Seven creepy Black Mirror predictions that actually came true

Last year's third season was arguably its most successful yet, winning two Emmy awards for the much-loved instalment, San Junipero, so expectations are very high indeed for the six new episodes coming our way.

There's not long to wait now, but who needs to see Black Mirror on screen when it keeps coming to life all around us?

Creator Charlie Brooker’s unsettling worlds, with their bizarre occurrences and often sinister technology, have now weirdly foreshadowed actual events so many times that Brooker has said: "Maybe we should be patenting this stuff…”

Here's seven of the spookiest "life imitating art" (or is it the other way round?) ideas from past episodes that have come to pass over the years.

Rating citizens

Black Mirror, 'Nosedive' (S3): The episode is set in a world where everyone can rate one another from one to five stars for every interaction they have, no matter now trivial. It's about Lacie (Bryce Dallas Howard), a woman obsessed with her ratings, who will do anything to preserve her high-rated standing in the eyes of her fellow citizens.

Reality: The Chinese government recently unveiled plans for a new scheme called the 'Social Credit System' to essentially rate the trustworthiness of its citizens. According to a Wired report, people will be monitored and evaluated on social interactions ranging from how and where you shop, to how you interact with your friends. This would then give you a 'Citizen Score', which would telegraph your trustworthiness - as well as your suitability for mortgages and even dating.

The iPhone X 'Animoji'

Black Mirror, ‘The Waldo Moment’ (S2): A comedian brings a blue cartoon bear called Waldo to life as a 3D virtual avatar through facial recognition and motion-capture performance. Waldo then becomes a sensation when he contests a seat in a British by-election.

The Reality: In September 2017, Apple revealed a new feature for its new iPhone X called TrueDepth, which enables a face scan, allowing users to control the facial expressions of virtual animal avatars known 'Animojis'.

During its presentation, Apple showed some of the avatars that had been tested so far, including the panda and pig emojis.

Soon after, the official Twitter account for Black Mirror simply tweeted out a gif of Apple's 'Animojis' - only in its version, Waldo had been superimposed into the line-up alongside the real ones. A very Black Mirror way to make a point.

That time a prime minister had sex with a pig

Black Mirror, ‘National Anthem’ (S1) : The infamous episode where a terrorist captures the Duchess of Beaumont, and will only release her once the poor Prime Minister (Rory Kinnear) has had sex with a pig live on national television.

The Reality: In a bizarre twist of fate, David Cameron was rumoured to have had, er… relations with a dead pig's head.

Digital life after death

Black Mirror, ‘Be Right Back’ (S2): A women replicates her dead boyfriend using tech that filters together his personality via social media accounts.

Reality:This is already happening, with Bina48 being one of the most advanced examples. She’s a social robot who has been created using video interview transcripts, laser-scanning life mask technology, face recognition, artificial intelligence and voice-recognition technologies. She’s designed to be a social robot that can interact based on the information, memories, values, and beliefs collected about an actual person – dead or alive.

(In fact, BBC Three made a whole documentary about it...)

Sky plus for the brain

Black Mirror, 'Entire History of You' (S2): Using memory implants in the head called ‘grains’, everyone can record everything they do, see and hear, as well as play back any moment with on-screen ‘redos’.

The Reality: Last year Samsung patented a live-stream contact lens, which takes a picture whenever the wearer blinks. The lenses are hooked up to a smartphone, which receives a live stream of whatever the wearer is looking at.

When it comes to recording memories, neuroscientist Theodore Berger is already on it. He’s designed silicon chips that mimic our memory-recall process. He hopes to help Alzheimer’s patients with memory loss by implanting an electronic implant. All starting to sound a bit… familiar?

Smartphone dystopia

Black Mirror, 'White Bear' (S2): Hordes of people mindlessly follow a girl. They watch her every movement from behind their smartphone lenses, a silent audience stalking her for sheer entertainment.

The Reality: Pokemon Go became a global obsession in the summer of 2016, gluing thousands of people to phone screens as they hunted for augmented reality creatures in the real world. People quit their jobs, trespassed, discovered dead bodies, fell off cliffs, crashed cars, broke into zoos and even kept playing after getting stabbed.

The future is not bright for bees

Black Mirror, ‘Hated In The Nation’ (S3): This episode features a swarm of mechanical bees, developed after the real honeybee died out.

Reality: The Black Mirror team recently discovered that mechanical bees are already being developed. Harvard have a swarm of 60 mechanical bees with an identical function to that depicted in Black Mirror – and, once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand why that’s so terrifying.

And let’s not even get started on Marmite Gate. How are you doing this, Brooker?

As Kelly Macdonald’s detective character aptly sums up in that episode: “I didn’t expect to find myself in the future. But here I ******* well am.”

Who knows what season four of the show will predict - but maybe you can divine some clues from the upcoming episode titles, or Netflix's official promo trailer?

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This article was originally published on 21 October, 2016