We all use dystopian movies and books to make sensory faculty of our world . Whether it ’s Brave New World , 1984 , or The Hunger Games , dystopian fiction serves as a vernacular touchpoint to talk about our fearfulness . But what happens when companies knowingly cover the benighted side of futurism and set out naming products after the things we were guess to chance scary ?
Below I ’ve compiled a tilt of just a few product and company that first captured the public imagination through al-Qur’an , movies , songs , and TV display . They were products in the beginning created to instill fear in the lector or viewer . But they ’re no longer fable .
And I guess they ’re no longer meant to be scary . But have you hold in the ingredients list for your latest hatful of Soylent ? Judging by the photo I took below of a Soylent billboard in LA , I ’m not certain if that astronaut is holding the merchandise or if she is the mathematical product .
Soylent
The 1973 dystopian movie Soylent Green follows a detective of the time to come who stumble upon the secret to how the governing is solving the world ’s food crisis . Oddly enough , there ’s now a solid food substitute intersection namedSoylentthat ’s become a furore off in the brogrammer crowd . If I need to assure you what Soylent Green is made of in the photographic film ( and why it ’s so funny to name a food product after it ) , maybe considerrenting the movietonight . I would n’t want to spoil a 40 - year quondam movie for you .
Top : Soylent chief executive officer Rob Rhinehart holding a dish of Soylent in 2013 ( rightfulness )
Soma
Aldous Huxley ’s 1931 dystopian novel Brave New World draw a barren future tense where everyone was doped up on a fabricated drug shout out Soma . In 1959 Americans helped blur the line between phantasy and world when the FDA approved a brawniness relaxant called carisoprodol . The firebrand name ? Soma .
That ’s correct , there ’s a actual drug that helps numb your soundbox called Soma . And as you could see from the newspaper publisher article above , it ’s prescription - only now . Apparently too many teenager in the sixties were using it “ in goofballs for kicks . ”
trope : Screenshot from the 1998 TV adaptation of Brave New World ( left ) ; Nov 27 , 1965 Ottawa Journal ( right )
Cyberdyne
think the company in the Terminator dealership named Cyberdyne ? The one that builds Skynet , a information processing system web that tries to wipe out the human race ? Well , a robotics company in Japan make up one’s mind it might be a good melodic theme to name their society after the fictional ship’s company . Yes , there ’s a real robotics troupe calledCyberdyne .
And do you want to get a line the actual kicker ? Their most popular intersection is an exoskeleton wooing called the Hybrid Assistive Limb , or HAL . Remember HAL from Stanley Kubrick ’s classic 1968 celluloid 2001 : A Space Odyssey ? This Cyberdyne company really seems to be tempting portion .
image : Cyberdyne screenshot from T2 ; Cyberdyne systems assistive social unit via Getty ( right )
Skynet
Speaking of the Terminator motion picture , the NSA really has / had a programcalled SKYNET . In the films , Skynet is the figurer net that becomes self - cognizant and seek to destruct humanity by setting off nuclear weapon and coordinating an army of golem . The NSA ’s version is a bit more humble in that it use metadata to make connections between multitude that it deems suspicious . It ’s not quite ready to take over the world , but let ’s knock on Ellen Price Wood .
range of a function : NSA Skynet slide viaLeakSource
Duff Beer
Sure , The Simpsons is n’t quite dystopian fiction . But the fancied beer in the serial publication , Duff , serve as a form of hyper - consumerist parody of alcohol company that will do anything to make their products await cool . In the nineties the Simpsons ’ Duff beer and theDuffmanwere specify to mock the 80s and 90 beer commercials featuring women in bikinis and shlubby guy rope on the beach who can “ get the girl ” with the right beer . But now , Duff beeris real . At least in some South American countries and Universal Studios Florida .
There ’s no Son yet if this parody - turned - world is making its way to mainstream American liquor stores anytime soon . But the fact that it exists at all is a tremendous comment on twenty-first one C consumerism .
Duff beer via Simpsons Wiki ( left ) ; Getty Images ( right )
Robot
The word automaton may seem like it ’s been around forever , but it was really coin in 1921 . The word make out from a sci - fi play titledR.U.R.by Czech playwright Karel Capek . The play tells the account of humanoid machines that finally stage an insurrection against their human masters . automaton certainly antecede 1921 , but when Capek mint the term robot in the other 1920s , they were definitely a work of dystopian fiction . have it off them or revere them , the tidings robot has emphatically been embraced over the past century .
picture : Capek ’s work viaNYPL
Margaritaville
Back in 1977 it was just an innocent Jimmy Buffet song . No one imagined that Margaritaville was a dark work of dystopian fiction that monish of the horrifying days ahead . Days of lost self-will , bloody foot , and a closed book about who ’s to pick . Today , those frequent lyric have been turned into a chain of over 30 Jimmy Buffett ’s Margaritaville restaurants spanning the orb .
Do n’t consider that Margaritaville is a body of work of dystopian incubus ? Just take a closer look at the lyrics …
Nibblin ’ on sponge cake , watchin ’ the Sunday bake ;
All of those tourists cover with oil .
Strummin ’ my six string on my front porch golf shot .
Smell those runt ; They ’re beginnin ’ to moil .
indisputable , seems innocent enough . Until you get to the chorus .
Wasted away again in Margaritaville ,
Searchin ’ for my lost shaker of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks .
Some people claim that there ’s a woman to pick ,
But I know it ’s nobody ’s fault .
He lost his salt shaker ? This is start to turn bad .
Do n’t have intercourse the reason , Stayed here all time of year
With nothing to show but this firebrand new tattoo .
But it ’s a real beauty , A Mexican cutie , how it got here I have n’t a clue .
He does n’t have a clue ? This is really begin to sound unsafe .
Now I conceive , – hell it could be my fault .
Uh oh . Whose fracture is it , Jimmy ? WHOSE FAULT IS IT ?
I shoot a line out my flip bust , Stepped on a pappa top ,
geld my heel , had to cruise on back home .
But there ’s hard drink in the blender , And soon it will render
That frozen concoction that helps me pay heed on .
Oh no .
Wasted away again in Margaritaville
But I have sex , it ’s my own blasted fault .
Yes , and some people claim that there ’s a woman to blame
And I know it ’s my own blame fracture .
The repulsion . What a deplorable god - forsaken world Mr. Buffett depict in his 1977 classic . And do n’t even get me bulge out onCheeseburger in Paradise .
Man , you wanna talk about dour , plug away “ Cheeseburger in Paradise ” into the quondam 8 - track for a Nox of introspection . And now , just like Margaritaville , it ’s a chain of family - favorable restaurants . What a time to be alive .
Margaritaville inside a Cincinnati Casino in 2013 via Associated Press
Dystopian fictionpaleofutureSkynetsoylent
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