Bright Future? Apple’s Futurology of Dystopian Society

Have you ever thought which world our children are going to live in, or even how our life is going to be in next few decades? What are we going to be afraid of, how would our expectations and dreams are going to change? The concept that humanity being on its critical stage of evolution became the “magic formula” of the modern science development and social disputes. The question of where we are leading to, whether we are going to face the deepening of the existing crisis or its propitious solution, actualizes the problem of forecasting of unknown future of humans. In literature and cinematography usage of visualizations of the dystopian future are brought as examples of the possible consequences of issues of the current time and are proven long time ago to be a successful tool to attract attention of the audience to the problems of modernity.

In 1984 Apple decided to implement this idea in its famous “1984” Macintosh commercial video and introduced their vision of the future of information era. In accordance to this strategy they described dystopian world that is related to the world where IBM dictates its rules, while Macintosh is depicted as a tool of resistance to this dictatorship. Through the facts known to the audience, intensely used in the emotional appeal, combined with the bright images of dystopian society, Apple’s was able to make one of the most outstanding ads in history.

George Orwell wrote his novel in 1948, “inspired” by the communistic regime in the Soviet Union Russia and the future of the socialism. His novels had gained extraordinary popularity in America during the years of Cold War. The novel shows the dark realm of the communism and fitted well into American’s perception of the terrors of the Soviet Unio...

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...dystopian reality is likely to happen, it is likely to be avoided as well. We have a choice whether to allow this world to transform into dystopia or prevent that from happening.

For the summary, Apple’s genius usage of the relevant problems of the modernity, its reference to a legendary novel as a source of bright dystopian images, and appeal to the feelings and values so dear to the American fellow, made gave this advertisement truly deserve the title of the legend in the advertisement market. It was streamed only once, at 1984 Super Bowl which made its reference to George Orwell book even more symbolic. The purpose of advertisement was to introduce Macintosh, the first personal computer in its form today . Such revolution in technology world could only be made by the courage of people who “think different”, and its debut was like that, bright and memorizable.