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Black Mirror: “Hated in the Nation” Recap and Analysis

Fake bees swarm in Black Mirror Hated in the Nation

If you haven’t seen Black Mirror, well, I’m not sure why you’re here. If you have, you know it is arguably one of the most important and thought provoking shows of our era. TV Obsessive is proud to feature analyses of each and every episode. Here, Caemeron Crain digs into Black Mirror S3E6, “Hated in the Nation.”


For years now, we have been hearing that bees are in trouble. Given the role they play in the food chain, this has created worries about an impending ecological disaster. As such, the idea of autonomous robot bees that serve the same function may seem like an appealing one; that is, until they start killing people.

“Hated in the Nation” is framed through the testimony of Karin Parke, who was the lead investigator on the case in question, to a committee. There is little of interest in this testimony, however, beyond its function as a framing device, and the way it serves to enable the end of the episode. The meat of the story pertains to the case in question.

This begins when Jo Powers dies after receiving quite a backlash in response to an article she had written about a disabled woman. Someone even sends her a cake with “Fuck You Bitch” written on it, though most of the action is online. It turns out she was the subject of a hashtag that got trending: #deathto.

A computer screen is filled with #deathto in different fonts

Karin and her partner, Blue Colson, interview the woman who sent the cake, Liza Bahar. It turns out that she was only one of a group who chipped in to buy it. She insists that it was funny, and refers to #deathto as a joke.

1) Is there a way to define the joke? Is it anything anyone finds funny? Is it important that it not be “serious”? Is there a difference between not being serious and joking?

There are, of course, various types of humor: pushing a premise to the point of absurdity, subverting expectations, irony, etc. But the kind of “joke” Liza has in mind does not seem to fit well into any of the established categories. Whatever issues one might have with irony, it seems clear that #deathto is not meant ironically. This is not a matter of pretending to believe the opposite of what one believes, or taking a certain cynical distance from the object of one’s statement. Neither is this a matter of satire, which we might define in terms of pushing the logic of a position to its breaking point.

This is rather a laugh taken from being mean. But it does not resemble roasting someone, or even trolling, insofar as those activities depend on the response of the target. Perhaps Liza and others were “not serious” when they wrote #deathto Jo Powers, but that doesn’t make it a joke. In fact, those using the hashtag actually do want their targets to die, or at least suffer meaningfully for what they have done. When Liza calls it a “joke” she only means that she wouldn’t actually commit the murder. She doesn’t express remorse that Jo Powers is dead; instead she references the enormity of Powers’ article. There is something deeply human, if disturbingly dark, about such a desire for the death of another who is perceived to have done something heinous, but it is an abuse of language to call it a joke.

A joke has to be funny, and this is an issue worth thinking about in a world where any number of bad actors continually try to get off the hook by saying they were joking. Perhaps the most prominent example is the sitting President of the United States, whose representatives continually insist that comments he has made—from cajoling an audience to punch a protester, to encouraging the police to engage in brutality, etc.—were jokes. Perhaps the underlying question is whether humor is fully subjective; or, rather, perhaps it is precisely the notion that it is that needs to be squarely rejected.

1a) Is something like an objective definition of humor possible?

It is likely that many, or even most of those who used #deathto at the beginning presumed, like Liza, that it was just trending hashtag, and not something that might actually lead to the person’s death. The real world consequences of the hashtag, however, become apparent to Karin and Blue as a second victim is taken—Tusk, who earned the ire of the internet by mocking a young boy’s dancing—and the connection to the AI bees is discovered. They further find a video from the originator of the hashtag called “Game of Consequences” which lays out the rules: whoever has the most #deathto votes at 5 p.m. each day gets killed.

Perhaps Liza and others had not seen this video when they used the hashtag, but by the fourth day, it is a news story, and the morality of participating is being debated by the media. After all, if someone is going to die, isn’t it perhaps justified to chime in to try to make sure it is someone who “deserves” it? On the other hand, isn’t everyone who uses the hashtag—particularly after it became widely known that the stake were real—complicit in these deaths?

Human beings may struggle to kill each other face-to-face in most instances, but this is far removed. If anything, it resembles being a drone operator. Of course, the scenario in “Hated in the Nation” is far more visceral: we hate public figures and feel free to express that hate in the public space of social media. What if that hatred had teeth? Who would you #deathto?

2) Is it justifiable to be complicit in something bad, in order to prevent something worse?

Karin and Blue discover that a man called Garrett Scholes is behind all of this, and his motivation turns out to be contrary to what may have been expected. He discovered his old flatmate, Tess Wallender, when she attempted suicide after being at the wrong end of a social media shit-storm. She also thinks he had a thing for her.

Regardless, Scholes’ true endgame is to turn the killer AI bees on all of those who had participated in #deathto. Blue discovers a list of some 387,000 people who have taken part, though targeting them seems to depend on their devices rather than the facial recognition that was being used for the targets of the hashtag. (Oh yeah, of course the government was also using the bees for the purpose of surveillance). It is not made clear how many people actually died in this event, as the episode turns to a montage, showing Scholes shave, put in colored contact lenses, dispose of evidence, and disappear.

Scholes looks in the mirror with eyes of two different colors

It would seem Blue catches up with him at the very end of the episode, but we do not actually see her catch him. To what extent does this matter? Could bringing him to justice in any way make us feel better in light of the massive harm done? Blue has faked her own death and gone off the grid to track down Scholes. This only makes sense if her goal is not to bring him to justice—since surely there would be a massive international manhunt underway for someone who killed so many people—but to kill him. Is that what he deserves?

Black Mirror has frequently played with the notion of fates worse than death, in “White Christmas” and “White Bear,” for example. Both of those episodes are also referenced, however subtly, in “Hated in the Nation.” If Blue does indeed kill Scholes, then one has to ask whether that would be more or less than he deserves. Or, again, could anything serve as proper retribution for a crime so heinous? And, is there any real threat of him repeating his offense? Would killing him perhaps be to fall into the same despicable logic he himself deployed?

That logic seems clear enough. Scholes experienced how online vitriol can lead a person to attempt suicide. In other words, it can cause a death. His plan, then, was to ensure that it did; to make concrete the possible effects of the hate spewed on social media, whether this be directed at public personalities, or private citizens. His intention, ultimately, was not to take this hatred to the next level, but to punish those who engaged in it.

While this is extreme, and the killing of hundreds of thousands of people is clearly unjustifiable, one should also note the extent to which Scholes has a point. It is all too easy to say incredibly nasty things to people online, and even to wish them dead. We feel protected by a certain kind of anonymity; freed to say things we would never say to a person’s face. There are no meaningful consequences. One may be blocked, or banned from a site, but little stands in the way of creating a new profile and starting again.

“Hated in the Nation” thus engages with a logic similar to that of doxxing. If the idea is to create real world consequences for those engaged in bad behavior online, we have to ask whether the proposed remedy might not be worse than the disease.

Written by Caemeron Crain

Caemeron Crain is Executive Editor of TV Obsessive. He struggles with authority, including his own.

Caesar non est supra grammaticos

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6 Comments

  1. It’s been awhile since I’ve actually seen the episode. I remembered it wrong. Lol.

    In either of the two cases you mentioned, attacking someone, even if they do have a despicable view, doesn’t sit well with me.

  2. I’ve never engaged in trolling, attacking, or saying things online that I wouldn’t say to an individual in real life. Just had the opportunity today to troll a politician who had very disturbing views when it came to the homosexuality community, but I refrained because the idea of trolling for the heck of it in order to cause pain to another individual for no other reason that I think I have the moral high ground disgusts me. Why people have the urge to attack others just because they “deserve it” and the attacker has a chance to really baffles me.

    The more I live in this world, the more I’m disturbed by how easily people let the darkness in their hearts take over. If the “death to” movement occurred today, I’m sure Trump and other prominent politicians would somehow land on this list, but the idea of playing God and deciding who dies is a very, very, scary thing.

    It reminds me of the ending of Watchmen and the idea of Infinity War. If you had the chance to save humanity on a large scale by killing many people, would you do it? One would have to reject their humanity in order to accomplish it and take up the role of God. What does that make them? An inhuman evil monster? Their decision isn’t coming from warmth of the heart but cold, hard, logic.

    The villain in this piece (which I haven’t seen for a while) seems to be in it for punishment of people who would take advantage of the hashtag and the opportunity to kill someone. But is it moral to give someone a chance to commit a sin and then punish them for committing it?

    So many good questions asked.

    • Thanks for reading and commenting, Aaron (and apologies for not replying sooner – afraid it slipped through the cracks on me).

      I think there is something of a difference between being a troll and what is at stake here, though the issues are close together. I think what happens with #deathto is more raising a concern about the level of disapprobation that is often directed at individuals when there is some kind of scandal or what have you, coming from a place of genuine outrage (whereas I tend to think of trolls as just being in it for the lulz).

      Regardless, yes, if it were a really thing, I am sure you are right about Trump making the list, and others. I think the issue is a little more nuanced than how you are approaching it with the thought about playing God, though. If it is a whole bunch of people voting, that complicates things. And, one question I raised that I don’t have a good answer for: if this were really happening would there be anything to the argument that if it is going to happen to someone, one should maybe chime in to push things in the direction of it happening to someone is truly awful?

      It seems like a kind of inversion of voting for the lesser of two evils. Someone is going to win the election, so I should vote to try and ensure it is the least bad option. There, if someone’s position is that they won’t do it, with an appeal to some kind of personal purity, I would take them to task for it. Should I be applying the same logic to those of refuse to participate in #deathto – that they are just allowing those who do to decide, when they might kill some poor young woman just for posted an ill-advised photo on the web? Or, does perhaps the fact that this is a life or death scenario, where one could argue that voting creates a complicity with the murder, enough to create an effective disanalogy?

      (And to be clear with regard to your last question – No, Scholes is indefensibly immoral; I hope I didn’t create to much ambiguity about my position on that when I asked if he maybe had a point)

      • Yes, I do agree that there is more at stake here than trolling. I was specifically referring to the cake and the people who went out the way to bombard the journalist with hateful messages at the beginning of the episode. I honestly felt very sorry for her.

        Sometimes the lesser of two evils is a necessary choice to make. Trying to sway the outcome in the direction of someone is more terrible than another would be a very defensible action, but for me personally, it would be a hard step to take. Sometimes taking an action that might tarnish your own personal purity is the right step, however.

        And no, you didn’t create too much ambiguity.

        • The thing is the journalist was pretty OK with (until she got killed). She ate the cake, and even seemed to be taking some troll-like glee in the internet responses. This is something I maybe could have gone into in more detail – the difference between expressing hatred towards someone who opened themselves up to it by expressing a despicable view in public, versus when it is a private citizen who does something ill-advised on social media