Domingo, Bianca Faye D.

BSPT – 1
Understanding Self

“Nosedive Reaction Paper”

Upon watching episode 1 of season 3 entitled nosedive, an episode of a series called black
mirror my mind started thinking about how this episode reflects much of our society today.
Nosedive may even represent the possibility of a near-future reality that is startlingly plausible.
However for me, although nosedive may seem futuristic, it’s a reflection of the world we live in
today. During the first few minutes of the episode it already started to look like people were
addicted to social media in which their social status were ranked and graded based on this
particular application. The premise of the episode is just an extension of things such as Facebook
likes, Yelp reviews, and Uber ratings to every aspect of human life. As much as we hate to admit
it, people nowadays base their social status on their social media accounts and boost their
confidence with the number of likes, follows, and hearts they get. Actress Bryce Dallas Howard
was named Lacie in Nosedive, she lived in a perfect world where everything is bright and pastel-
colored, including the houses, furniture and even the clothes. Everything is pleasant and
picturesque in this not-so-distant future. However as we dig deeper this into this picture perfect
society, there is a very dark social media world that hides behind it.
Every rating affects a person’s overall standing. The higher your rating, the more perks you
get; the lower your rating, the harder you have to work to keep yourself afloat. We are
confronted with this from the moment Lacie was shown on the episode, her phone was
constantly on her hand, rating everyone from those she passes while out for a jog, to the barista
who gives her a latte. Just like everyone else Lacie works hard for her stars. She always tries her
best in things and even practices her fake smile in front of the mirror. Her life technique is being
as pleasant to everyone as possible in exchange for precious points. Their way of life made me
doubt our society today and question every bit of purpose of social media and how unhealthy it
can be for us if we use it too much. Nosedive continuously reminded us throughout the episode
that social media has invaded our lives. It opens our eyes to how dangerous and unreal it can be.
During the episode Lacie’s rating is around a 4.2, and with some hard work and skillful
sucking up to “high-quality people,” she knows she could reach the 4.5 “premium user”. Lacie
knows that she needs to improve her rating to a 4.5 to get into the apartment complex she wants,
and finds the invitation from an old friend to be her bridesmaid the perfect opportunity to do just
that. However, in the pursuit of that rating, her world started to crumble and went into ruins.
Continues bad ratings were given to her and one bad situation came after another. Due to the bad
review that was given to Lacie by the driver it lowered her rating into 4.1 , which becomes
important when she discovers her flight has been canceled and she needs to have a 4.2 or above
rating to book another one. When a flight got canceled on you, you can’t imagine the rage you
can feel and the difficulty to find the right words to express your frustration, well this is the time
where we can empathize with Lacie. This part of the episode brought me in a rollercoaster ride, I
felt as if multiple emotions were rushing through me in different parts of the episode. Just like in
real life, people constantly try to feed their ego and because of this they sometimes lose their
humanity and common sense throughout the process. Life is indeed unpredictable no one can tell
what will happen next. No matter how hard we try just like Lacie, sometimes things just don’t go
the way we want it to. Especially with our modernized and technological world life flows like
the river which is always unpredictable in many ways.
We might view Lacie at the beginning of the episode as composed and proper however,
sometimes people do change because of the things that they have experienced in life. Lacie was
not her usual self, she started getting mad and was even brought to prison. The people standing
around look at her, and rate her negatively. Thus begins the nosedive. But, she still has a little
hope in her she tried her best to compose herself and look ahead. She thought of renting a car but
the situation just got worse overtime. Because of her low rating she can only get an old crappy
car eventually it gets close to running out of battery, so she pulls into a charging station only to
find that the car she rented isn’t compatible with their outlets. Only to make the situation even
worse they didn’t give her an adapter. So, she waits around for a bit, before taking to the road to
hitchhike. She was having a really bad day but she still continued and tried to go to that wedding
as her rating continues to plummet.
In her determination to nail her maid of honor speech and get the points she’s sure she
deserves, Lacie starts to let everything else go and give up in the face of defeat. With every
setback, that smile she practiced so diligently in the mirror falls apart, and both the episode and
Lacie became so much more enthralling. For me one of the best scenes in this episode was when,
Lacie, ends up getting a ride from a truck driver with a 1.4 rating. Played by Cherry Jones, the
trucker shares the story of how she was also obsessed with her rating just like Lacie, until her
husband got terminal cancer and all the stars in the world couldn’t cure it. This scene captured
my attention solely because of how true it can be in reality, that no matter how high or low our
social status or social media followers may be life is still life and the end still awaits for all of us.
Susan the name of the truck driver told Lacie how amazing it felt to let loose, she tells Lacie she
should try it sometime. Susan is perhaps the only person in nosedive who is genuine and true to
what she felt. She serves as a great example that the social status or rating of a person is not
always a reliable guide in terms of getting to know them. But still because of the persistence of
Lacie she insists that she couldn’t and that she mustn’t. Susan can’t take Lacie all the way to the
wedding and so she drops her off at rest stop, to find another ride for the remainder of the
journey to Naomi’s wedding. During this time while riding with this new group, Lacie receives
a call from Naomi telling her not to come to the wedding. The rating of Lacie was so low, and
Naomi can’t have that at her wedding.
She crashed her childhood friend’s wedding at which she is no longer welcome. Due to her
bad luck and lack of focus she first crashes the ATV, falls in the mud, and breaks into the
compound which only allow entry to those who are 3.8 or higher. She practiced her speech so
diligently which was supposed to help her boost her rating from 4.2 to 4.5, so that she could get
that apartment she badly wants. Now, having that low of a rating, she sees it as her only
opportunity to make up all of that ground. Things as you might have already guessed did not go
as planned, she is dirty, disheveled, and unwelcome thus, one low rating came after another. By
the end of the episode at its final and last scene, it’s not exactly surprising that Lacie ends up
engulfed in righteous flames. It was an awesome scene that showed how Lacie doesn’t care for
ratings anymore. She decided to not let society dictate her life anymore, she can finally scream
and let out all of her anger and frustrations. She can finally be free and be herself. Some people
might interpret that Lacie has finally reached her limit and lost her mind when she started a
screaming match with another inmate. It was a surprising scene but somewhat liberating. Based
on my observation even though they were imprisoned and dragged out of society, they are still
relieved for they are free from the world structured by the rating system.
Black mirror is one of those series that instead of giving us an escape from reality, it forces
us to be more critical of our daily reality. People are overly kind and pretend to be “perfect”. Just
like today the most popular accounts are filled with false happiness and painfully perfect beauty.
It will not stop there because in the future it will gradually get worse. Everyone in the episode of
nosedive seemed so kind and generous however they don’t act this way because they genuinely
want to please or help others, it was for their own benefit and because of their selfishness. They
just want to improve their own ratings and nothing more.
There are a lot of consequences when living in a world where you are constantly being
judged and graded based on your behavior, personality, and social media posts. These grades
then begin dictating our life and whether or not we should have access to a building, job, car, or
live in a high standard community. Social media accounts has its pros and cons but people are
just not mature enough to handle it and put social media into good use. The problem is that this
kind of technology can easily do the exact opposite and just feed on our own self-doubt and
insecurities. In a way social media is increasingly taking overall control of many aspects of our
lives as we are living more moments through the screens of our phone, that is our reality
today. But, I am not implying that social media is all bad all I am trying to say is that we the
people, should be mature enough and handle what we have with much care. Because in the end
it’s only us who can help ourselves and nothing else.