'Black Mirror' fans are just learning the real meaning behind the show's name
Did you have this twigged already?
No doubt you’ll have watched at least one episode of the latest series of Black Mirror already, because if you don’t, you just know someone is going to scream a spoiler from the office kitchen and ruin it for you in no time at all - you’re running out of time, basically.
Or, if not anything from Season 4, I’ll bet my prize hedges that you’ve copped one of the other episodes - it’s a cultural phenomenon and you’re nobody if you haven’t watched it, right? NOBODY.
But did you know why it’s called Black Mirror? Because it seems that people are only just coming round to the real meaning behind the show’s cryptic title. My original hypothesis (very important research paper, that) was that it was an impossible bit of tech, an oxymoronic joke along the lines of the classic solar-powered torch (which actually exists now, btw).
Then, back in 2014, Brooker revealed the actual reason it’s called Black Mirror and it all fell into place. It’s taken until this fourth season to really catch on with fans though, mainly thanks to this tweet:
Or perhaps this even better one:
Needless to say, the internet is all up in bloody arms, as it is wont to do:
Here’s what Brooker told Channel 4 back in 2014:
“What I took it to mean was when a screen is off – when a screen is off it looks like a black mirror.
“Because any TV, any LCD, any iPhone, any iPad – something like that – if you just stare at it, it looks like a black mirror, and there’s something cold and horrifying about that, and it was such a fitting title for the show.
“I mean, I don’t know what else we would’ve called it – Spooky Technology Time?! It would’ve been rubbish.
“I quite like the fact that people are watching it on their TV or on their laptop, or their smartphone or whatever, and then as the end credits start running and the screen cuts to black, they see themselves reflected.”
So now you know - it’s all because you won’t stop watching your bloody TVs and phones and tablets! Get off your technology! Down with screens! Pick up your skateboard! Do a long jump or something!
(Image: Netflix)
