List of 7 Dystopian Elements of Modern Life
You know how people are always complaining about our lives are not future-y enough? No flying cars? Moving sidewalks haven’t replaced concrete ones? What kind of crap future is this? Well, first off those people have a limited understanding of . . . everything, but regardless. I’ve always found the isn’t-the-future-great stories to be boring. I’m more interested in a dystopian future like Bladerunner. It seems our present fits that bill any number of ways or in 7 ways. In no particular order:
1. Overdone Plastic Surgery. This is one is frankly the best fit. The more I think about it, the more it seems to have walked out of a Phillip Dick story. The technology is this: you can erase wrinkles at the expense of facial expressions, you can give your body any proportions you like, but you end up appearing to be more of a doll than a person. This renders the humans to appear as perfectly sculpted blank, emotionless robots. I mean seriously, you literally sacrifice your ability to emotionally connect with humanity in order to better your physical appearance. I know this is a bit extreme, but the concept of it is dead on. I mean look at Heidi Montag. She looks more like a robot, than the replicant (robot) in that Bladerunner clip. If I ever met her I think I would be afraid she’d tip her head on its side and devour my face.
From People Magazine article
2. 3-D Movies. This falls under a category that is very similar to Dippin’ Dots. “The Ice Cream of the Future” they proclaim and yet their most profitable years are probably behind them. “The Ice Cream of the Future of the Past” I like to say and 3-D movies feel very much the same. This is not really a new idea–3-D movies have been around since the 50s and they are just the sort of thing that was supposed to take off and change the industry, but really just became an interesting footnote in your Film Studies textbook. Now they are back, and they mean it. There’s even 3-D TVs on the market and I heard a guy on the radio a couple of weeks ago say that 3-D film would soon be like the change over to color. The thing that I find hilarious is all the producers who realized too late that 3-D is the thing and went back and 3-D-ified their movie. There’s an artless-ness to it, like you made this film and then you thought it wasn’t sparkly enough, so you had to go back and sparkl-ify it. Anyways, if 3-D movies really take off, it would be just the classless extension of technology one might expect in a future void of real art or entertainment.
3. Invasive Species. Ok, this is not a technological advance, nor is it a new phenomena, but the increase of invasive species in the world is due to technological advances. I mean the overwhelming power of Kudzu plants in the South to take over everything is frightening. Just look at the picture below and you may get a chill down your spine when you realize their strength. A plant, I might add, that the government encouraged and Civilian Corps planted before it was clear how much damage it could do. With great ground cover comes great responsibility.
from Wikipedia article
4. Facebook. To start off, I like Facebook. I’m not one of those crazy people who’s like “But hey! Everyone can see my information!” Yeah, it’s the internet, dipwad. Don’t put up stuff you don’t want everyone to see. Simple. I am, however, completely annoyed with their constant, shady “improvements” and I have to admit there is something a little bit like a gleeful big brother phenomena going on. The joy with which people report every change in their location, what they did, ate and who they saw today, is a little frightening. I can just imagine one of those Dystopian future movies, in which only the protagonist finds the constant surveillance strange and everyone else is like: “The Facebook cannot protect us, if He does not know our every movement.” “The Facebook only wants us to be happy.” “But if I do not report my actions to the Facebook, how will anyone know what I am doing?”
5. Cell Phones. Cell phones themselves are not that amazing. I know everyone’s all like “My iPhone guides my soul,” but really they are phones and some are like little computers, but they aren’t that CRaa-A-zy. I doubt they would be the central technology of any worthwhile sci-fi (though X-Files certainly made good use of them). What I think is dystopian about cell phones is that they may very well be killing us all according to various studies and no one seems to care. We’re all so addicted to the damn things, that these studies don’t get much credit in the States. Like some kind of drug, except they aren’t actually addictive. The other thing is that people can reach you no matter where you are. Even in the bathroom your cell phone goes off and you’re like “eh? Should I?” and sometimes, admit it, you do. Then there are the complex mind games that occur when a person doesn’t answer. My parents, for instance, believe that every time I don’t answer I am starring at the phone and actively ignoring their call, when most of the time I just left it on vibrate in my purse. Oh! And another thing–you know how sometimes you hear and/or feel your phone go off, but it didn’t go off. Isn’t that creepy? Doesn’t that say something creepy about society’s psyche as a whole? I think so . . . Here’s a funny video from College Humor about cell phones.
6. Simulated Video Games. By this I mean any number of games in which you perform an actual action, but are only simulating that activity. So, most Wii games, for instance. You aren’t actually bowling, you’re just making similar motions. Guitar Hero is like this too. I heard this quote from the kid that was the naked baby on that Nirvana album. He was saying he wished he had been a teenager in the 90s, when kids got together and had bands, instead of now, when kids get together and play rock band. The simulation of actual enjoyable and very attainable activities (what you can’t drive half a mile to a bowling alley?) is very spooky when you think about it. Randomly it reminds me often of Demolition Man when Sandra Bullock’s character and Sly Stallone’s character simulate having sex and then he freaks out. That world doesn’t seem that far away sometimes. Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger had been president and now, like everyone’s trying to make him president . . . weird. Demolition Man= actual future. Hope you like Taco Bell.
7. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Ok, I realize we’ve been spilling oil for a long time now, not really a technological advance. However, the reason this spill is so horrendously ridiculously bad is that the technology advanced to the point where we could drill so deep that no human could ever descend that low, but the safety technology was not at the same level. We went for it anyways, though, because we love money. Also, the name sounds creepy and weird like a super computer or something. And it does seem like technology that gets out of our control and destroys the world is kind of a theme in sci-fi. Every once in a while . . . or . . . maybe in like every story ever. I’ll close with this awesome Douglas Adams quote:
”The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
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