Common People’: ‘Inside Out’ in ‘Black Mirror’

“Inside Out 3” is here! The story picks up with Riley as an adult, now married, who’s suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumor. In a bid to preserve her life and cognitive abilities, her husband turns to a still-immature brain-computer interface technology. Her core team of mental operators—Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—are transferred during surgery into a supercomputer named Rivermind, where their workload only intensifies. Joining them in this new digital workplace are a host of highly paid temporary workers—Relaxation, Pleasure, Nonchalance, and Serenity—brought in under the banner of improving Riley’s quality of life. But the moment their paychecks stop coming in, they don’t hesitate to walk out. The problem is, Riley and her husband are just common people like most of us and can’t afford to keep this bustling team of permanent emotion controllers and temp contractors on a stable payroll.

If you’ve just started watching Season 7 of “Black Mirror,” you may have realized by now that what I’m actually describing is its first episode, titled “Common People.” It’s a sharp, well-written story that mirrors the current cold reality of corporate tech, and confronts the idea of human lives being reduced to expendable capital. This single episode alone is enough to redeem the show, once a cult favorite that’d sharply declined in quality after falling from grace.

Yes, in reflecting this tragic tale of life being upgraded or downgraded under the dictatorship of capitalism, longtime fans are also justified in blaming Channel 4 for selling the show’s production rights to Netflix—ushering in a new era of “capital upgrades” that sees a stark drop in quality. And yet, here it is, back again with the kind of surprising brilliance it once had. Before diving headfirst into speculative sci-fi disasters, the show finally remembers to first tell a solid story.

Let’s return to the “Inside Out” analogy for contrast. Brain damage, tumors, Alzheimer’s disease—these terrifying conditions rob people of their right to live a normal life. They also put the brain’s emotional workers on permanent leave, as their host becomes a body immobilized in bed. But what if, in that moment, the brain-computer interface—a technology very likely to become real in the near future—were already in place? What if these idle brain cells could transfer to a new workplace—a server with infinite capacity—and simply keep working?

What makes “Common People” so chilling—and ultimately so heartbreaking—is that everything it presents feels not just plausible, but highly likely to happen. Given the pharmaceutical industry’s long-standing history of manipulating market size and keeping the latest life-saving drugs priced astronomically high for maximum profit, it’s no stretch to assume that once brain-computer interface technology bypasses the trial phase where it’s free for use, any related services that truly have benefits or addictive effects will inevitably become outrageously expensive. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Basic, Plus, Pro, Pro+, LUX—these labels have become everyday language. From phones to tablets, from computer software to mobile apps—even the software I’m using to write this review, and ChatGPT, which I occasionally seek help from—they all have essential features locked behind a paywall.

The universal value of “life above all,” the individual philosophy of “better a miserable life than a good death,” and the emotional coercion by loved ones who cannot let go—all of these make it nearly impossible for unconscious patients to decide for themselves whether to live or die. And so, it’s always those who are closest to the patients are the most helpless who must place their trust entirely in the opinions of healthcare professionals.

“Even just a few months ago, I’d have just said no. But now, there may be an option. It’s a new start-up.” This is what Amanda’s husband, Mike, hears from the lead physician when he asks if anything can be done to save his wife who’s hospitalized for a brain tumor. He grabs onto this faint glimmer of hope like a lifeline. It’s also a common conversational style we often hear in real hospitals—a classic bit of medical hedging that conveniently leaves room for uncertainty.

All too often, this kind of skilled speech conceals a silent alliance between doctors and pharmaceutical reps, who push desperate patients and their families toward expensive experimental treatments while doctors pocket hefty commissions behind closed doors.

Soon after, the insurance companies step in, deploying their own euphemistic language to wring whatever remaining value they can from patients on the brink of death. Families without proper insurance coverage are left to scrape together funds by any means necessary.

Since time immemorial, tales of people resorting to prostitution, blood-selling, usurious loans, or even crime to save a loved one have filled literature and cinema—some have become timeless classics, while some have been reduced to tired clichés. But in this new age of “Black Mirror-esque” tech horror, a new method has joined the list: livestreaming for donations.

In “Common People,” the male protagonist Mike is forced to sign up for “Dum Dummies,” a freak digital platform where he begins performing humiliating, increasingly extreme acts of self-abuse in front of a live audience, all in the hope of earning enough tips from anonymous viewers to keep his wife alive.

Thankfully, “Dum Dummies” hasn’t yet been written as a platform that also requires constant paid upgrades just to remain usable. But the audience’s appetite for shock and gore—driven by morbid curiosity and bloodlust—inevitably levels up on its own. What used to earn a quick few hundred dollars—shaving your own head on camera or yanking out a tooth with pliers—no longer satisfies. Now, even beatings with chains or near-death stunts might fail to unlock a single viewer’s wallet.

No server system is needed to manipulate the human psyche, because it naturally functions like an insatiable machine wired for endless upgrades. Maybe our brains have always been computers, and the emotional workers inside are actually digital employees who were never meant to toil for free.

Maybe the fairytale of “Inside Out” was always a lie. On the other hand, the cold, humming RiverMind server in “Common People” shows us the harsh truth.

As of April 2025, the global population has reached approximately 8.191 billion. Perhaps it’s the 8.1 billion common people on the lowest rungs of society, who cannot afford the Plus, Pro, or LUX versions of life, who keep grinding away—generating the electricity that allows the privileged 91 million to enjoy their lives. Perhaps it's us, the 8.1 billion who powers the very servers that profit from death.