History Recap / BlackMirrorJoanIsAwful

* HollywoodLaw: "Joan is Awful" is clearly not aiming for anything resembling realism -- it creates an intentionally ridiculous and nonsensical legal environment in order to make its premise work. No matter how ironclad Streamberry's terms of service seem to be, the streaming service wouldn't be able to effectively enslave its users. The terms of service are legally unconscionable, meaning they could never be enforced, and the shows that the service generates as a result of these terms sweep in multiple entities that aren't even party to the original contract.

* HollywoodLaw: No matter what Streamberry's terms of service says, it doesn't give them the right to blatantly violate the privacy of their users. Nor other third parties ''who never even agreed to the terms of service in the first place''. Nor would it allow them to violate state and Federal laws regarding wiretapping, hacking into devices that clearly are ''not'' the user's personal property and stealing other company's proprietary information. It's known as Unconscionability, or what "shocks the conscience". Basically, if there's something in a contract that is shocking or just blatantly wrong, it's not enforceable. Despite what both lawyers and Streamberry's CEO have said in the episode, there are no shortage of ways Streamberry, their CEO and whatever group of lawyers that came up with their contracts could get into serious legal trouble and get sued into oblivion or even face prison time. Using the Terms and Conditions like that - reams of legalese that they know nobody is going to read - is about as effective as saying that a woman didn't say 'no' because she was unconscious.
** For starters, it would be incredibly easy for their users and third parties to demonstrate harm: loss of employment, defamation of character, causing emotional distress both to them and those close to them, revealing trade secrets, violating therapist-patient and attorney-client privilege and so forth. But considering that, according to the CEO, they wanted to make a show for ''every'' user, then Streamberry would have a lawsuit nightmare waiting to happen since several employees of those users would likely be featured as well, even if they didn't have a Streamberry account and so hadn't 'consented'.
** Joan's former company could sue on the grounds that they interfered with Joan's NDA or unfair competition by revealing their plans and other confidential information. Streamberry doesn't even bother to [[WritingAroundTrademarks hide]] the company Joan worked for, and it's highly unlikely that a corporation would allow another to use their name for defamatory ends.
** Streamberry could even face criminal charges considering that some users likely work for government institutions with sensitive classified information, such as the CIA, the NSA and the military. The same for law enforcement agencies and district attorney offices with information that could get witnesses and investigators killed, violate due process for defendants and otherwise severely compromise ongoing criminal and civil cases going through the court system.
** Not to mention bad publicity. Once it comes out that they're willing to endanger, degrade, lie and otherwise throw their user base, the people and businesses around them ''and'' the actors who sign over their likenesses under the bus solely for Streamberry's profit (the company's ''CEO'' personally tells Salma Hayek to "go fuck herself" when she raises objections), no one is going to want to do business with them.

* TrumanShowPlot: ''Black Mirror'' already had used this trope in [[Recap/BlackMirrorWhiteBear White Bear]], but while this episode is considerably more comedic on the surface, the twist is pretty scary on its own: what if EVERYBODY in the world was about to have their private life made into a TV show casting them as the villain?

* WhatTheHellHero: Even the rare positive portrayals in "Joan is Awful" are treated negatively, as Eric's boyfriend gets flack for comforting someone as awful as Joan when she was both not as mean as depicted and needed genuine comfort after the situation of having to fire someone.

* HollywoodLaw: No matter what Streamberry's terms of service says, it doesn't give them the right to blatantly violate the privacy of their users. Nor other third parties ''who never even agreed to the terms of service in the first place''. Nor would it allow them to violate state and Federal laws regarding wiretapping, hacking into devices that clearly are ''not'' the user's personal property and stealing other company's proprietary information. It's known as Unconscionability, or what "shocks the conscience". Basically, if there's something in a contract that is shocking or just blatantly wrong, it's not enforceable. Despite what both lawyers and Streamberry's CEO have said in the episode, there are no shortage of ways Streamberry, their CEO and whatever group of lawyers that came up with their contracts could get into serious legal trouble and get sued into oblivion or even face prison time.

* {{Flanderization}}: In-Universe example. It is shown that each simulation from the original makes the characters more and more stereotypical and flat, with Salma Hayek-Joan being more of a jerk, and this is presumably also the case with Annie Murphy-Joan.

* RaceLift: In-universe. The real Joan is white and played by the white actress Annie Murphy. In the Streamberry show, she is played by Mexican actress Salma Hayek, and then happens to Salma Hayek in the other Streamberry show when she learns that the white Creator/CateBlanchett is playing her.

* ExcrementStatement: In a fit of pique over her powerlessness, Joan rebels against the show copying her life by gorging on lots of fast food and drinking an entire bottle of laxatives so she can poop messily in the center aisle of a church during a wedding. Because the fictional version of her is depicted by a digital likeness of Salma Hayek, this offends the real Salma enough to confront her and the two then team up to try and take down Streamberry. The stinger shows that the real Joan did this which suggests similar events played out between her and Annie Murphy.
* FiringDay: First Joan has to fire one of her workers and later she gets fired herself.

'''Joan Is Awful''' | [[Recap/BlackMirrorLochHenry Loch Henry]] | [[Recap/BlackMirrorBeyondTheSea Beyond The Sea]] | [[Recap/BlackMirrorMazeyDay Mazey Day]] | [[Recap/BlackMirrorDemon79 Demon 79]]-]]]]]

** When brainstorming how to break into Mona Javadi's office, Hayek notes that her office is at the very top of Streamberry's headquarters and says, "We can't crawl on the side of the building like [[Franchise/SpiderMan Spider-Mans]]."

* ReadTheFinePrint: It turns out that Streamberry hid the watertight right to freely depict its users' lives in the terms and conditions, which no one reads. It also hid a watertight right to use CGI likenesses of actors in said terms and conditions that even Hayek's lawyer missed, which subsequently gets him fired by Hayek and facing a potential lawsuit of his own for malpractice. The clause he mentions is something he ''should've'' caught during the contract negotiation, considering it was his ''job'' to catch exactly those sorts of clauses.

** For starters, it would be incredibly easy for their users and third parties to demonstrate harm: loss of employment, defamation of character, causing emotional distress both to them and those close to them, revealing trade secrets, violating therapist-patient and attorney-client privilege and so forth. But considering that, according to the CEO, they wanted to make a show for ''every'' user, then Streamberry would have a lawsuit nightmare waiting to happen since several employees of those users would likely be featured as well.

* ParanoiaFuel: Streamberry can access any nearby device to spy on whoever agrees to their Terms of Service to mine data for content depicting their daily lives where they behave far worse than they actually do. This skews the perception of the audience that the subjects really are terrible as depicted, causing them to be shunned and disdained in their public lives. Joan naturally has a panic attack at how uncannily accurate "Joan is Awful" is to her life.%%in-universe

* AccentuateTheNegative: Streamberry's "[X] is Awful" shows embellish real events by making focus characters act more terribly than they do in real life. When questioned why this is, Streamberry CEO Javadi argued that [[BileFascination audiences mostly responded to negative portrayals]].

* ParanoiaFuel: Streamberry can access any nearby device to spy on whoever agrees to their Terms of Service to mine data for content depicting their daily lives where they behave far worse than they actually do. This skews the perception of the audience that the subjects really are terrible as depicted, causing them to be shunned and disdained in their public lives.%%in-universe

* SinisterSurveillance: Streamberry is capable of gathering data for its eerily accurate portrayals of people in their shows through scraping data from every device around them capable of seeing and listening in on their actions. [[ParanoiaFuel At all times.]]

* ExcrementStatement: In a fit of pique over her powerlessness, Joan rebels against the show copying her life by gorging on lots of fast food and drinking an entire bottle of laxatives so she can poop messily in the center aisle of a church during a wedding. Because the fictional version of her is depicted by a digital likeness of Salma Hayek, this offends the real Salma enough to confront her and the two team then up to try and take down Streamberry. The stinger shows that the real Joan did this which suggests similar events played out between her and Annie Murphy.

Joan (Creator/AnnieMurphy), an unsatisfied middle manager, has a bad day at work: she's unhappy with her boyfriend Krish (Creator/AviNash), she just had to fire a coworker, Sandy (Creator/AyoEdebiri), and her ex Mac (Creator/RobDelaney) is back in town. However, when she gets home, she learns that a streamer, Streamberry, has released a drama depicting her life to the letter, starring a CG likeness of Creator/SalmaHayek.

Joan (Creator/AnnieMurphy), an unsatisfied middle manager, has a bad day at work: she's unhappy with her boyfriend Krish (Creator/AviNash), she just had to fire a coworker, Sandy (Creator/AyoEdebiri), and her ex Mac (Creator/RobDelaney) is back in town. But when she gets home, she learns that a streamer, Streamberry, has released a drama depicting her life to the letter, starring a CG likeness of Creator/SalmaHayek.

* {{Flanderization}}: In-Universe example. It is shown that each simulation from the original makes the characters more and more stereotypical and flat, with Salma Hayek-Joan being more of a jerk, and this is presumably also the case with Annie Murphey-Joan.

* CardboardBoxOfUnemployment: After Joan fires Sharon, she is seen being escorted out the building by security carrying a cardboad box of her things. Humiliatingly, Joan accidentally drops her cigarette onto Sharon's head as she walks below. The next day, she is escorted out with a similar box.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse : While parts of the first half of the episode focus on Joan's social circle like Krish, Sharon and Mac, they are completely dropped off by the second half (though it is likely due to the show they probably never want to speak to Joan ever again).

Joan (Creator/AnnieMurphy), an unsatisfied middle manager, has a bad day at work: she's unhappy with her boyfriend Krish (Creator/AviNash), she just had to fire a coworker, Sharon (Creator/AyoEdebiri), and her ex Mac (Creator/RobDelaney) is back in town. But when she gets home, she learns that a streamer, Streamberry, has released a drama depicting her life to the letter, starring a CG likeness of Creator/SalmaHayek.

'''Joan Is Awful''' | [[Recap/BlackMirrorLoch Henry Loch Henry]] | [[Recap/BlackMirrorBeyondTheSea Beyond The Sea]] | [[Recap/BlackMirrorMazeyDay Mazey Day]] | [[Recap/BlackMirrorDemon79 Demon 79]]-]]]]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Streamberry didn't seem to consider that the average person ''definitely'' wouldn't want their public and private lives on display to millions with no control over what's being shown, and actors won't be happy about their likenesses being used in ways they don't approve of. Even if the company does have water-tight contracts that allow them to get away with this and without being sued into oblivion (which frankly seems unlikely; see HollywoodLaw below) they'd still have tons of furious people complaining and dragging their brand down, several of whom would likely take matters into their own hands and try to solve the problem in a more physical manner, as Joan and Salma Hayek/Annie Murphy do.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Streamberry didn't seem to consider that the average person ''definitely'' won't want their public and private lives on display to millions with no control over what's being shown, and actors won't be happy about their likenesses being used in ways they don't approve of. Even if the company does have water-tight contracts that allow them to get away with this and without being sued into oblivion (which frankly seems unlikely; see HollywoodLaw below) they'd still have tons of furious people complaining and dragging their brand down, several of whom would likely take matters into their own hands and try to solve the problem in a more physical manner, as Joan and Salma Hayek/Annie Murphy do.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Streamberry didn't seem to consider that the average person ''definitely'' won't want their public and private lives on display to millions, and actors won't be happy about their likenesses being used in ways they don't approve of. Even if the company does have water-tight contracts that allow them to get away with this and without being sued into oblivion (which frankly seems unlikely; see HollywoodLaw below) they'd still have tons of furious people complaining and dragging their brand down, several of whom would likely take matters into their own hands and try to solve the problem in a more physical manner, as Joan and Salma Hayek/Annie Murphy do.