Fifteen Million Merits & We’re all Alone in this Together: Alone, Together, and Disillusioned.

Black Mirror season one, episode two, starring Daniel Kaluuya and Dave’s album We are All Alone in This Together have something in common.

When Black Mirror gave us a new season I decided to delve into the older series, you see I had watched the first episode — about the pig. However, I hadn’t watched the other episodes, That led to me revisiting the whole series, and when I watched Daniel Kaluuya’s episode Fifteen Million Merits something stuck out to me. At the end of the episode Daniel’s character ‘Bing’ says ‘we’re all in this together … yeah right’.

And for me that was a big ‘aha’ moment. I thought I cracked the code, had the title of the album purposely been related? Daniel speaks throughout the album, sharing insights or just reflections of life and his frame of mind. Instantly got to writing this and in my research but my hypothesis was shut down. In an interview with GQ, Dave explained that the title was inspired by Hans Zimmer, -something he had said on FaceTime to him. So now I wonder do they even know that this commonality exists?

For me they both serve as a commentary, tapping into something fundamental about how we live now: the way society makes us feel isolated even when we are constantly surrounded by others; the paradox of individual isolation amidst collective experience. As well as a shared motif underscoring themes of oppression, societal disillusionment, and the search for authenticity.

Bing’s world is sterile and solitary, the crowd is digital. Dave’s world overflows with people, yet each setting feels suffocating. One is emotional claustrophobia, the other is existential isolation.

Politically Each project offers a critique of the structures that shape our lives. Black Mirror points at consumerism and media exploitation, a world where genuine emotion is twisted into entertainment. Whereas Dave’s album looks at immigration and the political spheres we are raised in.

Bing’s speech against the system is commodified. The very structure he opposes swallows it and sells it back to the people he was standing up for. The constant cycling is significant, always chasing something while those in charge dangle the carrot of a treat or some quiet time in exchange for merits. They are kept locked in, mindlessly engaging, surrounded by people consuming the same media, but rarely connecting beyond the surface. That is why Bing’s disillusionment is so important. It is rooted in his first genuine interaction in a long time and the tainting of that at the hands of the powerful.

In Three Rivers Dave narrates the experiences of different immigrant communities, highlighting their contributions and struggles. It is focused on the ease at which systems can make people feel alien and disposable, especially in the case of the Windrush generation. ‘Broken by the country they came to fix.’ It is interesting because so many people are facing their individual fights against deportation, however they all share the same common fear of being ostracised and deported, especially when the UK is all they have known. With various governments ignoring the contributions of that generation and failing repeatedly to diffuse racial tensions.

Fifteen Million Merits displays how capitalism can churn rebellion into branding. Bing screams, threatens to take his life out of frustration in front of celebrity judges, and they give him a show. He is rewarded and made to feel heard, but his passion is diluted and turned into performance.

Raising the question: how do you fight a system that feeds on your fight? When it finds a way to turn the tide back in favour of those who hold and distribute a semblance of power that keeps people content. Dave raps, ‘I would not even trust my own shadow in the cabinet.’ There is obviously wordplay there, but it also speaks to the duality of man. Do you become what you hate, Bing went to fight the system and ended up part of it. Or does too much self awareness turn into self alienation? How isolated must you be to not trust yourself in a position of power.

Daniel’s outro is more important than ever here. ‘Bro, why am I in this water. This is not even water, it does not even like me, it is not for me.’ Sometimes you fight so hard that you make the fight about other people and forget yourself, or lose the reason for the rebellion in the first place.

Bing is the perfect example. He lives that duality, becoming the thing he despised. He recognised his oppression, but in doing so simply became another creator of content meant to give the lower class people a feeling of rebellion without any of it actually amounting to anything. His criticisms of the system simply become another show for people to enjoy as they remain alienated from each other.

We’re all engaged in shared media, making us feel like we have something in common, but we lack genuine interactions such as the one Dave had with the boy who wanted to commit suicide. Where we share our feelings with one another and act as a support system for each other, instead of internalising and harbouring resentment, isolating ourselves because we think no one else experiences the same thing.

Psychologically & Sociologically In the first track, We are All Alone, Dave says a boy messaged him about wanting to kill himself. Dave tells him to see a therapist to find a way to live with himself, and then admits he feels the same.

Whilst Three Rivers looks at the psychology of trauma. People flee their home countries to escape dictators and prosecutors preying on people, only to face difficulties in the UK that push them towards becoming someone they do not want to be. Internal turmoil builds and a person can become a dictator in their own home and in the lives of those they love. How do you avoid becoming part of what you want to change?

In Fifteen Million Merits everyone is trapped in a monotonous cycle, earning currency to escape a bleak reality. ‘We are in this together … yeah right,’ captures the irony of a society where everyone shares the same isolation. All Bing had to do was rebel, have his frustration repurposed into sellable content, to see how the other side lived. Not monotonous. But full of colour and trees, without merits.

Bing says* ‘We are all in this together, yeah right.’ Now he is in a position of comfort and he is disillusioned by the phrase. With a view from the trees he can see that people do not ride the bikes for survival but to entertain the people above. Dave says ‘We are all alone in this together.’ *His view is more sentimental.

They read differently yet share the same tone of disenchantment. Even if Dave did not take the title from Black Mirror, the two works speak the same language. They are about the loneliness of modern life, the fight for authenticity, and the question of who we become when we do not stand firm in our rebellions and allow ourselves to be used as content and played for fools.