![]() ![]() Google has floated the idea of a "pay-for-gaze" ad-sales mechanism built into Google Glass, and a company called Tobii has an entire division devoted to figuring out where our eyes are when we're looking at content (and other "eye tracking solutions" for advertisers). GazeHawk, a company that specializes in user eye tracking, was just purchased by Facebook to, well, help it sell ads. We're not quite there with eye tracking technology, but that's where a lot of the research money is going in the advertising world right now. One of the most powerful moments of "Merits," for me, was when Bing attempts to close his eyes or look down to avoid watching the porn advertisement with Abi in it, only for the ad to pause until he started looking at the screen again. There have been horror stories of people spending thousands of dollars on "freemium" games, and "Merits" hits on Bing's (the protagonist, not the search engine's) idea that people are working their asses off for something that, at the end of the day, isn't real. We aren't all biking all day to keep the lights on (and we're not spending our digital currencies on virtual reality porn-well, most of us aren't), but is the economy imagined in "Merits" all that different from putting in hundreds of hours earning new plants in Farmville? Is it any different than trading in real cash for FarmCoins and FarmCash? In "Merits," the underclass lives inside a hopelessly artificial digital colony and spends all day biking to power said colony, in exchange for a digital currency called "merits" that can be exchanged for entry into reality shows, swag for your avatar, or prepackaged apples. While "The National Anthem" is about as blatant as you can get, you have to start squinting to see exactly how we'll get to the indentured servitude hell that is "Fifteen Million Merits." But the pieces are all recognizable and, in fact, commonplace in today's society. Perhaps the most chilling thing about the episode is that, if something like it happened tomorrow, it wouldn't be all that shocking. And we've got web artists and hoax practitioners actively trying to fool the media to write about whatever the hell they want, just to get a rise out of people (it's fitting that a performance artist is behind the "National Anthem" plot. We've got Anonymous-affiliated groups threatening to release a pop star's sex tape unless she bows to their will (and the media eating it up). It's used Twitter to recruit soldiers and spread fear.Īfter the Sony hack and the ensuing blackmail-y demand to not release The Interview, we now have politicians openly wondering whether we've entered the era of digital terrorism. On its face, it's an utterly absurd premise-but is it, really? We've already watched the Islamic State release threats and show horrifying decapitations on YouTube. The terrorist releases this video on YouTube. Black Mirror starts off with little of the subtlety we come to see in later episodes-a terrorist has captured the Duchess of Beaumont, and will only release her if the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has sex with a pig on live national television. ![]()
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