Black Mirror propelled television to new heights in 2018 when it launched the interactive film Bandersnatch which presented viewers with a series of decisions which would decide the fate of the protagonist.
This year it has outdone itself.
With a global pandemic raging, race riots erupting and civilians increasingly at odds with the ruling class it appears we are currently experiencing Series 6 in person.
Black Mirror really outdid themselves this time. Having us EXPERIENCE season 6 instead of watching it on Netflix? Remarkable really
— Dream Crusher ?? (@ThatgyalKrys) June 1, 2020
Blackout Tuesday
Today social media accounts were turned into a sea of black as people protested the death of George Floyd, who died pleading for air as a white police officer knelt on his neck.
Protestors across the world have clashed with law enforcement as well as a President who threatened military force to quell the angst from the safety of a church.
Donald Trump, who is not thought to be religious, held up a bible and gathered a group of advisers to pose for photos.
“It’s all just a reality TV show for this president,” New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Twitter. “Shameful”, he added.
Dystopian disconnect
Closer to home and Brits are also experiencing a somewhat dystopian disconnect with its government.
The Prime Minister’s chief aide, who is rumoured to have led a government coronavirus strategy which protected economy and put elderly at risk, was revealed to have flouted lockdown guidance to travel to his family home in Durham as well as making a subsequent trip to “test his eyesight“.
Addressing the public Boris Johnson said Mr Cummings had “acted responsibly, legally and with integrity”, a view which appears to be completely out of step with the rest of the public.
Even former PM Theresa May was forced to admit that she “can well understand the anger of those who have been abiding by the spirit of the guidance”.
The moves, much like the death of George Floyd, appeared to show two cultures at war with each other.
Pandemic
Yet as John Graham-Hart wrote on Twitter, we should hardly be surprised.
“Who would have thought that electing a cowardly, talentless, bone-idle, self-serving, narcissistic Old Etonian serial liar in thrall to a ruthless, arrogant career psychopath and backed by millions from Moscow could end so badly?”, he said, a view you might well take of many leaders elsewhere.
Successive elections won by populist governments have started to wreak havoc on the world, something that has been compounded by the current coronavirus pandemic.
A recent graph showing the nations which have struggled to stem the tide on the virus shows that populism and respect for human life “are incompatible”, one commentator said.
It seems that after years of dystopian drama projecting notions of undesirable societies we are now actually living in them.
Black Mirror Series 6 could already be upon us.
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