The A Word: Welcome to Dystopia

I love laymen’s terms. A simple language everyone can understand. I enjoy learning but dislike unnecessary words and as I don’t have a great attention span for detail simplicity is good. When the “dummy” books were introduced I thought all my Christmases had come at once; they’re so useful. Apparently there are 240 of them now, can you believe it. Perhaps BT should buy “customer service for Dummies” it might help!

Anyway, in this month’s blog I’m going to talk about something I’ve never talked about before, in laymen’s terms, and in a way which I hope won’t irritate anyone.

Let’s start by sharing the simplest definition of Utopia – an imaginary place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions.

And Dystopia being the complete opposite – an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be.

Today, Dystopian fiction is hot. Sales of George Orwell’s “1984” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tail” have skyrocketed since 2016. And with COVID-19, dystopias featuring diseases have taken on new life. Netflix reports a spike in popularity for “Outbreak,” “12 Monkeys” and many others.

So, does this popularity signal that people think we are nearing dystopia today? I don’t know the answer but I’m seeing worrying levels of anger present in today’s society. We’ve had bad times before, the 70’s were pretty rough but not like this. Anger is aimed at anything and everything dependent on which side of the fence you sit. It’s aimed at the government, the opposition, the monarchy, climate change, who goes to which toilet, trans in sport, immigration, RNLI, working from home, working from the office, Brexit, Trump, Biden, China, Covid, lockdown, not locking down, Russia, Extinction Rebellion, Trade Unions, Gary Lineker, The BBC, Sky, cyclists, all protestors, Boris, Liz, left wing, right wing, my football team, Postman Pat (only kidding on PP, but the list is endless)

For me, social media has to pick up a large proportion of the blame. Fake news is big news! In simple terms, fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or an entity or, at its worst, making money through advertising revenue and its EVERYWHERE ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

We all know that social media has led to a rapid rise in information-sharing with fake news becoming a component of our digital daily routines. The spread of this misinformation is in part attributed to social media failing to verify the authenticity of news items and how bloody terrible is that!! It makes it so easy to share seemingly real images and videos which have been skilfully manipulated. It’s well-known that misinformation has a significant influence on public opinion thereby fuelling rage and anger. Think about it, who are the losers? The answer is all of us!

In my opinion, Twitter is by far the worst. I’ve started to fact check but even that’s difficult as which data source do you use?  Even the mainstream media are involved in misinterpretation of facts so its virtually impossible to find the truth.

On the flip side, there are elements of social media I like. My favourite is Instagram; I follow loads of accounts that interest me like walking, hiking, photography, fashion, health, beauty, interior design, fitness, football and I glean really useful information.  I also use social media to promote my blog so there are definitely two sides to this argument but does the negative outweigh the positive?

We may well laugh about fictional Dystopia but can you imagine how good life would be without social media? I can’t help thinking that the Utopia we’re all searching for, that place of ideal perfection, may be closer if we eliminated social media from our lives.  As George Orwell once said, “the more a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it”.

And on that note, thank you so much for reading and sharing my blog to raise awareness for autoimmune disease, I know I haven’t written much about my AS in recent blogs as summer makes me feel good. Now we’re heading into Winter I’m sure I’ll have lots to complain about soon.

Until next time xxxxx

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