The twelfth week of Social Media & Society has introduced more interesting and controversial topics. We viewed another fascinating Black Mirror episode: White Christmas and read an article from The Atlantic: Emoji Don’t Mean What They Used To. The Black Mirror episode started Jon Hamm as Matt Trent, Rafe Spall as Joe Potter and Natalia Tena as Jennifer.

The episode began on Christmas morning, as Joe awoke to Matt cooking potatoes and drinking scotch or brandy in the cabin’s kitchen. Matt confronted Joe about his silence over the last five years in their shared living quarters. Matt opened up and shared how his hobby, hooking up awkward singles, went terrible wrong. Matt and his colleagues would use the “Zed Technology” to break the ice and keep the conversation flowing. One of Matt’s clients pursued a women who turned out to be mentally ill. After returning to her place, she mistook his conversations through the Zed Technology as a symbol to take both their lives. Matt quickly disposed of the evidence, but inevitably destroyed his relationship with his significant other. Matt also discussed his occupation of implanting and training cookies for people in this advanced era. The digital clones monitored and assisted with daily tasks for their “real self”. Matt can also fast forward the clones timeline; effectively breaking their will with boredom and slaving for their “real self”.

Joe eventually starts to open up about his uncomfortable and unfortunate past. He considered his relationship with Beth to be happy and healthy. However in Beths eyes, an unexpected pregnancy has pushed her far away from Joe. She considered abortion and can’t stand to be in Joe’s presence. After a fight, Beth blocks Joe and flees their house. Joe was distraught and lost without his pregnant fiancée. She vanished from his life and with the block in effect, Joe has no way to communicate or contact her. On Christmas Eve, Joe made it a tradition and travelled to Beth’s father’s house to spy on his child. Years later, Beth tragically dies and the block is removed. Joe sees this an an opportunity to final meet his daughter and deliver his gift directly. As he enter his fathers house he discovers that Beth had an affair with their best friend and work colleague; he was not the child’s father. In a confrontation with Beth’s father, Joe struck him with a snow globe, killing him, and drove away from the murder scene. The little girl found her grandfather and set off into the snowy wilderness to get help. She froze to death and died shortly after.

After Joe confesses to the murder, the dramatic scene ends with Matt leaving a cookie with Joe’s clone. Matt made a deal with law enforcement to avoid imprisonment for his role in the death of his “dating client”. However he is a registered sex offender and permanently blocked by everyone.

The originally emoji, was created by the Japanese for cellphones by the telecom NTT Docomo in 1999. Sense then, emojis have taken new forms and representation across the globe. Emojis are continuing to grow and become more specific. These emojis can also symbolize and take on new ideas or meanings. The Atlantic stated, “The That power continues with today’s higher-resolution versions. A skull (💀) almost never means that the speaker has a braincase in hand, Hamlet-like, but rather offers an ashen reaction or a lol, I’m dead sentiment”. I found this quote particularly relevant to my generation and culture today. These emojis honestly can take on several different identities and impacts.

Published by: Samuel Erickson

Weekly News Article: My Domain and Gabrielle Savoie published an interesting article on the amount and affects of social media on our love lives.

https://www.mydomaine.com/how-social-media-affects-relationships