Thread by @SarahADowney

I just finished re-reading Orwell's 1984, and if you haven't read it (or it's been a while), I can't recommend it enough. It has incredibly relevant and predictive elements that describe things we're starting to see in today's culture. Here are some examples (thread): 1/

Note that I’m not saying that the dystopian, totalitarian hellscape of 1984 is exactly what’s happening today. However, the last couple of years have seen some disturbing parallels emerge. 2/

The 1984 concept will have a 🥸 emoji to represent Big Brother

The current expression we’re seeing in society will have a 📅 emoji

3/

🥸 Discouraging good relations between the sexes by only allowing unattracted people to marry; weaponizing sexual frustration into political rage
📅 Labeling stereotypically masculine behavior "toxic;" the all-time low rate of having sex, particularly in Millennials/Gen-Z 4/

🥸 Changing the meaning of common words/phrases instantly and punishing those who do not adapt
📅 The redefinition (literally) overnight of phrases like "sexual preference" (used to be fine; suddenly "bigoted" and rewritten in the dictionary) reclaimthenet.org/sexual-prefere… 5/

🥸 Tactical language changes, continued
📅 Changing definitions of “racism” (to pretty much anything where there are disparate outcomes among races) and “white supremacy” (to…pretty much anything involving white people) @NewDiscourses newdiscourses.com/tftw-white-sup… 6/

🥸 The ubiquitous presence of technology that delivers you content but mainly serves to spy on you (primarily the Telescreen but also cameras, mics, etc.)
📅 Amazon Echos, Google Homes, smart TVs, mobile apps that covertly monitor you (ahem, Facebook) 7/

🥸The attack on objective reality as a way to demoralize and control people; “2+2=5”
📅 People saying 2+2=4 is some sort of “racist math” washingtonexaminer.com/news/math-prof… Statements that everyone knows are true (e.g., men and women are biologically different) have become “unsayable" 8/

🥸 Newspeak, the Party language in 1984, designed to eliminate critical thinking, free will, personal identity, self-expression, and descriptions of objective reality
📅 Political correctness, resulting in dehumanizing language like “bodies with vaginas” for “women” 9/

🥸 The Newspeak tactic of renaming words/phrases so that disagreement is hard (e.g., removing "bad" as a word & replacing w/ "ungood")
📅 Slogans like "black lives matter," where the broadness of the phrase makes it difficult to state any disagreement with its methods 10/

🥸 "Memory-holing," where the controlling government effectively erases a person, word, or event from history
📅 Government-led "disappearing" of uncooperative individuals (e.g., the CCP memory-holing actress Fan Bingbing) businessinsider.com/fan-bingbing-c… 11/

🥸 The Party changing the status quo in real time, then acting like it's always been this way ("we've always been at war with Eurasia")
📅 E.g., Biden saying in 2020 that vaccines won't be mandatory (bbc.com/news/world-us-…), then making them mandatory for millions in 2021 12/

🥸 Another example of “we’ve always been at war with Eurasia" below:
📅 The sudden shift in summer 2020 from “if you’re out in big groups, you’re literally killing people” to “if you’re not out protesting in big groups, you’re a bad person” cbc.ca/radio/asithapp… 13/

🥸 Another example of “we’ve always been at war with Eurasia" below:
📅 E.g., the current administration expressing hesitance about *certain shots* under Trump, and now behaving as though such hesitancy is inconceivable 14/

🥸 Tiered society: the elitist Inner Party on top, then the Outer Party, then the Proles; the Inner Party have special privileges and exemptions from rules
📅 "Rules for thee but not for me;" e.g. @GavinNewsom's French Laundry dinner; only staff wearing masks at the Met Gala 15/

🥸Doublethink/speak (phrases that are obviously false but stated as true): “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
📅E.g., CNN reporting on “mostly peaceful protests” in front of burning buildings thehill.com/homenews/media…
“2 weeks to slow the spread” lasting 563 days 16/

🥸Doublethink, continued
📅 “My body, my choice” applying to abortion rights but not vaccine mandates; feminists who “support women’s sports” but see no problem with people who’ve lived 30+ years as biological males competing in said sports apnews.com/article/2020-t… 17/

🥸The Ministry of Truth, “which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts” & puts out propaganda
📅The too-close relationship between big tech, the media, and the government and their fight against “misinformation,” AKA whatever ideas they dislike 18/

🥸The Ministry of Truth, continued
📅The media/big tech declaring that story about Hunter Biden’s laptop wasn’t true when it was; the same declaring Russiagate was true when it wasn’t, at least in part greenwald.substack.com/p/the-indictme… 19/

🥸The mandate that there’s only one “correct” political party and set of opinions (The Party's)
📅Many people’s repeated insistence that they’re “on the right side of history” and the increasing lack of tolerance for any diversity of opinion washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/… 20/

🥸“Vaporization:” “Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten.”
📅Severe cancellations where one becomes an “unperson:” fired, socially isolated, etc. 21/

🥸Indoctrination of children so that they become spies who turn in their parents for “wrongthink”
📅The increasingly political stance of many teachers who take it upon themselves to transfer political beliefs to children rather than educate them neutrally/factually 22/

🥸The Thought Police who surveil the population looking for the slightest indication that a person doesn’t fully support The Party
📅 Scanning of social media, e.g., police showing up to people’s houses in Australia to question them about their posts reclaimthenet.org/australia-poli… 23/

🥸Controlling speech to control (and prevent) thought
📅Social media platforms silencing people (like @NICKIMINAJ), applying “misinformation” warnings, blocking hashtags/link-sharing around convos they don’t want to exist 24/

🥸Using citizens to spy on each other and report “ungood behavior”
📅 E.g., the Texas 6-week abortion law encouraging citizens to report anyone in violation newsweek.com/texas-abortion…
Encouraging citizens to turn in others who aren’t following lockdowns police.vic.gov.au/palolr 25/

🥸Tribalism: The Party vs The Brotherhood
📅Tribalism: vaccinated vs unvaccinated, Left versus Right, Republicans versus Democrats, etc. How about we focus on something we can all agree on: avoiding a future like 1984? 26/26