Mr. Robot (1.1 and 1.2) Reflection

Last Thursday, we screened the first two episodes of USA Network's Mr. Robot starring Rami Malek. The show centers around this theme of internet privacy where Malek's character is an experienced hacker who seeks justice in exposing wrongdoings of certain individuals. In the wider scope of the show, Elliot meets a team of hackers like him who are bent on taking down "Evil Corp," which represents a omnipresent company that not only caused Elliot's father's death, but is shown to be particularly mysterious with only high ranking employees knowing the full extent of the company. The sense of privacy that is constantly shown to be very superficial, as Elliot is able to consistently turn in individuals for their crimes, and is very present within our world today. In the age of social media and the continually digitalized world, we share and post information about ourselves more and more for what we believe to be only a bubble of our followers, but in actuality it is much more widely available. This is effectively portrayed in Elliot's investigation scene where he will look through social media, emails, and other internet history of his suspects to discover more about them. However, the show takes this notion a step further during the exposing of his therapist's current boyfriend where Elliot needs a set of facts about him in order to run a program to find out his passwords. Although, this is obviously just a tv show and is dramatized, the growing paranoia about the lack of privacy that we possess, especially in our digital lives, is soundly illustrated in the show and it serves as a thought provoking form of media as to how we should approach our digital footprint.