RetroGaming

Does 1984 simply mean "dystopia" now?

What, you expect people to read? To be familiar with a piece of media before they reference it?

At this point there's been a meme for years about people misusing it.

Except it literally is. Every dissenting view gets called fake news and ignored. Trump supports ukraine yesterday and russia today. Violence gets threatened and used on those deemed "woke" and bathrooms are being surveiled.

The US (or at least part of it) literally lives in 1984.

You're right. People say "1984" to mean "dystopia" or "things I don't like about modern society".

Tangentially related, there was a survey a while back that found most people who say they have read 1984 haven't actually read it. So that may be part of it.

Personally, if we're going with the classic dystopian novels, I think we're more aligned with:

• The anti-intellectualism/distraction from the real issues like we see in Fahrenheit 451. Arguably we have already started the book-burning. (Tbf, there's also practically no pre-big brother material in 1984, so clearly they went down the same route, although Orwell didn't go into that as deeply as Bradbury)

• Keeping people docile with an endless stream of entertainment content and consumerism like in Brave New World.

...than we are with the "Oppression through fear and brainwashing from an all-powerful, all-seeing government" that we see in 1984.

But even then there are significant differences. E.g. unlike in Brave New World, there's no government-provided Soma drug to further placate us. Well, not unless you believe the chemtrail conspiracy theories lol