Narrative brainstorm #8
George Orwell's '1984'
"A man loses his identity while living under a repressive regime. Winston Smith is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country's leaders in a charitable light. His illicit affair with Julia provides his only measure of enjoyment, but lawmakers frown on the relationship- and in this closely monitored society, there is no escape from Big Brother."
-Totalitarian superstate.
-Under constant surveillance of the thought police.
-War-torn.
-Omnipresent force watching your every move- Big Brother.
-Struggle to maintain sanity and grip on reality.
-Regime persecutes individualism and individual thinking.
-Secret diary of private thoughts- this would be deemed as thought crime.
-Protagonist begins an illicit affair.
-Betrayal.
-Big brother was watching all along.
MY NARRATIVE IDEAS
-Totalitarian superstate.
-Under constant digital surveillance
-Omnipresent force that persecutes individualism.
-In 2020, 5G is deemed a threat as people believe it will be a way for the government to take full control and survey your every move. The covid-19 jab is considered a threat for the same reason. People are terrified that the government are trying to find ways to become completely omnipresent.
There's even a theory that pigeons are government spies, as there's so many of them and a lot of people claim to have never seen a baby pigeon. Instead, it's believed that these pigeons that swarm cities like London are manufactured as spies to watch over our daily lives.
'Birds aren't real' is a movement that has been hatched by 20 year old English and Philosophy major at the University of Memphis, Peter McIndoe. 'Birds aren't real' re-surfaced murky bits of history and the ubiquity of birds, feeding it into this era of post-truth politics.
Post-Truth Politics = "a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored."
Philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche is frequently invoked as one of the chief predecessors of the concept of post-truth. He argues that humans create the concepts through which they define the good and the just, thereby replacing the concept of truth with the concept of value, and grounding reality in the human will and will to power.
The campaign relies on internet-fuelled activists, marketing to spread its message, manifesting through real-world posters and photoshopped propaganda tagged with the "Birds aren't real" slogan.
For much of its devoted fanbase, the movement is a bit of a break from America's political divide- a joke so absurd, both conservatives and liberals can laugh at it. But, for a few followers, this movement is not unbelievable. The preposterous nature of this theory has some people completely convinced. Therefore, the genius of 'Bird's aren't real' is the fact that it's become a digital breadcrumb trail that leads to a website that leads to a shop full of merchandise; it's a thinly disguised marketing scheme. McIndoe first went live with this movement in 207 at his city's women's march. He heckled protesters with signs reading, "Birds are a myth; they're an illusion; they're a lie. Wake up America!" This stunt gained a lot of attention on Instagram so he decided to keep the movement going strong. Below is a video from the 'Birds aren't real Instagram, showing McIndoe letting the people of America know about these fake birds, whether they want to hear it or not:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkYqzXTHwHy/
The fact they used to use pigeons to carry secret messages to people as early as the 1150's, could help the case that they are government spies. Or at least for the purpose of my story. I could use pigeons or something similar as a form of surveillance for my narrative. Re-enforce the idea that the government are everywhere and are always watching; shitting on your every move.
-I do agree that in the near future, we will all soon be completely monitored by our government. If you think about how much technology has advanced just in the last 50 years. It's advancing even more rapidly now, so they have no reason not to use it to watch over their citizens. It's a terrifying thought but i think everyone knows it's imminent. Even a small thing like allowing cookies on your computer lets some kind of monitoring into your life. The notification to allow them is becoming more and more present on basically every single website you visit. It's impossible not to allow it. People cover up webcams on their laptops through fear that someone is watching. Your smart phone listens to you and basically advertises the conversation you just had. If you talk about a specific kind of shoe and visit Instagram, Facebook etc, there it is...an advertisement for a reduced pair of Nike Airforce's.
- AI takeover. AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which artificial intelligence becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth. For example, replacement of the entire human workforce, a robot uprising. Public figures like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have advocated research to ensure future super-intelligent machines remain under our control; human control.
"Ava is far more self-aware and deceptive than either man imagined".
-It would be interesting to set my story quite a few years from now where the world is now completely controlled and monitored through the use of technology. The people will have been living in an omnipresent, totalitarian state for a while now. So, they're aware of the strict regime and rules that cannot be broken. Therefore, more room for rebellion and introducing someone (a main character for the story) that isn't afraid to break these rules to keep connections and keep their sanity. If they've been living like this for a while now then they must be beginning to get restless and frustrated with the lack of freedom and individual thought. They also know their way around the system by now. They don't know how to get out of the watchful gaze of the government but, having been obedient and quiet for so long, they've learnt where some of the gaps are within this society. They've learnt where there are windows of opportunity to do things they probably shouldn't; send things they probably shouldn't and make contact with people they probably shouldn't.
-I need to come up with a 5G alternative for this story, something more severe and something that will probably be created within the next 50 years or so. I could just increase the number, but maybe i want to be more creative. Some form of technology has stripped the world of all individuality. Which is where the letters come in. They're the only thing left that hold individual and secret thought. It's risky business sending letters however. Those caught are killed; no mercy is shown and the letters are read then burned. All information they held is passed onto the government. But, if you know your way around the system, you may be able to send letters un-detected. This way of life is otherwise a death sentence. Will my narrative have one supreme leader like Big Brother in 1984 or will it just be a collective force? There will be a group of rebels (need to come up with a name for them) that send letters to one another. They are all stationed around different parts of the state and act as a postal service almost. Each letter needs to be background checked however, in case a spy has sent one to suss them out. They send and receive letters for many things, one being families that need medical help but can't get the help of the Government. The government don't really care for those that are sick. It's very much a survival of the fittest. If you get sick, it's because your soul is sick and you're not loyal to the state. The rebels still care for people in this situation however, as some of them come from families that were affected by this lack of assistance from the government that resulted in deaths of family members. This is their way of giving back. They send all letters as they know that anyone writing them must be desperate otherwise they wouldn't risk having their name sent to the government if the letter was found. A lot of people that send letters however have developed some kind of code so their loved one's know it's them. This way, they can sign the letter anonymously and the government won't be able to track it back to them. They won't hesitate to interrogate however.
-The protagonist of this story will be a girl who doesn't agree with the way the world has developed. She was born into this regime so she hasn't experienced a different way of life, however, her parents knew the world before technology swallowed it whole. They kept a scrapbook from when they were younger and showed her pictures of this green and free world as she grew up, to show her that there is more to life than this corrupt state.
Her home was raided one day, as the girl had reportedly been telling the other children at school all these stories about this magical, free world. The scrapbook was found and her parents were taken away. The little girl had luckily been told to hide by her father, so she wasn't found. One guard threw the scrapbook into the fireplace in their home. As soon as they left, the little girl ran out and pulled it from the flames. It was a little crispy around the edges but salvageable. She assumes her parents were killed but there's still a drop of hope within her that they're alive somewhere. She never understood why individual thought and creativity was so illegal. But she vowed never to outwardly speak her mind to anyone she didn't trust ever again. She didn't want anyone else she knew getting hurt. She keeps the scrapbook with her at all times however, to remind her that there is more to life and give her hope that someday she can find a more fruitful existence. Because of all this, she is the one in charge of the rebels. They send letters that not only hold plots and schemes against the state, but that hold words of love and reassurance as well. Loved ones that want to write to their family on the other side of the state but can't reach them because of restrictions. You need to have a reason to go anywhere. What reason would someone have to travel to the other side of the state, unless for work? This is where the rebels come in. They take this risk and go the less conventional routes; along rooftops and down small alleyways. Connection is the only thing that keeps these people sane in a heartless, brainless state.
-Start with the drawings from when she was a child. Draw the raid on their house and the sketchbook, have her look into the flames and reach for the book etc...Then flash forward to her standing on a rooftop maybe, looking over the city, as the leader of the rebels. Reference Gaspar Noe's 'Enter the Void'. Reference for the aesthetic of the world as well; colour palette, buildings etc...
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