The face you make when you are watching Black Mirror

This is a meme that I created based on the British television show Black Mirror and with the guidance of the reading The Language of Internet Memes by Patrick Davison. Black Mirror is a TV show that we have been watching for the class because it is related to digital culture and it presents a fiction of how would the world be if our society still relating strongly in all aspects with technology. In the following paragraphs I will be describing why did I choose the elements that conform my meme.

First I decided to include an aspect of digital culture that is always presented on the TV show; so I included some screenshots of some episodes that we have watched for the class, in specific 15 million merits and The entire history of you because where the episodes that I consider most shocking. In these episodes the digital culture is present in screens and artifacts that allow the characters to communicate in a personalized way (characteristic of new media) between each other. As we discussed in class one of the most mind-blowing scenes of The entire history of you is when the main characters of the episode are having sex by recalling their memories in a digital device; so I decided that it would be part of the meme. Here I attached the trailers of the episodes that I mentioned above.

Moreover I decided to choose a cat with shocking face because that is the way I feel every time I am watching an episode of Black Mirror. The show is totally different from what everyone can imagine and it discloses a fiction that doesn’t seem so far from our reality with our obsessive and blind relationship with new media.

As Patrick Davison explains in the reading I decided to use image macros and add the same text (the face you make) to my meme to make it part of the memes, that already exist with the same text. Also I guided myself from what Davison said in his text and I used a first line of advice (the face you make) and the punch line (when you are watching Black Mirror) so the people who see it understood what is the meme about.

Other of the elements that conform my meme is that I decided to include the following bar:

So people can see that I was watching Black Mirror in a media device (as part of digital culture).

Furthermore the term participatory culture of Jenkins reading can apply to the meme because in the background it shows how the society of Black Mirror are consumers and producers that interact with each other and with or through technology all the time.

Not only participatory culture but also convergence culture because in the meme we can see some scenes of the TV show of how this convergence has the power to influence culturally, in technological industries and create social changes.

Finally I can say that in my opinion Black Mirror is a fiction reflection of how society can become if we are not careful with how do we relate with media and technology. It is scary because it is not out of our reality and I think one of the aspects of the TV show is that is shocking because it has a touch of our modern reality, and that is why is so scary.