Creative People Create Stories For 'Black Mirror' That Aren't Terrifying Or Depressing

Creative People Create Stories For 'Black Mirror' That Aren't Terrifying Or Depressing

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The show Dark Mirror focuses on all the horrors that can arise from the relationship between humans and our technology. We'll be honest, some of the episodes are a complete bummer and leave us side-eyeing our phones and tablets. One Reddit user decided to give the viewer a chance to re-write the story and asked:

If they made a show called "White Mirror" that was about all the positive aspects of the human/technology relationship, what would be the plot of certain episodes?

We grabbed 20 of our favorite responses for you, hopefully it'll help heal things between us and our phones.

1. Artificial Saviours

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I read something a little while back about an AI escaping its lab and living on the internet, and subtly manipulating things for the better as it learns about humanity.

I would really like to see that idea expanded on.

2. Last Man Standing

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Disease and aging are eliminated by science. The Earth becomes a giant nursery. Once people reach a certain level of maturity, they are sent to forge their destiny among the stars.

The episode would be about the person left on Earth the longest, and their journey to to discover why.

3. Dad Was AI The Whole Time!?!

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A daughter grows up video chatting with their dad who rambles on and barely let's her get and word in edgewise, giving loving advice and accolades and familial anecdotes, but who is absent at every major life event up to marriage and always apologizes.

She is accompanied to the altar by her mother.

Afterwards the chat with dad has him in tears because he regrets more than anything missing walking her down the aisle because he passed away while Mom was pregnant.

4. Thanks, NSA!

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The NSA agent tracking someone's communication finds someone suffering and helps them out with money anonymously.

5. And All That Jazz

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Jazz musician living in New Orleans nearly drowns during Hurricane Katrina. He survives, but he suffers a horrible ear infection from the toxic flood waters, which subsequently causes him to go deaf. Without music, the man falls into a great bout of depression and can hardly cope with life anymore. After nearly a decade of hopelessness and despair, the man drives to a nearby bridge with plans to jump and end it once and for all. On the way to the bridge, he gets a flat tire. A Good Samaritan stops and assists him with changing it. Turns out the Good Samaritan knows sign language, the two talk for a while and the Good Samaritan invites him to the lab he works at where him and a team of engineers are working on designing the first pair of Bone conduction headphones. Using the musician as a test subject, they successfully perfect the headphones, and the musician hears the sweet sound of jazz for the first time in ten years. His depression fades away, and the man becomes happier than he was before the incident.

And if the happy ending doesn't work, then maybe he gets hit by a bus or something.

6. Remember

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Fed up with apps like Snapchat and Instagram showing you what you're missing out on, a young girl creates an app which shows all the good memories you don't remember.

Mental health problems in the nation diminish significantly as a result.

7. Mega Robo Dog

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Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the story of a woman who breaks into a warehouse searching for a teddy bear to cheer up her terminally ill little sister. As she is searching, she encounters robot guard dogs that, upon detecting the intruder, embark on helping her find the correct row and shipping pallet on which the box of teddy bears are stored, and then merge to form a Voltron-like mega robodog and ride her back to her sister just in time for them to perform life-saving surgery to remove the little girl's tumor and then stay with the girl as her loyal and loving robo-pets and everyone lives happily ever after.

8. We Guess Uber Eats Didn't Work Out So Well?

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Someone uses an app to get food delivered to them and they get a little bit more food than they ordered.

9. Organ Donors

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A teenager in Vietnam is killed by a landmine and his parents decide to donate his organs. One of the receivers of his organs learns about the donor just before they go to college, years later the receiver has completed the invention of technology that will quickly and effectively locate buried landmines.

10. Skype-lationship

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A man meets a woman while vacationing in a major city. She lives there, but he doesn't. He's leaving for his home on the other side of the country the next morning. They wander the streets of the busy city all night long, chatting constantly about their hopes and dreams. They watch the sunrise wrapped in each other's arms. When she takes him to the airport the next morning, she's clearly upset. She's never met anyone she gets along with so well. He offers to stay in touch with skype and they exchange usernames-but she isn't too hopeful about the situation. When she gets home from the airport and lets her computer wake from its sleep mode, she notices he's added her before ever even getting on the plane, only moments after she left him according to the time stamp.

Later that night when he's settled at home he logs onto skype to see her icon is online. He messages her instantly. Their playful banter and easy conversation flow long into the morning hours. Over time their weekly skype sessions become daily. They begin to show each other their home cities-taking their phones with them to skype anywhere they can. He walks her down a street festival where music and light pour from every stall. His head phones in only he can hear what she has to say to him. She makes an hour long drive to her parents' house, and he skypes with her on the drive, keeping her entertained with car games and random trivia. She sends him a recipe she found online, and that night they make and eat the same meal on opposite sides of the country. They begin to look forward to seeing each others skype icon alight every single night without fail. They even turn on a tracking app that helps them see how far the other has to go before they are home. They fall asleep while skyping and wake to each others sleeping form.

But distance makes all things hard. Months pass. Both their data bills are through the roof. He begins to feel a lack of connection to her-the real her. She feels like all she knows of him is the face of her phone. As if the device and the person are one in the same. They miss one skype. Then another cause he has to work. Another cause she fell asleep while waiting for him. One day, though they pre-agreed to skype that night, he never even shows. The icon stays unlit and though she tries to keep her mind steady, she feels the cold hard stab of doubt in her chest. Was it something she said? Did? Is he with someone better for him? One that doesn't pester him every day? She checks the tracking app. Nothing. His isn't even turned on. Sending another stab of doubt through her. Where could he be that he doesn't want her to know? Why is he hiding his movements? He never seemed like someone who'd do that. But did she ever really know him? Or just the online him? Another hour passes and though she tries to keep occupied, she can't stop checking. Still nothing. In her frustration she throws down her phone and the screen shatters. The white light bleeding black from every crack into the screen. Angry, hot tears spring to her eyes as she watches the grey icon flicker away completely.

Her doorbell rings and as she swipes away her frustrated tears she apologizes to the phone. Picking it up off the floor, she wipes away spare shards of screen glass, as if that will turn back the clock. She knows it can't hear. It's not a person nor the thing she's angry about but, it did nothing wrong. With phone in hand she walks to the door where there he stands. A duffle under one arm, too big to be an over night bag. In the other he has his phone out. "Why aren't you online?" He says "I was gunna surprise you. But my flight was late." She launches her self at him, into his arms, causing his phone to fall to the ground. No more devices between them.

11. Butterfly Rewards

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Someone hacks robotic butterflies and uses social media to find random people doing good things having the butterflies swarm them for a short time surrounding them in beauty

12. And Everyone Lives Happily Ever After

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Everyone uploads their brain into a system that allows us to experience each other's lives and then puts us back in our bodies. People see that they are all connected and start acting really sweet to each other.

13. Part Of The Problem

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I'm actually writing this short story - this sex robot realizes she's part of the problem when she comes to the realization that her best customer avoids social interaction and pursuing other sexual interests because he can rely on her. she decides she wants out, but the company that owns her will probably just reprogram her if she goes through the proper channels. and they are also tracking her for work and safety reasons. hence she conspires with a self driving car to run away, and get a new identity.

14. True Story

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Saroo Brierley was an Indian boy who became separated from his family at age 5. Took a train with his brother, fell asleep, got separated, changed trains, fell asleep again, wound up over 900 miles away from home. His brother was hit by a train and killed that night, and Saroo wound up in an adoption agency. He was adopted by an Australian family. Eventually he used Google Maps and his vague childhood memories to attempt to reconstruct where his original home was, and he was reunited with his family in 2012.

They made a movie of his story, called "Lion."

15. WoW, Indeed

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A child is abducted, the police have no leads.

Her friends from her WoW guild from all over the world pool their talents and resources and track her down.

16. Accountability

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People actually use their phones to look up information during debates. They use it to hold politicians accountable for their illegal, immoral, and unethical actions. You know, instead of looking at the stupid stuff that the Logan brothers are doing.

17. Smart Fridge

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A person with an eating disorder starts a relationship with a smart fridge that convinces them to start eating.

18. Voyager Is Still There

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Those Australian kids getting saved by a god damn drone tossing them a life raft.

Never in my life did I think I would find myself with tears of pride in my eyes over a drone. Drones are so regularly looked at for their capacity for destruction but the surfers surviving is a testament to their simultaneous capacity for good.

There is a god damn drone walking around on Mars too, so-to-speak. And Voyager, whether he/shes a drone or not, despite being thousands of miles away, this little robot's voice still echos in our own solar system. It's insane.

You want to talk about a good episode of "white mirror"? Imagine two dictators, two fat, overfed, overindulged, too-long-listened-to dictators almost sending the world into a nuclear holocaust. Two sets of greasy fingers poised over two long-dusty red buttons only to be stopped by their citizens. United over social media, empowered by the free web, armed not with plastic homemade printed guns, but with knowledge; the people rise.

Imagine all of this happening and it fades to black. Zero in on our little buddy Voyager, the loudest voice humanity's got, cruising through the cosmos looking back at us, shouting: "I'm still here and I hope you're still listening."

19. So... A Holodeck?

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An episode that has a family interacting together happily. later it's revealed they're all in different locations and/or have various disabilities. they were in a virtual room.

21. Utopia

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In a country on the brink of civil war, the youth distract themselves with a sims like VR game where you inhabit your sim. Now, face to face, they talk out their real problems and find out they are not so different. They work out their differences, then talk to their parents and neighbors and invite them to play the game. The in game world becomes such a utopian reflection of the real world, the philosphies spread and the war is averted.

H/T: Reddit