True Self or Selfie

The Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” can best be described as sad, creepy, and eye-opening. Martha and Ash are a couple who live in an advanced technological world. When Ash unexpectedly dies, Martha is left alone and later discovers she is pregnant. Martha’s friend Sarah informs her of a program that would allow Martha to speak to Ash, saying he would be a perfect candidate since he was “an addict.” Desperate to tell Ash about their baby and seek closure, Martha caves and tries the program that Sarah recommended. However, as the story continues, we see Martha delving deeper and deeper into this synthetic Ash until she has a replicate robot sleeping in her bed. 

 

In the beginning, Martha accuses Ash of being on his phone too much, telling him to put in the glove box of the car and calling it a “thief.” When Ash is feeling inside his pockets, Martha knows exactly what he’s looking for and when she’s preparing dinner, she knows that he is paying more attention to his phone than to the subject at hand. This shows that Martha is not as plugged into the world of social media and technology as much as Ash. However, after Martha starts the program, she becomes more and more reliant on technology, talking to Ash non-stop via Bluetooth and even has a panic attack when she breaks her phone and loses connection repeating over and over again “I dropped you” as if Ash were really in the phone. 

It’s amazing how much we rely on technology for company. Introverts like myself sometimes find it easier to talk to my friends on my phone rather than those around me. Are we ever truly alone when our friends are a text or phone call away? But here’s the thing: are the people you talk to through technology genuine? That is, do we really know who they are and what they like? People tend to post their best photos of themselves, heavy with filters (Like when Martha tells RoboAsh “You look like him on a good day” and he responds that they only ever post the good photos). People have time to tweak and edit their posts. A certain part in the episode that struck me was when Ash was explaining his childhood photo to Martha, saying he was posting it because he thought his friends would find it funny but in reality he thought it was sad. Later, RoboAsh picks the photo up from the mantle and finds it in his archives of social media memories and calls the photo funny.

Technology is deceiving. Instagram photos and Facebook profiles can be misleading. We put our best foot forward when it comes to public and social media because it is only human to care about how others view us. But the heart-breaking thing about Martha and Ash is that they didn’t care about the best version of each other. They wanted the flaws and imperfections that made them human and made them unique. The parts of Ash that Martha loved were the parts he shared with her, not the rest of the digital world. In the end, Martha puts RoboAsh in the attic, just like his mother dealt with his brother and father’s deaths. And you have to wonder if RoboAsh tainted her authentic memories of Ash. When we meet people or remember people, do we remember them apart from their digital selves or do the Internet and photos and videos and letters replace our memories with something more synthetic? Where do we draw the line between reality and the digital self?