1984

 Been needing to get my thoughts straight on this for a while, and didn't realize it until I was talking about this with a friend. He was comparing today's world with the world of 1984. This will be my proper response to it. I'm writing this from my computer.

I read this book back in high school, because see, we never read Pride and Prejudice or the Great Gatsby. We read books like Into the Wild, Lord of the Flies, 1984 etc. I hated it when I was in high school. I think I was just taking too much to the surface then. I thought about how ridiculous the book was and how ridiculous everyone was being about this book. I think the point I was trying to get at back then was that it takes a lot of man power the government simply didn't/doesn't have to just watch everyone continuously. At the time, it was just about our phones. Do you know how many phones everybody in this country has? Everybody kept saying they were watching us on our phones but I see it like this, the government has better use of their time than just sit and watch our every move. This book was/is making people paranoid. People are taking this book and using it as a fear tactic.

Maybe I didn't appreciate this in high school. So I revisited it as an adult and listened to the audiobook while taking deliveries. Low and behold. I still hate it, though for slightly different reasons now.

I do get the points the book was making. I understand the surveillance with the flock cameras and the statement of "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." What I didn't really get the full scoop of back then. is the propaganda. We absolutely did a deep dive into what it was etc. Being in a low income household, I was weary of people who always said "Everyone has the same opportunities." I was already starting to question authority. It does have excellent propaganda in the book with the rewriting of history, leaving things out etc, as I heavily noted in Lies My Teacher Told Me: What American History Textbooks Got Wrong. I knew they were doing some shady shit , even people in other countries said so. Anyone notice how it's weird AF that we all stood up to the flag, placed our hands on our hearts and basically SWORE our allegiance as little kids to a country we really didn't even know the history about? We just stood there...chanting. Mind you, the age of consent is eighteen. And we were swearing ourselves in when we were like eight. The propaganda in this book really shines through on me.

The surveillance had taken a hold of me when the flock cameras came out, but not quite for the reason in the book. For the reason people will take advantage and misuse it. Quite a few "officers" were arrested for misusing it and stalking other women, including their ex's. In the fight for women's rights, it's scary when a woman left Texas to get access to a safe abortion and they tracked her down using a scary amount of flock cameras to do it. But they can't use that same method to figure out who's lynching back women? We're not using it to find missing kids on posters? Not to mention AI constantly makes mistakes. Already they were reading licence plates incorrectly and that's incredibly dangerous. AI is not this perfect tool and everyone needs to stop treating at such. So if the government isn't actually using it to protect us, then what is it being used for? Like I said, I get the surveillance. Domino's came out with a new thing recently called Drivocity. It's a fucking tracking thing where they eyeball our speed, how we do our turns, and our breaking. Something we already have with specific insurances. Every damn driver hates it. It feels like micromanaging, especially since it's our own cars. The thing is so overly sensitive, it almost feels like you can't drive normally. I hate it and I believe it's unnecessary. 

Now, I'mma talk about why I really don't like this book. The language. Everybody is so quick (not saying you are, my dear friend), to say the language is depleting due to censorship etc. I will give you the argument that it does seem that way. However, we need to look at the history of language as a whole. Language itself is constantly evolving and developing. There are words in the Victorian era which people always say we need to bring back because we don't use it anymore. At some point, it fell off. The government certainly didn't have a hand in that. The slang we used from the 90's a lot of people don't use in todays world. Words like "Figures," which is a sarcastic expression in this context or, "Groovy,", "Narly" are words a lot of us don't use anymore. Doesn't mean it was taken away from us. It just changed within the times. We even have new slang in todays world the "older generation" doesn't understand anymore like "No cap." Just because we found new ways of saying something, doesn't mean it was taken away from us. Now, what he was getting at, was the use of language online, specifically Tiktok. It is a little bit about censorship and a little bit of how we are as a society and the norms. He said to me, "Unalive," "Pew pew" (examples of the language of this app) are just like Newspeak of 1984. I can get why he says that. Unalive means suicide and pew pew just meaning gun. They do seem similar if we don't look at other parts of the equation. 

People love to try and have the world tip toed around them. A lot of people always complain about trigger warnings. That they need to be put in books and videos so they can specifically either scroll past, or skip the book. it became a problem because everybody was being pushed to do it. Videos were being reported for "harmful" content, or "Bullying" content. So they had to start using trigger warnings so the app didn't take their video down. Some users didn't want to use trigger warnings, saying this is the real world and real problems. Eventually, their videos started getting taken down. They didn't want to conform to these rules so to have their videos survive to the For You page, instead of the trigger warnings they didn't want to use, they opt to use creative slang that almost mimicked Newspeak. That's why we got words like "Unalive." It's almost the same process for finding new words to talk about weapons except a new thing is added. Tiktok, in order to legitimately keep everyone safe, has safety rules. Like weapons etc so it doesn't promote harmful "trends" like waving a real gun around. They used to be really good with this. They used to be able to differentiate between who was using a real weapon, and who was just talking about a weapon. That is until they started using their own automated system, because again, people were taking these videos out of context and reporting them. That's where we get "pew pew" from. Everyone is just trying to dodge the system that was created from other people needing trigger warnings. So yes, while it is similar, both are caused by different things.

The government can't control everything about us. While they can try, it's just not how humans worked. I touched on this in the previous episode. in the book 1984, the government had them so tightly controlled, they couldn't even smile at something without it being questioned. They can't control our emotions, our compassion for other people, and at some point people will revolt. The torturing method will only work for so long. The conditioning will only work for so long. At some point, you'll start thinking "bad" thoughts again, because you can't help it. Yes you'll be living in fear but you'll still have those questions in the back of your mind. Our MC was tortured for months. Your brain will cooperate until the immediate fear and danger slowly start passing. Society will naturally rebel at some point. It's just how humans work. 

It's the way people use this book to fear monger and make everyone go into a blind panic that pisses me off. (Again, not you, Just in general). That's when everyone takes this book out of context. 

While this book has good surveillance, don't trust the government, and propaganda undertones, it's not a realistic dystopian book. I think there are better books out there that do a better job like the handmaid's tale. It has the exact same undertones, just add women's rights to the mix. I liked being able to root for the MC in Handmaid's Tale. I had hope Gilead would fall and everybody would get what they deserved. I hoped MC would get her kids back. It was a victory book (haha, that's not lost on me). And that's what I did like about it. With 1984 it's all gloom and doom. There's no hope, there's no happiness. There are books out there with no happy endings and I accept that. That's why I'm weary about those kinds of book. I will read a few unhappy books but I'm picky about them. We need hope, we need promise, we need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This book doesn't give you that. It's all black, even the relationship was unorthodox and I get that's the point but nothing lasted in this book. There are dystopian books that do have happy endings and are good as far as resistance and hope, and fighting. This book doesn't give me that. 

And that's why I don't like 1984. I hated it back in high school, and re-reading it as an adult, I still hated it. These were the thoughts in my head as I re-read it, after the conversation with my friend to see if I gained anything different. And yes, I did gain a few new enlightenment, but my overall opinion of the book hasn't changed.

And look, I have fed and watered my blog! Now it's my turn.

Gods, these fucking books give me a migraine. Actually, I blame the current book I'm listening to. Hopefully you'll have my rants of that one. Cause BOI DO I HAVE THEM. 

09/07/2026 1049