Strange Bedfellows

Dystopia in the Form of a Dictionary

Heather Horn 19 Views Sep 13, 2010
To our knowledge, this is a new one: expressing dystopian visions in dictionary form. Douglas Coupland's Monday New York Times op-ed is merely a list of new words and phrases that "encapsulate our present moment," complete with suggested definitions. For example:

DENARRATION The process whereby one's life stops feeling like a story.

DESELFING Willingly diluting one’s sense of self and ego by plastering the Internet with as much information as possible. (See also Omniscience Fatigue; Undeselfing)

DIMANCHOPHOBIA Fear of Sundays, a condition that reflects fear of unstructured time. Also known as acalendrical anxiety. Not to be confused with didominicaphobia or kyriakephobia, fear of the Lord's Day.

FICTIVE REST The inability of many people to fall asleep until after reading even the tiniest amount of fiction.

FRANKENTIME What time feels like when you realize that most of your life is spent working with and around a computer and the Internet.

Unorthodox, but effective. Call it Orwell, compressed.

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