Black Mirror viewers have spotted a weird anomaly in one of the series’ new episodes – and have accused Netflix of ‘gaslighting’ them.
The seventh series of Charlie Brooker’s cult dystopian hit was uploaded to the streaming platform on Thursday, and one episode in particular has sparked debate online. The plot of the second episode, titled Bête Noire, is described as: “Maria is a high-flying development executive at a chocolate company. Everything is going well for her until someone she hasn’t seen since school – a woman named Verity – shows up for a focus group tasting session.”
Bête Noire is a French term used to describe a person or thing that one particularly dislikes.
Twitter user @actualakio posted on X: “So my friend and I were watching the new Black Mirror episode “Bête Noire” and we noticed that there was a stark difference between our episodes… even the viewers are getting gaslit at 16:40! #BlackMirrorS7″.
They then uploaded two images showing the chicken shop in the episode being referred to by different – but very similar – names, Barnies and Bernies at the 16 minutes 40 seconds mark.
The original poster then added: “This about to be the new blue and black vs white and gold dress.”
Other viewers jumped on to the thread to share their own experiences and theories. One posted: “I bet you guys were like ‘It’s Bernies!’ ‘No it’s Barnies!’ The showrunners probably did that to mess with people lol.”
The original poster replied: “Yes, actually we paused it exactly there to argue with each other. And we were like … ‘wait a minute… something isn’t right here, let’s send a screenshot to verify’ lmao.”
Another said: “Did you also have different dialogues?? Maria was saying it was Barnie’s. Black Mirror is f**king with us.”
Others claimed that they had seen the name switch through the episode, or it had changed when they went to do a rewatch, inspired by the chatter about the show.
The official Netflix and Black Mirror X accounts have also joined in with the confusion, with the two accounts each tweeting Barnies or Bernies. Creator Brooker then chimed in and said, “You’re both wrong.”
The episode is believed to be exploring the Mandela Effect, a phenomenon when a large group of people share a false memory of an event or fact. The theory stems from the mistaken belief that South African president Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s, when he was actually released in 1990 and died in 2013.
Some people argue that ‘time slips’ cause this phenomena, and that it is proof that our reality is not linear and might have been tampered with by ‘unknown forces’.
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