Black Mirror: Is DumDummies a Real Website?

The opening episode of the seventh season of Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror’ focuses on the desperation that comes with wanting to keep your loved ones alive. The character in question is Mike, whose wife, Amanda, falls into a coma due to a tumor in her brain. To save her, he opts for a tech called Rivermind, but it requires him to pay a monthly subscription. With already tight finances, Mike struggles to get the money, and his desperation leads him to a website called DumDummies, where people do all sorts of debasing things to themselves to get money. Interestingly, like many aspects of the show, this, too, is borrowed from reality. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Fictional DumDummies is Inspired by Real Content Creators

The events, characters, and technology presented in ‘Common People’ are entirely made up. However, writer-creator Charlie Brooker looked towards real-life things to make up things like Rivermind and DumDummies. Before the episode aired, DumDummies was not a real thing, but in a meta move, Netflix seems to have created a website with the same name, and there is already a trading account of the same on Pump Fun, a cryptocurrency website where people are known to indulge in ridiculous practices to increase the value of their crypto coin. It would be interesting to see if this is just a temporary thing that serves as a promotional thing for the show. Or, if it is left out in the world to see how long it takes for the website to turn into the thing that ruins the lives of people like Mike.

In the show, it is a website where people can create content and earn money. All they have to do is do what the strangers in the comment sections ask them to do. The more ridiculous a thing, the higher the price. And most importantly, they have to livestream said things. And to Mike’s horror, people demand the worst stuff. Content creators are asked to drink piss, mutilate themselves, sodomize themselves, and do all sorts of physically and mentally traumatizing things while throwing money at them. On paper, this sounds like something that would only exist in a dystopian world presented in shows like ‘Black Mirror.’

In reality, such live-streaming platforms already exist in hordes. People have been creating content on such sites for a few years now. On the most basic level, content creators put on make-up, dress as someone else, pump weights, and perform athletic feats. However, it is not far-fetched to assume that these platforms, which rake in huge amounts for the creators, have been used for abuse. ‘Black Mirror’ focuses on this worst-case scenario, highlighting the darkness of the human mind and how a desperate soul can allow itself to suffer through this torture.