705]

Like Sheldon Cooper's actor!

[@MF-R]

"Visceral Dissapointment" thanks Big Joel, you have given me the perfect description for how I almost always feel.

[@kathylennerds750]

I definitely thought Smithereens felt the most like Black Mirror. Not only theme wise but the way it ended as well.

[@JennyTheNerdBat]

It was kinda the opposite for me, actually! I don't see it working well as a classic Black Mirror episode (where fault of technology was explicit), but it's a pretty good modern-style one (where technology is more discussed than demonized). Mainly because most of the fault was on protagonist for ignoring essential safety precautions, as well as considering just how much content and accessibility features there are to kill your boredom while not distracting yourself - so, in the end it's ambiguous whether to blame predatory algorytms, lack of common sense on side of users, or both.

[@Nikki-bo8to]

I thought the opposite as well. I just wrote another comment where I said it could essentially happen today, just substitute Billy with Mark Zuckerburg.

[@mariamatedei]

@@JennyTheNerdBat black mirror has always been about human fault and how technology just enables us to be stupid humans in a new different way, smithereens is not about being herd, it's about addiction

[@fakegmale4648]

it was the most boilerplate black mirror. it didn’t feel new or interesting, i felt like i’ve seen it before. at least sv felt new, black mirror hasn’t done much with examining sexuality

[@Crick1952]

@@JennyTheNerdBat Yo, Season 1 had National Anthem So modern-day it actually happened 4 years ago

[@ahmadfakih3451]

What made Black Mirror thrilling is showing the dark horror that you, me or any normal human being could face now or in the near future. This was replaced by a high school musical happy episode.

[@shafaalya884]

i think the creator wants to make black mirror to be digestable for everyone

[@merasi1]

The Ashley too episode taught us that your favorite celebrity might be living in hell. That not everything is how it seems .How the entertainment industry is more that what we see .everything is calculated and controlled. Celebrities feel caged.

[@aly5066]

black mirror hasn't always been dark though; there have been some eps that are silly and lighthearted. likeee the social media one w the ginger girl

[@shafaalya884]

aly you mean nosedive? sis let me tell you that one got dark easy

[@shafaalya884]

aly the thing is that i think black mirror trying to break the stigma of them being this dark, thriller, complicated tv series that’s only cater to certain people heck, back then even i can only watch 1 or 2 episodes from season 1 because it is very dark and disturbing. i get why they’re trying to make it very lighthearted in this season so that everyone can watch it and get the same effect from it

[@Ren-ls4yl]

Damnit Joel I was *this* close to finish knitting our friendship blanket. I'm sorry, I can't stan your opinions.

[@xombie337]

black mirror is just goosebumps 30 years later

[@HauntaskhanHYPNOSIS]

Joel *protecc* Joel *attacc* But most importantly.... George W. Bush illegally invaded Iraq.

[@oof-rr5nf]

-War On Terror- War Of Terror

[@Emily_North]

Happy 73rd birthday to that war criminal.

[@L0LWTF1337]

As a nice birthday present we might finally get the Iran war GWB always wanted.

[@xxxxOS]

I find hilarious that Saddamm has been dead for what? 100 years now and people still belive we are fighting terrorism. Lol Off to Iran soon, see you guys in world war three 👍

[@leez2647]

He criticise Mirror Blacc

[@NitroRad]

um, obviously its called 'smithereens' bnecause they blow him 2 smithereens and um, thats a word u can type on a keyboard....

[@gull1265]

why not call it chunks then fam... i think you can type chunks on a keyboard, trust me im clearly NOT typing this with my mind. actually maybe the word chunks has been cursed for a thousand years... spooky

[@drumlindrums7913]

oh fuck its nitro rad

[@nogghorn7080]

Nitrome is Rad please don't hurt me father? Haha yes

[@zeezenfrozen]

Fancy seeing you here. Good video yeah?

[@maxbearington7565]

What a wacky moment.

[@mialord2000]

Lol I worked on the Ashley2 episode as the standin for Miley and the on set voice for Ashley You brought up some very good points 🙌🏼 loved the content

[@user-em8xs7lw8w]

I didn't see the episode with Rachel as being about relationships at all. For me it watched like a critique of how we treat famous people. We turn them into a commodity, often not letting them grow or change, if they don't meet our expectations. Rachel had a choice in that way. The Ashley she imagined wasn't remotely similar to the real one. She could have reinstalled the inhibiting software instead of freeing her. The choice was between seeing an idol as a person with their own will, or a puppet to do what you want it to.

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

Well, if the story had shown that there was a possibility that Rachel could recode Ashley2, and had shown Rachel struggling with that choice, then I would say you’re right. But this sounds like an independent fan idea you came up with on your own and just assigned to the story. Not something that was actually there. There was no deeply explored theme of treating celebrities as commodities in the actual episode, either. This is just an idea/daydream you had that you’re falsely giving the writers credit for.

[@thinkfirst1989]

I think you're onto this idea of a perfection that also requires no growth, change (or darkness). The real world is unpredictable and dynamic. And I do agree the central focus and interest of this episode is to lay bare the artificiality inherent in parasocial relationships which, as unrealized interpersonal relationships- idealize both the relationship itself and its Object (Ashley). I guess what's sort of frustrating about this episode, beyond its out of place tone is that its story only uses science fiction elements as a plot device, an aesthetic. This is not an episode about the relationship between humans and technology, it's Hannah Montana...in Space!

[@kingpendaofmercia6947]

I feel like Black Mirror fell off a little after it moved to Netflix. It is still good, but i felt like pre-Netflix black mirror was a more focused in critique of both technology and British societal norms. White Bear was my favourite to be honest.

[@JeithKarrett]

I feel like this might be why Smithereens felt more competent to me then the rest of the episodes. It felt like a step back almost. After seeing that there was only going to be three episodes I was actually kind of excited because it reminded me of how it used to be before.

[@darrylbailey8397]

King Penda of Mercia-That episode really got to me🥺 one of the very best, then the Christmas special!

[@nacianon9368]

White Bear was one of the most thought provoking things I’ve ever seen.

[@Nenona1200]

I feel like part of it is definitely the budget going up. Like the really long, and probably the worst episode, the detective show with the bees, was basically...eh. But clearly a lot of budget was put into it. It's got this long runtime. Meanwhile I feel like my favorite is White Christmas--which has themes of voyuerism, witnessing crimes, livestreaming your life, as well as futuristic prison sentences and the question of if they're humane, and if treating copies of humans/AI like things to be played with is okay. You also see someone who comes off as extremely charismatic and find out he's not exactly a good person, it's just got so much crammed into one episode, but everything felt like it was done on a shoestring. most of the effects are very simple, their talk takes place in one single room that's basically redressed to look the same as another set they use. I dunno, I feel like having the constraints makes you focus on the story vs having tons of budget makes it easy to be like "I know, we'll do a fun robot!". Having an episode with Ashley Too where it's just a teenager and finding out if her parasocial relationships are healthy or not would also have been far more interesting and far cheaper to do.

[@niaranoctyrna3754]

Wait, Black Mirror was not a Netflix Original?

[@EatingHawaiianP1zza]

If I were to write an episode of Black Mirror I would ask the question "What if phones but too much?" and then not answer or engage with that question whatsoever. It's like, a metaphor for the show or something I dunno.

[@YourPrivateNightmare]

I would also write a social media CEO who basically lost control over his own creation, but make him a side character and never explore that idea whatsoever.

[@helloofthebeach]

I would ask "What if writing Black Mirror but too much?" and then the episode is about me dropping my keys in the garbage disposal when I'm late for work

[@TheStarBlack]

So you'd rather nobody consider or write about the effects of technology on society? I mean, the ability of governments and organisations to have the whole world under 24 hour surveillance only happened in the last 10 years. But yeah sure, they couldn't possibly be anything worthwhile to say about that!

[@noname-bv4lh]

No Richard, YOU ARE THE PHONE.

[@robokill387]

@@TheStarBlack the point is that it's cliche. the whole "PHONE BAD" message is trite and hacky writing at this point.

[@ChelseaColeslaw]

I just wanna know how that game was coded and how the ESRB went about rating it

[@kaibaiarrio1299]

Yknow, as a queer trans person the striking vipers episode frustrates me because they absolutely could have actually had the characters explore their gender and sexual identities, but instead its like a twilight zone episode where its like "imagine if we had straight sex in a video game, wouldnt that be fucked up?" with only a vague hint at queerness. Also the people behind the game absolutely knew people would want to fuck

[@LimeyLassen]

I think it's a cool design constraint that The Twilight Zone explained themselves at the end of every episode. They couldn't just wave an image in front of you and leave it up to interpretation.

[@BigJoel]

Yeah, all the more so because a lot of the outros of episodes can kinda work as lil thematic red herrings. I think repetition like that can be super powerful

[@pleasedonotwatchmychannel]

Haven't watched the vid yet, and I might be off base with this because the only TV show I watch anymore is Bob's Burgers, but one thing that has turned me away from movies and shows in the past 10 years has been the trend of leaving so much of these stories up to audience interpretation, or expecting the audience to connect all the dots, all the time. Feels lazy on the writers' parts, and sometimes irresponsible. No, you don't have to spell everything out all the time, but just make sure you have an idea that you're committed to before you try to make a story out of it. Feels like writers refuse to commit to anything, anymore. "Oh, you didn't like that???? It's okay it's okay, we'll change it!! Please, don't stop giving us your money, pretty pleeeaaaassssseee!!!!!" Perhaps I am too cynical. Or maybe Hollywood is bad at encouraging real creativity. As an entitled millennial, I think it's probably the latter.

[@TheRedCap30]

The Twilight Zone reminds me a lot of Aesops fables. Short stories with a moral or theme with good ol Rod Serling sending home the message at the end of each episode.

[@conradkorbol]

Please do not watch my channel a lot of people don’t want all the dots connected or to have things explained People like to discuss shows meanings It gives it a more long lasting fan base It depends on the show tho. If it’s meant to be easily digestible and is meant to be moral then I agree with you. If the author is exploring ideas then it’s not meant to. It’s all about the type of story

[@martinramirez21]

Although Black Mirror began as a dark, adult show, and used those traits constructively its first few seasons, Netflix apparently has a policy of injecting shocking, explicit content for its own sake into shows it bought the rights for or are original productions, without organically developing episode plot lines or story arcs. Don't get me started on 13 Reasons Why. Or Big Mouth. I feel like they also Americanised BM and took away its British style.

[@halffox102]

Black mirror in a nutshell: what if your gran ran on batteries?

[@FireofGia111]

You should read "I Sing the Body Electric" by Ray Bradbury. Basically the same concept

[@manospondylus4896]

halffox102 What if technology bad?

[@gwendolynstata3775]

That's called "being on life support"

[@jackgarrett3458]

That's a twilight zone episode

[@unlikelysalmon786]

That way _nobody_ can pull the plug on her. :D

[@pugz5532]

I didn’t like Ashley too, I don’t rlly like how they used Miley Cyrus, I like how black mirror doesn’t use big names . So instead of “black mirror “ it’s “that one show with Miley Cyrus “ ,,, and striking vipers I didn’t rlly pay attention to Bc I was bored lol, but I really really liked smithereens

[@Nachoto]

I honestly don't know who at Nickelodeon thought they made a good job with Rachel Jack and Ashley Too

[@budgetdeckmastermtg2144]

Striking vipers is softcore porn trying to be a Black Mirror episode. Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too was really bad. Smithereens was okay.

[@rudy8176]

Exactly

[@bug8370]

ashley too was my fav episode bruh

[@daisychainsaw]

cloudyskylar you have no taste

[@bug8370]

yumni shutup 😑😡🖐🏻

[@Naomi-gr7fm]

98% of SV was banging and it got old and felt like unnecessary filler

[@WannabeMarysue]

I just want to watch Miley Cyrus be Nine Inch Nails, and a furby, and Hatsune Miku, and turn my brain off and watch the camera spin.

[@Rognik]

But what does it meeeeeeeeeeeeeean?

[@PancakemonsterFO4]

Rognik it means that you are on a drug induced mindtrip to whatever shit you watched before passing out

[@ms.rstake_1211]

Lol

[@realgamergirl4638]

@@Rognik *I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE*

[@rusted_ursa]

I just want to see a good primal hallucinatory nightma-- I mean, video essay.

[@davidlentil2636]

“The episode centres on being heard.” Shows image of character being distracted and not listening.

[@lambchops3884]

What I took from Ashley Too in regards to the Rachel arc is that... we cannot expect character development from people like this; a young, fragile girl holding onto a one sided relationship to avoid her troubled home life. I found it more satisfying and also depressing in a way seeing that the choice was made for her. She likely may not have changed.... but when presented with a version of her Ashley that was more authentic, she was shown to be loyal. Loyalty and ultimately love is her valuable trait but not self reflection. If you take note of the very last scene where Ashley is true to herself and changes her image and music, you can see Rachel uncomfortably go along with it. She is still there for Ashley and her sister but she is clearly not at home. However I think the takeaway should be that despite personal damage and close mindedness, if people care for you they will try to understand and deal with a lot in the name of love. It is up to us to take people like this along for the ride because they're malleable anyway. Plus, their desires line up more with feeling safe and cared for themselves. People like Ashley and her sister definitely want that for Rachel I'm sure unlike others, like the Aunt and company, who will exploit that desire for money. It is fucked up. But I think it is still a valuable truth. That's not to say Rachel will never reflect on this experience and fully recognize that she was ignoring the truth in favor of a comforting lie and then become more self aware and aware of other's intentions as a result... but that same old song and dance is played out and I appreciate the grimmer reality. TL;DR - Rachel is kind of a dumbass that doesn't know what to do with her life. We shouldn't depend on Rachel so hard for self development, we should recognize that positive influences matter more. That is the moral I got.

[@LyleVSXyle]

I laughed at how little you mentioned Jack in your Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too retrospective. Such a caricature of people who say “I only listen to REAL music!”

[@poeticantics]

Yes! Which made me roll my eyes but then I thought well she's a teenager it makes sense. But then there was nothing else added to her character. Nothing.

[@anonymousposter6461]

Nah. She had an interesting point where she threw out Rachel's doll.

[@MosesPrimm]

"This is what they wanted it to be like. So it must be good" Lol that's dead on. I find myself doing that sometimes. Not good.

[@sarahshock6805]

As someone who has never seen Striking Vipers or any part of Black Mirror, here's how I would fix that episode: Make one of the dudes _bisexual._ Establish that bisexuality before they enter the game world. However, also establish that this bisexual guy isn't attracted to his Buddy AT ALL. In the kiss scene at the end, either have the bi guy be especially upset about not enjoying it. Then, show him insisting on another one. He'll spend time hyping himself up, actively searching for physical features he could find attractive in his buddy. His buddy obliges, and the bi guy feels the spark. The kiss ends, with the bi guy reassured that he will be able to continue feeling love for a future partner, no matter how much their body changes. The straight guy, on the other hand, gets no such reassurance.

[@sandroodinga8554]

Alone that i had to really think to remember the plots of these three stories shows a lot. I remerber pretty much everything from episodes like "shut up and dance" or " white bear". At least in my opinion, that says a lot

[@t.b.5115]

They could do something about artificial organs. That is DEFINITELY going to happen soon and it's interesting to think what the long term effects are. The whole download your brain thing has been done. Move on.

[@stopmakingeyesatme1290]

The most disappointing thing about the 'download your brain' concept is that it's based on outmoded assumptions in cognitive science. A sizable part of that field has considered cognition to be fully embodied since at least the 1980s -- you can't just put your brain (or, worse yet, your 'mind') into some place outside of your body and expect it to be just like you, but in a robot or something.

[@americantoastman7296]

@@stopmakingeyesatme1290 sentience is stored in the balls

[@DaKrimch]

@@americantoastman7296 that's right

[@Crick1952]

Agreed The next 2 seasons shouldn't go near "brain uplink" tech just to explore different topics

[@FTZPLTC]

Once you have artificial organs, presumably you can make up new ones. Give me an organ that lets me shoot blood from my eyes please.

[@MsJdeath]

Glasses guy was definitely into his friend irl in the striking vipers episode tho

[@rockinonthemove]

yep, after that kiss you can tell he was coming to the realization that he’s legitimately into his friend

[@gil5885]

forreal. he hesitated way too damn long

[@joeimjoe]

Does glasses guy play as girl or the guy?

[@JL-oi7tl]

@@joeimjoe the guy

[@shuddhakibria820]

Anthony Mackie is his name

[@hiyamrbanana9603]

I genuinely love how blunt you are, I've never laughed so much at a review you're actually great!!

[@scootie_scoot]

i love how you make the most intricate and thoughtful scripts for your video essays and then throw phrases like “but I’m p hungo “ in there with the same exact deliver

[@joselocalau123]

Joel: "High school Musical is competent" Joel: "Why are you booing me? I'm right"

[@lordrefaiv]

The biggest through line in Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too that you didn't touch on that bothered me the most, was the fairly explicit "pop music can't express pain, or even artistry". I'd go so far as to say this is a misogynistic anti-teen girl thread. Ashley is shown to have pain, to be deeply struggling, but that her chosen artform -- the one she has been TRAPPED in, does not allow her to truly express herself. That crass commercial "little girl music" couldn't possibly carry substance the way that music like NIN can. Only once Ashley expresses herself through mature music can she ever be good and right. ...which doesn't even really touch on how Reznor's overarching anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian message (which *does* fit the narrative they're telling here well) is being co-opted in the real world in this episode for crass commercial art. Which is important, but not really part of the episode -- just the meta of that particular artist being chosen.

[@EM-rm2xh]

Really awesome comment. I agree. Can't wait for the day the "pop music manufactured and bad//underground, punk music good and pure ART" narrative dies. There is no high brow and low brow music, and one form is not superior than the other. It also plays into the trope that anything young women and girls like is based on shallow reasons (I mean, how could young women know what *good* music is). I also like how you touched on how when money becomes attached to art (music in this case), people seem to judge the form as inferior. Doesn't matter if the music is good or not, if there's money behind it, it must be tainted in some way.

[@lordrefaiv]

@@EM-rm2xh Thanks much! I was a little disappointed that Joel didn't touch on this note, but it was a bit out of scope for what he's on about in this one. Obviously can't look through all lenses on every video.

[@MsBrendalina]

It drives me crazy when people act as if punk & metal music marketed to men can't be just as manufactured, shallow, and fake as the bubblegum pop aimed at young girls. I also hate the notion that music aiming to be clean and fun is automatically less good/artistic than music that aims to be angsty, angry, sad, and/or painful. As if some disaffected youngster screeching about how much they hate their family isn't just as cliche as some teen girl singing about how much she loves boys.

[@lordrefaiv]

@@MsBrendalina Word.

[@EM-rm2xh]

@@MsBrendalina Yes! Agreed! Also hate how people that compose pop songs for the purpose of marketting specifically to young girls think that the song has to be about romance and love, as if they don't care about anything else. And really love your point about happy versus sad music. It's the same way I feel about movies too.

[@spicoli_1117]

I thought that in Rachel,Jack, and Ashley Too that Rachel would do really good during the talent show and that she would replace Ashley because she was starting to rebel and Rachel would see just how artificial the world she idolizes is.

[@Solo_Videos]

Mae Reed would have been cool