This episode follows the rise and fall of Jamie, a voice actor / comedian, as well as Waldo’s, his character, ascent into the political area. Waldo is a Borat-esque sort of animated create like My Talking Tom who has a recurring segment on a comedy show where he pranks unsuspecting guests with vulgarities. Waldo isn’t really a part of the popular zeitgeist until a politician enacts the Streisand effect after complaining about his segment. For some reason Waldo gets popular. Jamie questions whether or not to continue as Waldo (is it really satire if no one gets it?) and is ultimately replaced when he tries to make things right. But no one notices.

The underlying message I saw in this episode is that everyone is replaceable, be it Jamie, the originating voice actor or politicians. I thought this episode missed the mark for a number of reasons. Waldo’s ascent felt scripted. Jamie felt underdeveloped. The entire Labour Party candidate subplot seemed irrelevant. And the “technology” was nothing more than an iPad app. Almost every sitcom has some form of election, and this episode of Black Mirror didn’t add anything to the discussion.

While the episode didn’t touch too much on voting technologies, I thought it was interesting how Etzioni touched on information sharing. From MAGA to “I like Ike”, political discourse has always been reduced to clips and slogans. I feel like Waldo is less technology’s fault and more our insatiable desire to be entertained. I thought it was funny how Etzioni saw “E-voting” (tre early 2000s) as an inevitability. It’ll be interesting to see that come to fruition, but despite “new encryption techniques,” I think that’s still a little ways off. Then again, Etzioni may have been talking about kiosks.

Discussion question

The idea of virtual communities today seems like a given. But have you been a part of any virtual communities that are democratic? If so, which ones and how do they work?