The last episode of Charlie Brooker's second series of Black Mirror could not have been more perfectly timed. Its scornful assault on political populism fits the mood of the moment, as signor Beppe Grillo's Movimento 5 Stelle and UKIP in Eastleigh cashed in on popular protest votes.
But the discontent with popularity expressed in Black Mirror is not new to pop culture. In fact, our cultural output seems to treat popularity as outright dangerous.
In Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, we see a disaffected man become the voice for disaffected men when he inadvertently develops an alternate personality in order to escape from his life. As Tyler Durden he offers himself and his followers release from their frustrations, along with the opportunity to belong. As the eponymous fight club gains franchises and turns into a popular movement, its members, once the disenfranchised, have become a loyal and well-organised group, capable of powerful popular mobilisation in support of the cause.
Charlie Brooker's series two finale of Black Mirror runs with a similar theme. In The Waldo Moment, the protagonist creates a digital character, Waldo - a blue bear - who is used to ambush celebrities and politicians with insults and embarrassing questions while they are under the impression that they are being interviewed for a kid's TV show. When, due to the success of one particular ambush of a politician, the character is entered into a by-election, Waldo becomes a vehicle for popular discontent with politics that quickly goes viral.
In both of these works, the question is raised as to what the power created by popular movements might be used for; and in both works the answer takes us to a dark place. The disenfranchised, the disaffected, the dissatisfied; these people become the power base supporting leaders with deceptive or dangerous motives.
Those cultural fears, while presented in these works in extreme forms, do not require much imagination to translate into reality. We have an urge to belong. Fitting in with others is the safest strategy for surviving existence - and we will jealously defend those connections. But our need can also be wielded against us:
'the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own' (de Toqueville, 1840)
The popular and the persuasive offer us answers that require little more from us than our acquiescence. But supporting
anything without a clear understanding of the reasons for them - and
the evidence supporting them - means handing over a dangerous amount of
power to those who benefit from your support.
As we shed the responsibility to analyse information and come to our own opinions, we also shed the personal power that comes with it. But neither responsibility, nor power, simply dissolve when we refuse them. Instead, the responsibility falls on others - and whether by our inaction or through institutions, we invest them with the power, on our behalf, to see those responsibilities done.
The increasing complexity of life is such that political representation is a necessity - but it is not one that should be taken lightly or ignored. When our vigilance wanes, and we lazily follow the crowd, popular support can become a very dangerous tool.
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References:
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+ Charlie Brooker's 'The Waldo Moment'; from Black Mirror Series 2, Episode 3; Channel 4; 25 February 2013.
+ Alexis de Toqueville 'Democracy in America'; Saunders and Otley; 1835-1840.
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