Dystopia is a genre that has existed for over a century and has become increasingly popular over the past few decades. These worlds are futures or realities where something has gone wrong—very wrong—and now humans and others are paying the price. But why do generations enjoy returning to these bleak and oppressive realities? Is it because it draws similarities to our current situation? Or perhaps it’s because it allows a reflection upon humanity and its flaws? Maybe it could even be a means of taking down totalitarianism and injustice? To understand this obsession, we only need to look at how dystopias show up everywhere in our daily lives—whether in films, books, TV, or video games—each reflecting something deeper about who we are.

One argument is that these stories resonate because they reflect humanity’s darker tendencies and explore our inner sadist. However, dystopias are not only grim and dark but perhaps an exploration of the human mind, where we can speculate upon how we impact our world, our only world, and maybe reflect upon how we can change. When we look at texts like Animal Farm, it leads us to think on a deeper scale as to the level of righteousness that certain ways of life or beliefs hold. Animal Farm, by George Orwell, was published in 1945 as an allegorical novella that alluded to the 1917 Communist Russian Revolution, and through the characters of the pigs, satirized the key instigators: Karl Marx (Old Major), Leon Trotsky (Snowball), and Josef Stalin (Napoleon). When we examine these characters, we can see how communism is not truly a form of equality, but just a society where the disparity is obscured by propaganda and lies.

Similarly, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale explores control and oppression—but this time, it’s focused on the systematic stripping away of women’s rights, revealing another dark side of dystopian reality. Offred embodies this loss of autonomy, living under constant control; this is even visible in her name, Of Fred, Fred being her commander. Atwood herself famously said that she didn’t invent The Handmaid’s Tale—she just “rearranged” things that had already occurred. This is clear when we look back at our past and see laws like Coverture, stating that the husband took all profits and earnings from his wife, and she became his property. It may possibly then be the fact that dystopia holds reality as a starting point, and when we look on a deeper level, the dystopia is not that far away from the truth.

While classic novels like The Handmaid’s Tale paint stark warnings, contemporary TV shows like Black Mirror bring these fears into the modern age, exploring new anxieties about technology and society. When we watch films or television shows, there are sometimes things that disturb or shock us. We see things that may scare us, and we think they cannot be real. Perhaps, the scarier thing is the fact that they could be. The deeper and hidden side of ourselves is buried for most of us, but sometimes, they emerge when we see certain things, or triggers. These triggers may appear in many forms—including television, often through portrayals of dark realities or dystopian futures.

This is perhaps most profoundly visible in television shows like Black Mirror, where it explores our flaws and societal anxieties. In the episode “Nosedive,” it explores the impact of social opinions and the views of others through having social ratings. The effect of the decrease of social opinions upon the protagonist of the episode, Lacie, is a display of how the opinions of others can be crippling and destructive. As well as this, we also find how we are stuck under the control of others, as seen in the episode “Fifteen Million Merits.” In our society, we worry about our lack of freedom. But what if that was taken to a whole new level, one where you didn’t just lack freedom—there was NO freedom?

In “Fifteen Million Merits,” humans are reduced to performative roles, just for trivial rewards and fame. The protagonist, Bing, is becoming increasingly frustrated with the monotony of his banal existence. In an attempt to escape, Bing encourages a talented young woman named Abi to audition for a show named Hot Shot, which instead of nurturing her talent, sexualizes her and strips away her identity. Bing stands up against this injustice and earns himself his own show, fighting against the system; ironically, rather than escaping the cycle, he is now back and surrounded by screens and distractions, showing the inescapability of their lifestyles.

This draws links to real societal anxieties felt by people in our new and growing society, including monetary instability and the dichotomy of our economy. Just like Bing and Abi in the episode who are earning “merits,” workers feel stuck in high-risk, low-reward jobs, submissive to the monotony of their lives. Ultimately, the episode acts as a mirror, forcing us to confront how easily our own systems—of work, media, and control—can become dystopian without us even realizing it. When we watch horror films, we feel fear, but when we watch dystopias, we feel terror; maybe, as it provides us a window as to what life might be like, it shocks us into action and change, potentially presenting the appeal of dystopias as how they allow a reflection on how we as humans treat each other and the effect of human cruelty upon others. As these stories reflect the dark sides of society, many turn to video games to reclaim a sense of control, escaping helplessness through virtual power.

Throughout our world, injustice and violence prevail; many feel hopeless or lost with no means to fight back. Perhaps that is why we turn to dystopian video games, to imbue ourselves with a feeling of power—to feel like we can take back control. Many other genres offer escapism—but not many offer power. Such a feeling of control can be felt in a game like Call of Duty: Black Ops, where we take the fight to the clandestine happenings that the government tries to hide.

And this isn’t just sci-fi; in the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, the mission named Operation 40 is based on real life. Beginning in 1953, the CIA began a project named MK-Ultra in an attempt to win the Cold War—they drugged, they tortured, and they killed. The CIA—they called themselves just and right;perhaps they forgot Frank Olson. Frank Olson was a CIA scientist who was illicitly and secretly dosed with LSD by his fellow colleagues, and was pushed out of a 13th-story window in an attempt to hide their crimes. This is not another sci-fi story—this happened to a real man with a real family. There was outrage, but most records had been destroyed, and people were distraught, drugged, and dead—without justice for decades. When we play a game like Black Ops, we can take a stand against the injustice, without breaking the law in real life.

However, you may think that brainwashing and Cold War paranoia are all in the past. But mind control comes around in other forms now, not just through meth and murder. In our technologically advancing world, violence can now be spread through social media, which we hold in our pockets most of our lives. In Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the antagonist Raul Menendez uses propaganda to incite racial and terrorist attacks. This parallels how the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand used live streaming on Facebook to turn his violence into a technological weapon, inciting further violence like John Earnest’s attack on a Synagogue in Poway, California, where he openly cited Christchurch in his manifesto, showing how technology is a catalyst for violence and suffering. Both Menendez’s fictional campaign and these real-life attacks reveal the terrifying power of propaganda to spread hate and spark deadly violence—making the act of shutting down these digital networks in the game a direct stand against the forces that fuel real-world terror. We keep returning to dystopias because they show us what’s at stake, reveal the shadows in ourselves and society, and give us the chance to fight back—even if only in a game.

In a society riddled with flaws, injustice, manipulation, and dictatorship, dystopias keep returning not just to scare, but to warn, to mirror, and to call to action. Whether we have a book, a phone, or a controller in our hands, we can be reminded by these bleak reflections of what’s at stake: our freedom, our justice, and our humanity. That is why we have seen such a resurgence in the dystopian genre, because whilst we consume them, they shape us, by echoing the past, warning the present, and shaping the future.