All right, somebody needs to explain the zombie thing. It's not just movies and video games, there is something else going on. There's a Zombie Survival Wiki and a Zombie Preparedness Initiative. Then you've got the Zombie Squad's forum on zombie biology and another one on zombie combat tactics. Here's an index of 80 threads from the "All Things
Zombie" forums on various zombie survival tactics.
Zombie" forums on various zombie survival tactics.
It's gone beyond good fun. It's not just a mere obsession. These people are actually preparing for a zombie apocalypse. So why is everyone so eager for a world devoid of life, but full of the undead?
We think we have an idea.
#5. Guilt Free Violence (That's Politically Correct)
It's pretty obvious why zombies appeal to the baser instincts of certain individuals. Most zombiephiles are young males and if you want young males to, say, buy a ticket to your movie, it needs to have a hero that kicks somebody in the face at some point. Then hopefully the bad guy falls out of a plate glass window, crashes into a parked taxi below, which then explodes. They like violence is what we're saying.
You don't have to rewind evolution many generations to find a time when stabbing something with a spear was all in a day's work. Today, buried in the reptilian part of the brain is that drive to survive, recalling that time when surviving often meant to kill or be killed. So, we sit in our cubicles all day and release that urge via harmless movies and video games and the sight of nameless bad guys getting mowed down.
But there's a larger reason that zombies are today's most popular target for therapeutic head-splosions. The role of "bad guy" isn't so easy to fill these days. It used to be there was always some ethnic group or nationality Hollywood could populate action movies with; if you grew up in the 80s, it was the Russians (Red Dawn, etc), before that, the Nazis or Japanese, before that, the "Indians."
More recently, it's Arab terrorists. But we're running out of villians. You can't fill your video game with Chinese enemies; hell, they may need to sell copies of the game there. The video game industry has had us killing Nazis for a decade, because they couldn't think of anybody else it was politically correct to slaughter in huge numbers.
And that's where zombies come in.
All that morality stuff is set aside. Killing them is OK because they're already dead. They don't even scream in pain, or show any sense of self-preservation. They seem to want to die. You get all the blood and gore and none of the complications.
And maybe more important than that, they're slow. And unarmed. There's no real threat. Sure, the movies always say the zombies have taken over the world, but come on. Every single male in that audience believes that, if they were in that world, they'd survive, no problem.
It's a playground of destruction with no repercussions. A violent video game turned into real life. Lots of targets, no real danger. Hell on Earth, but somehow pure fun.
#4. Free Stuff, Without All That Damned Work
"Of course there's free stuff," some of you are saying. "Free dirt, blood, zombies and broken glass. But when society collapses, nobody is going to produce anything any more! Say goodbye to electricity, plumbing, TV, new music and 90 percent of what you currently do for fun."
This is exactly what a rational person might think. Au contraire for zombie survivalists. They figure the loss of those inconveniences will be minor in what is sure to be an action-packed world full of zombie beheadings. Besides, the basics would still be there. What zombie movie ever portrays the heroes as starving?
And that gets right to the heart of it. What do you devote your waking life to right now? Curing cancer? Killing terrorists? No, odds are you're devoting all your time and energy to just paying the bills. Those Cheerios don't just appear in the cupboard, we slave away at a hated job to keep our bodies fed and the lights on for the fun parts, with no grand goal beyond that.But when society collapses under all the zombie dead weight, it's all over. But not over like a nuclear holocaust, where all the warehouses and grocery stores lay in ruins. No, all the stuff is perfectly intact. All manner of stores and malls and mansions will be ripe for the picking. In a world where only a tiny fraction of the population remains, there'd have to be enough food and clothes in the supply chain to feed you and your friends for the rest of your zombie-killing lives.
For free.
Which means you don't have to spend all day grinding away in front of a keyboard just to keep food in the fridge. All that is swept aside. Killing zombies is your job now. And you won't be getting any damned memos about a dress code.
Your purpose in life is perfectly clear. It couldn't be simpler. Which brings us to the next benefit...
#3. Simplicity
We mentioned that we miss the violence of the "killing animals with rocks" stage of our evolution, but there's something else we haven't quite gotten over: Life was simpler back then. As a result, we're still really built for a routine of gathering food, protecting our huts from predators and having outdoor sex with the ladies.
There's a reason all this modern multitasking has half of us swallowing anti-depressants or washing away our pain with bottle after bottle of liquor. An apocalypse of zombie proportions would be a throwback to that simpler time... but with one important difference mentioned above: You're not in constant danger of starving.
There's tons of places to barricade, lots of items for creating weapons and plenty of zombies to slaughter. And that's it; those are your tasks for the day. Get sustenance, find shelter and slaughter zombies.
No homework, no term papers, no job search, no internship, no cubicle, no bills to pay. There will no longer be mail of any sort; paper or electronic. Identity theft will only happen if you die and come back as a zombie.
We think of teenagers as living and breathing texts and Facebook and Twitter, but it still buries them under the kind of rapid-fire multitasking humans just aren't built for. Even building up a bunch of shows you can't get around to watching on TiVO creates a kind of stress.
You get overwhelmed by how quickly everything stacks up. Answering 75 texts a day, responding to Facebook pokes, memorizing memes so you don't get shamefully laughed out of 4chan... all that nonsense is gone the moment the undead rise. Nobody can text with their fingers bitten off.
#2. Acting Like a Dick, Without Consequence
As humanity evolved and formed larger and larger societies that had to cooperate more and more, we have come a long way with the things like "empathy," "ethics" and "caring." Human society has rules in place that try to keep an ordered balance between people. In this day and age, it is hard to be too much of a dick without some sort of repercussions.
That's why the collapse of society is key in a Zombie Apocalypse. It is said that nice guys finish last. Well, nice guys also get eaten by zombies.
Without pesky "rules" and "laws" and "social conventions" you'll be free to do pretty much anything you want, to anybody. Sure, you may not immediately launch into a rape and torture spree, but how long could you resist the urge to break a few windows downtown? Or go to Yankee Stadium and poop in the batter's box?
And if, say, it comes down to you and a dozen women to help repopulate the world, you would gladly perform your duty to mankind.
A Zombie Apocalypse provides the kind of freedom the antisocial youth of today could only dream of, in real life anyway. Watch those same kids inside the world of the Grand Theft Auto games and you see their fantasies come out. The whole selling point of that game's universe isn't the main missions, it's all the stuff you can do on the side. Driving a car through a supermarket, ramping a motorcycle into a swimming pool.
We're just waiting for an outlet. From the moment we were toddlers until today, life has been all about not knocking over the lamp or spilling your drink or peeing in your bed. It's a fragile world where some grownup complains every time you put a scratch on it. Well, to hell with that. An apocalyptic world is a world where nobody cares what you break. The world is your oyster, albeit a very gangrenous and flesh-eating oyster.
So, sure, part of the fantasy is making your way to the Pentagon and barricading you and your band of survivors inside. But step two is to turn the thing into the world's largest indoor motocross track.
#1. Being the Alpha Dog
Let's face it: Everybody likes to be the boss. Even Rick Ross. Or more accurately, we like not having somebody else be the boss of us (actually being the boss, and sifting through expense reports every day, is probably Hell).
Notice how there's no power structure in the post-apocalypse world? Even if the survivors form some kind of hierarchy, the movie is certainly never about the guy at the bottom. No, the apocalypse has a great leveling effect. There are no more rich douchebags, no more handsome quarterbacks to steal all the hot girls. By the mere virtue of being a survivor in a world where they're scarce, you're already considered top dog.
And for a population of geeky guys used to being at the bottom of the social ladder, that's freaking awesome.
Sure, with great power may come great responsibility, but it also comes with lots of sweet stuff. You get to call the shots. You get the first pick of whatever artifacts are salvaged out of the ruins of civilization. You can probably get the pick of the opposite sex, all vestiges of your nerd past long forgotten.
Now, you might be thinking, "Hey, someone bigger and meaner can come and take charge of your operation." The answer: All that pre-apocalypse preparation will make you king. All those nameless victims who got turned into zombies at the beginning of the outbreak? They didn't spend their lives studying zombies. But you, you're prepared. You're the one who knows to shoot them in the head.And when the other survivors see you slaughtering waves of the undead, finally all of your video gaming skills the world mocked will have paid off.
That's right: The only thing between you and being the heroic badass everyone loves, is a massive outbreak of reanimated corpses.
via Cracked
