Yet I find the psychological issues and split personality exploration really fascianting. Is it realistic? No, not at all. But I like how the actor portrays Elliot's anguish.
Even the main character (that narrates) seems to think that the hacks and anti-corporate rhetoric are kind of pointless and juvenile.
If you didn't identify with that, then you're obviously not part of the subculture that the show portrays and is really made for. Mr Robot is not about the drugs or computer hacking, it's far more grandiose than that. Similarly to Fight Club, it can be viewed as a social study of a subculture that's operating on the frontier of consensus reality and could characterize where that reality will shift in the future.
Have you had to juggle multiple identities in your head, every day for years if not decades? Have you thought what this does to you?
Have you had to keep secrets from everyone around you?
Have you "felt" what cyberspace really is about? Have you experienced the VICIOUS feedback loop of projecting a thoughtform/idea (what the audience views as "hacking") into that new domain only to have it manifest and achieve its own reality, as if by magic?
The technical aspects of the show are by far the least interesting.
Usual disclaimer that this is my opinion, not trying to come off as snobbish though it might sound that way, but personally, like in Fight Club, I find the show's 'grandiose' attempts to be more than little simplistic. It doesn't effectively/subtly explore anxiety, isolation, schizophrenia, depression etc as well as I think it thinks it does. Honestly most of that narrative feels cheap and repetitive to me.
Taken as a satire ('Evil Corp', FSociety/Anonymous etc), the show works for me, but when it spends time plumbing Eliot's mental illness, it becomes dull to me. Some of it I appreciate, and in smaller doses it might work, but for me it's overblown and only elevated by the show's sense of style, not because it's telling the viewer anything of particular interest, or actually advancing any of the plotlines/character developments. I think the show is worse for it.
Having said all that I enjoy the show a lot. I'm just not willing to heap praise upon it since I have these reservations.
What would be an example of this?
Are you referring to something similar to multiple discovery:
The arrival of cyberspace however and its subsumption of more and more aspects of our everyday lives acts as a positive feedback loop. What was unthinkable or even heretical 20-30 years ago is now routine.
In a sense, we are witnessing a new paradigm shift where the intermediate substrates (mind/inception to manifestation) are being dissolved and the feedback loop gets shorter.
You can see this with the subsequent breakdown of social structure and monetary philosophy. The masses are reaching harmonization through their own voices rather than having a conductor leading them (politician/bankers/middlemen in general)
I wish they'd ditch the whole split-personality plot, but seems like we're stuck with it. It's not a disaster, just sort of tiresome. Seems cheap when compared to the rest of the show's plotting, and I was hoping there'd be less focus on it this season now the 'reveal' is done with. I think it's mainly that they want to keep Christian Slater on screen.
The trippy 'Lynchian' stuff really doesn't work for me here either, it seems out of place/poorly handled. Judging by the critics/friends though, I think I'm in the minority there. I think the show is generally a victim of its writer's grandiose ambitions; it wants to appear epic and sophisticated but it ends up oversimplifying.
Hacking is still great, though.