Screening Reflection: Merlí

For my final screening reflection, I would like to discuss the episode of Merlí, the Spanish television show, that we watched in our screening this past Thursday. This episode dealt with a very sensitive topic, the dissemination of nude videos throughout a high school. The topic itself is extremely volatile and difficult to discuss, as it is all too prevalent in today’s world. I think the show did an amazing job of creating a very true to life portrait of a situation of this nature. The concept of “what goes on the internet stays there forever” that our parents have warned us about time and time again since the premature creation of our middle school Facebook or MySpace pages was tackled perfectly. The idea that Monica transferred schools because of a nude video, yet it followed her to her new school was definitely well thought out and necessary to the understanding of technological connection, especially between high school students. Though Monica distanced herself from the original audience of the video, someone at her new school was digitally connected to that original crowd and was passed the video over text. Next thing we know, the video has spread like wildfire, exactly how videos in our modern society become viral. By use of group chats and social media, it is unbelievably easy to transfer information to a large number of people as quickly as a button is clicked. Monica’s story is an important cautionary tale. If you do not want people to see something private, make sure it never reaches the internet or the digital spectrum.

Now we even have mechanisms such as iCloud and Google Drive, so that even if we lose our devices, we will never lose pictures, videos, documents, or text. Though this reduces the stress of misplacing or breaking a device, it makes situations like that mentioned above all the more dangerous, as the video is stored on the internet, rather than simply on an individual device. Knowing all this, we have to be sure to protect ourselves from the dissemination of personal and private information, as we see it can spread more quickly and widely than ever before.