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mr_robot.md

Set in contemporary America, Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot is the last show that you’d expect to elicit a sweeping emotional response. After all, it’s a show about global conspiracies, hacker groups, and economic power plays: featuring characters suffering from social anxiety, depression, and Dissociative Identity Disorder. On paper, the show looks set to be academic, and angsty at best: trite, pretentious, and chilling at worst.

And yet, paradoxically, Mr. Robot isn’t any of those things. It’s a show that’s relentlessly awkward, heartful, and earnest- through its structure, plot, and characters. And it taught me two things.

Every day we change the world. But to change the world in a way that means anything that takes more time than most people have. it never happens all at once. Its slow. Its methodical. Its exhausting. We don't all have the stomach for it.

First, that changing the world is a tricky business. As a teenager growing up on the Internet, I was often drawn to simplistic sloganeering and broad-stroke ideas. The show, too, begins with a similar thought process: the hacker group fsociety plans to save the world by encrypting debt records, thereby wiping out all global debt. While we see this work out for a couple of days: with ‘End of the World’ parties and vehement public support, it all crumbles quickly and economic crisis looms. Predictably, the dance of capitalism ensues: as companies once again rush to scavenge on the dead bones of a panicked society.

They don't abandon you, no matter how many reasons you give them. … And you wanna know why? Because they feel something for me that I can't. They love me. And for all the pain I've been through, that heals me. Maybe not instantly. Maybe not even for a long time, but it heals.

Second, that love heals. Through the seasons, we see our protagonist struggle to form connections – forgetting who his sister is, talking to alter-egos and imaginary friends, and being unable to get along with anyone at work. He is able to hack into the devices of his friends and even his psychiatrist but still fails to form human connections. The same is true of the entire cast – and Mr. Robot beautifully depicts a society that is technologically connected but emotionally isolated. Rewatching this show in the pandemic, the show’s message was only clearer: love heals, soothes, and sustains us, providing us an unshakeable foundation from which to tackle life’s obstacles.

But where does this leave us?

“What if changing the world was just about being here, by showing up no matter how many times we get told we don’t belong, ... And if we all held on to that, if we refuse to budge and fall in line, if we stood our ground for long enough, just maybe… The world can’t help but change around us.”

Mr. Robot reconciles these two primal instincts beautifully: to love and to cause change. It shows us that these aren’t seperate actions or widely differing instincts. In fact, if we just continue to be ourselves: with our messy, delightful friendships and antiquated, fairy-tale notions of love, we too can change the world.

As a teenager with similarly grandiose ideas about changing the world, Mr. Robot was an oddly calming, reassuring show. It showed me that the hard work of changing the world began much closer to home, in daily interactions, personal resilience, and, crucially, the human ability to love. Love is just as ground-shaking, rare, healing, subversive, and transformative as a revolution, and it is the best place to start.