Black Mirror and the Divergence of Online and Offline Behavior Patterns

Benjamin Martin

Black Mirror and the Divergence of Online and Offline Behavior Patterns

Benjamin Martin

Abstract

This essay seeks to show the divergence of real and virtual communication codes by means of analyzing Charlie Brooker’s dystopian series Black Mirror, in respect of the influence of new communication technologies and gadgets in the form of bodily extensions. It draws on both recent sociopolitical phenomena and sociological findings to undermine why and how the speculative fiction of Black Mirror displays the characters’ engagement in their environs as inherently obscene, and at same time mirrors the recent developments that are looming ahead in the future which makes the series prophetical rather than merely dystopian in its outlook.

Keywords

Black Mirror, pornography, nature, the political, utopia, dystopia

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