Facts About Dystopian Fiction That Became Reality
Dystopian fiction is a genre of science fiction that tries to make up a horrible world (like The Walking Dead) or tries to predict a horrible future that we get to look forward to (like 1984). The craziest thing about dystopian fiction, however, is that there are moments where its predictions actually come true. Here are some examples of dystopian books and movies successfully predicting what the future would look like. Score one for the pessimists!
Dystopian Fiction That Became Reality Facts
23. Take Notes, Tinder
In the novel Logan’s Run, whenever the characters want to avoid the long process of dating and just have a night of no-strings-attached fun, they used a computer to find someone within the vicinity who felt the same way as them. The book couldn’t have known that this computer program would end up being a phone app instead, but that’s still pretty on the nose as far as predictions go.
22. I See You, You See Me
M. Forster published his book The Machine Stops in 1909, long before Skype ever existed. Somehow, though, Forster envisioned a future wherein people could be on opposite ends of the world and yet see each other and communicate. Sure, we don’t use round plates to do it, but Forster wasn’t far off.
21. Printing Press Deluxe
Personal printers in every home was first predicted by Edward Page Mitchell (no pun intended, amazingly). Writing in 1879, Mitchell’s book The Senator’s Daughter envisioned “an endless strip of printed paper, about three feet wide, was slowly issuing from between noiseless rollers and falling in neat folds into a willow basket placed on the floor to receive it.” Now true, he didn’t think we’d have individual pages, but otherwise, he correctly predicted that everyone would have access to their own printed paper, a luxury back in his day.
