I read George Orwell’s 1984 for a journal project in high school, just as countless other kids did, and just as countless other kids will. A few years later I picked up Fahrenheit 451 at an airport in Hong Kong and read it over my next week abroad, another recurring favorite among high school and middle school literature curriculums in the United States. Both novels follow a similar trend in the worlds they present to the reader, that of an oppressive dystopia centered on repressive regimes and their authoritative rule, the former concerning the biased rewriting of history and the latter the removal of history through the incineration of all literature. 

However, the United States isn’t the only country that emphasizes dystopian societies through their literature curriculum. In Italy, Dante’s Inferno is considered a literary rite of passage among developing scholars, a tale in which a man possesses a unique ability allowing him to journey through the three stages of the afterlife, “a climactic apogee” in the dystopian tendency of Italy’s literature to represent the end of the world and second-comings1. However, this isn’t to discount the countless other entertainment and art mediums that have represented and interpreted such a society, from the paintings of Michael Kerbow to The Hunger Games and Snowpiercer. Interestingly enough, viewership and sales for dystopian media seems to have risen significantly in recent years2 — are we preparing for a dystopia of our own? 

Many infamous, real-world events have often been portrayed as apocalyptic and dystopian, and rightfully so. But, what exactly is a dystopia, and how can we see its characteristics present in our everyday life? Furthermore, is our modern world a dystopia, and if not, are we on the path to one? Various sources seem to agree on five main characteristics that can be used to define a true dystopian society: oppressive control, both governmental and technological, restricted and dehumanized individualism, environmental destruction, and a false vision of a utopian society. 

While modern American governmental control might not yet be considered absolute or totalitarian, the recent surge and lack of recognition concerning oppressive policing, uses of excessive force, and brutality against people of color surely brings to mind the repressive governmental control so common in dystopian novels such as The Handmaid’s Tale, a novel centered on the patriarchal subjugation of women. One can clearly see the parallels of injustice in our modern society, with inequity so often elevated for those of intersectional identities, calling to mind the murder of Breonna Taylor and the utter lack of recogniton by the courts and government officials. 

Nonetheless, overarching control doesn’t stop with the government. With a digital world growing rampantly, a progression likely catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its need for online workspaces — it is quite scary to consider the breadth of technological control shared by only a small number of dominating companies, such as Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Apple, whom together share a combined market capitalization of more than $4 trillion. Beyond the corporations themselves, it’s hard not to consider the reliance that our modern society has placed on various technological affordances. While these devices themselves may not be quite literally ‘oppressing’ us, we might consider how much of our lives are contained in these handheld devices and the way in which they influence and track our every move. It almost makes the overcrowded, virtually-focused dystopia represented in Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One seem not too far off.  

Considering these conglomerates control the technology industry, it’s not difficult to connect the ways in which they contribute to the third characteristic in defining a dystopia, which is a sense of dehumanizing collectivism and a loss of individualism; often, this is manifested through mass consumer culture and the datamining conducted by large corporations in order to better market, sell, and profit. Increasingly prevalent is the surge in brand-endorsed influencer culture, a unique intertwining between technological control and dehumanizing capitalistic collectivism, with the televised advertising strategies of the 50s adapting to the information age. Celebrities and social media moguls often act as a sort of living and breathing corporate commercial, such as various YouTubers and their bombarding brand deals, which make it hard to hear SeatGeek and not think of David Dobrik. While it’s difficult to argue there’s a complete loss of societal individualism, the augmented capitalistic tendencies of modern societies easily allow us to draw comparisons to a dystopian worldview, much like that in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World

The fourth, and quite possibly most prevalent, tenet of a theorized dystopian society is that of environmental destruction and/or disaster. With raging wildfires, oil spills and poor waste management, and the ubiquitous pressing issue of global warming, environmental destruction and disaster is quite literally among us. Considering the lack of recognition and action taken by a number of leading officials (governmental control) and the cause of much deforestation and oil spills (capitalistic exploitation), a developing dystopia doesn’t seem like a far-fetched idea. 

Though the fifth and final pillar of a dystopian society, a false vision of a utopian society strikes a strong case as the most terrifying of the five, when the oppressive control and destruction is framed through an illusory perfect and harmonious society, when in reality, it’s quite the opposite. It calls to mind the delusive communities present in the novels so many of us read growing up, such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Without analyzing these novels, it’s still apparent to see how our modern society exemplifies these dystopian paralleling policies in the Trump administration. When it becomes commonplace for government officials and authorities to play down or altogether refuse to recognize the events transpiring around us, from police brutality and technological surveillance to a lack of individualism and environmental destruction, the darker tendencies of a society take one step closer toward a theorized dystopia. Suddenly, it seems like this ‘imaginary’ model may hold more truth in the world around us than we realize. 

Even though our society displays a number of dystopian elements and satisfies each of the pillars in one way or another, we haven’t yet descended into the dystopian society so prevalent in much of today’s popular media. It may seem like we’re on a dark path toward such a world, and while we quite possibly may be, a landscape like that would likely be quite difficult to attain, and as the definition of the term implies, a dystopia is technically a fictitious theoretical model of an “imagined” world. 

Nevertheless, it’s so very important that we as a society take this time of turmoil and distress and let the art around us teach us something about the world. One of the leading causes behind a majority of these issues is a dire lack of acknowledgment and recognition. The first step in inspiring a positive change around us is to understand the necessity of such reform and be conscious of what a resulting world would look like if such signs are continuously neglected. Thankfully, we have a whole host of books, shows, and movies to give us a glimpse into what such a world would resemble, with them serving as a type of gentle forewarning toward the possible repercussions of such negligent actions and outlooks. Using this media to instill a bit of healthy fear in us, we should do what we can to stimulate constructive change in order to hopefully prevent the manifestation of a dystopian society.