Why did Streamberry pick Joan?
In the rollercoaster ride of an episode that is 'Joan Is Awful', the sixth season premiere of the acclaimed series 'Black Mirror', a question has been left hanging in the minds of many viewers: "Why Joan?"
Why was Joan, an ordinary woman leading a relatively uneventful life, chosen as the test subject for Streamberry’s groundbreaking and frankly unnerving feature of creating a highly detailed and negatively skewed reality TV show based on a subscriber's life? This question forms the crux of our understanding of the show's intent and offers a window into the ways technology interacts with privacy and the self-image of individuals.
Joan, played brilliantly by Annie Murphy, is not extraordinary by TV standards. She's an "average, nobody person" as Mona Javadi, Streamberry's CEO, puts it. She leads an above-average life – a loving fiancé, a beautiful house, a leadership role at a tech company – but her life has its fair share of ups and downs, like everyone else's. In essence, Joan embodies the majority of Streamberry's audience, the "average" viewers who lead ordinary lives and use the platform for entertainment.
By choosing Joan as their test subject, Streamberry taps into the relatability of her life. Every person watching the series, 'Joan is Awful', is likely to see fragments of their lives reflected in Joan's – a tiff with a partner, a stressful day at work, the occasional personal missteps. This makes the viewer identification with Joan's story stronger, thereby increasing their engagement with the show. Moreover, this engagement comes with a morbid twist of schadenfreude, the pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. In painting Joan as awful, Streamberry exploits a psychological facet of its audience’s behavior, amplifying their attention and watch time.
However, there’s a deeper commentary at play here. By turning Joan, an average person, into a test subject for their experiment, Streamberry indirectly conveys a chilling message: in the age of digital surveillance, everyone is a potential subject. No one, irrespective of how ordinary their life might be, is safe from prying eyes and exploitation by corporations who see personal data as a gold mine for content production and advertising. It's a stark warning about the implications of a society with dwindling privacy and increasing surveillance, where our lives can be packaged and sold back to us as entertainment.
Moreover, the selection of Joan underlines a significant aspect of reality TV's core – its emphasis on normal people. Reality TV has often thrived on presenting the lives of ordinary people, making them subjects of public discourse, critique, and even ridicule. In the past, these subjects knowingly signed up for the exposure, but 'Joan Is Awful' paints a terrifying scenario where consent becomes an archaic concept, obscured by legalese and complicated terms of service agreements.
The choice of Joan as the first subject of Streamberry's experiment serves to reflect, and critique, the growing intrusion of technology into our personal lives. While it provides a gripping narrative for a dystopian TV show, it also forces us, the viewers, to question the impact and reach of technological advancements into our private lives. In the end, the choice of Joan isn't just a narrative decision; it's a warning, an exploration, and a mirror held up to society's face.
