Black Mirror season six has become even more immersive with the opportunity to make your own ‘Joan is Awful’ inspired poster, but fans noticed another aspect of the website that’s even more like the hit episode.
Black Mirror premiered its sixth season with five new episodes, the first titled ‘Joan is Awful’ starring Annie Murphy and Salma Hayek.
The episode follows Joan (Murphy) who turns on her TV to find ‘Streamberry’ (a parody of Netflix) has made a show about her life called Joan is Awful with Salma Hayek portraying Joan and showing the events that happened in Joan’s life that day.
After losing her fiancé and job, in an attempt to stop Streamberry from using her likeness and her life for a show, Joan tries to sue Streamberry.
That is until her lawyer points out that she had technically consented for Streamberry to portray her likeness and her life in the terms and conditions she had agreed to when signing up for the platform.
Joan discovers that the show is produced using CGI and that Salma Hayek simply signed off on having her likeness digitally reproduced by Streamberry.
Yesterday, the official Black Mirror Twitter account, along with official Netflix accounts (who temporarily changed their name to ‘Steamberry’) posted a link to a website named “You Are Awful” with the caption: “Sign up for Streamberry today!”
When clicking on the link it takes you to a page similar to that of Netflix asking you to upload a photo of yourself “to set up your sweet new Streamberry profile!”
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It then asks you to enter your first name along with a photo of yourself. In order to continue the process, you must consent for Netflix to use the image in its marketing campaign as well as read and agree to the terms of service and privacy statement.
Many shared on Twitter their recreation of the original ‘Joan is Awful’ poster, with their own names and faces, but some fans were more hesitant to check the terms of service after watching the episode.
One fan decided to read the terms of service, learning from Joan’s mistake in the show, and saw that there was a clause titled “Name and Likeness” where users agreed to “grant the Netflix entity that provides you with this Experience, its affiliates and respective successors and assigns and anyone authorised by any of them (collectively, “Netflix”), the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive right to record, depict, and/or portray you.”
It also states that users give Netflix the right to “record, depict, and/or prorate you and use, your actual or simulated likeness, name, photograph, voice, actions, etc.”
So maybe don’t be surprised if you see your name and face on Netflix in the future.
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