How Do We Name Dystopias?

[@NameExplain]

What are some other dystopias I didn't mention in this video? I feel the Isle of Sodor is pretty dystopian, that place is messed up.

[@muckyyy]

Name Explain Detroit

[@dgray7537]

FAITH: Free American Independent Theocratic Hegemony From: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) available on audible.😏

[@martinfawkes595]

Clockwork orange

[@DemonFaceHUN]

Oceania from the novel of Orwell ofc

[@onefalcon7536]

New Pork City and Pigmask controlled Nowhere Islands from the video game Mother 3 another dystopia you didn't mention

[@MrAidenMan]

Actually, as a hebrew speaker, I can further elaborate on the meaning of "Gilead". The word "Gilead" is a combination of two words ("Gil" + "Ad") and is actually pronounced "Geel-Ad" in hebrew. It literally translates into "happyness-forever". The mountain range of Gilead is named that. Keep up the awesome videos! EDIT: grammar and clarification

[@lynchie2073]

ooh that's really interesting, kind of like the naming of the ministry of love in 1984, a complete inverse of the reality. but it also ties into how children are placed on a pedestal as the key to everlasting happiness in Gilead

[@ProxPxD]

Could you make a video about names in 1984 and how words can create our ways of thinking? Maybe some examples in real world.

[@LisaBowers]

Yes!! I want to see this.

[@eastpavilion-er6081]

Words can indeed shape how we think. For example, in Chinese, the planet earth is called 地球 which means ground ball. Yes, ball (which earth is, I'm not a flattard). Therefore there is little to no flat earthers in China.

[@NameExplain]

Lisa Bowers this would be so cool

[@NameExplain]

Sorry I meant that would be double good

[@legion999]

This idea that words shape thought is kind of terrifying to me

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

Pyongyang on the other hand is a utopia. A Juche paradise

[@josethethinket9819]

Kim Jong-un supreme leader is that you

[@brandonvistan7444]

The order of the greatest country in the world never ceases to amaze me.

[@sb9246]

Plz daddy. Plz don't kill me

[@great-wall-of-nowhere9377]

Nooooooo!!!, It was a perfect 69, if you want to like, just dislike!!!!

[@RedLeader327]

Can confirm that Pyongyang is perfect. 😍

[@goodlookingcorpse]

In-world, 'Panem' might be short for something like 'The Pan-American Union', or an acronym like the Pan-American New Empire of...something that starts with M.

[@bruhz_089]

Panada America Nexico Exico Mexico

[@darkwolfcz434]

Poland, America, North East and Mexico

[@melodysketchdraws]

George Orwell's house now has a 24/7 security camera outside it...

[@ekvedrek]

literally 1984

[@petrfedor1851]

"Would you kindly..." "Hey! It´s a thoughcrime!"

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

I live near NYC and although it’s not as bad as Gotham, it’s a nice city. I also like Adam West, he was fun to watch

[@dr.manofculture1492]

Well, it wasn't as nice as today before the 90's.

[@johnc916]

Avery The Cuban-American I live near nyc too

[@JonMI6]

Especially with the blackout

[@Xegethra]

I've visited there a couple of times in the last decade or so. Quite different from how it is seen in films from the 70's and 80's. Looks rough. There was a documentary about how New York went through a massive clean up operation in the early 90's, I forget it's name though.

[@kairon156]

I always thought Matrix was talking about the computer matrix.

[@ObjectsInMotion]

It is, its meant to be a pun of sorts. It also has a third meaning, that which something is embedded in. It's actually a pretty clever title.

[@johannageisel5390]

I only knew Matrix in the mathematical sense and I thought the film name alluded to the grid structure of a matrix and how people are being put into little boxes. Although, I probably also thought the makers of the film had no idea about mathematics and just used that name because it sounded cool and technical.

[@Zack-et9wj]

Can You Make A Video Why Himalaya and Malaya(Before it was Change to malaysia) has Almost Similar Name?

[@skaweirromeda6787]

Your content has gotten so good, I'm so mad that youtube stopped putting you in my recommended. I just remember your channel

[@wratched]

"Rapture" is likely taken from "rapture of the deep", which is an old term for nitrogen narcosis.

[@Fae_van]

Who here really loves "The Giver" i feel like it's such a good book, nicely written.

[@coyraig8332]

I saw the Netflix movie and thought it was good, then everyone got all those memories at once. Considering what else was in those memories, I couldn't stop thinking of how everyone immediately remembered a bunch of people using the bathroom

[@mage1over137]

Gotham is more heavily modeled on Chicago then New York. Metropolis is based on New York.

[@moreira999]

I think it's the other way round.

[@nordicfalcon]

I felt like Metropolis was more akin to L.A. or San Francisco. Between the feel and overall brighter colors, sunlight... or a sunny version of Seattle 🤣

[@claytonbenignus4688]

Another overlooked dystopia is Jules Verne’s “Paris in the 20th Century”, where Literature is supplanted by Technology. Those of means are Technocrats while the have-nots are the ones that vainly try to keep Literature alive. The protagonist perished in a snow storm while looking for his girlfriend, her family, and his impoverished uncle. The disturbing ending is an incomplete sentence that implies that the protagonist passed out and died in extreme cold.

[@bocbinsgames6745]

I think I read somewhere that: Pan-America Panam Panem Or something like that

[@boxylemons7961]

Panem was named after bread

[@rubberduck3y6]

Panem does come from Latin from bread as Patrick said, but this could work quite well as an in-universe etymology.

[@IONATVS]

Yeah, that’s what I assumed when I started reading it. Pan-Americanism was a major movement back in the day for all countries in the Western hemisphere to come together against the rest of the world, so it would make sense for a country trying to unite the remaining huddled masses to adopt that kind of language. And Pan Am was a common acronym for Pan American Airlines, one of the major US air carriers from the 30s until the 90s, making use of the name to advertise that they could reach any destination (that American tourists cared about) in the Hemisphere. And works better as an in-universe reason to name it than as a reference to “Panem et circenses” because it’s a concept that you can support without a sneer at the ignorant vulgar masses on your face.

[@daerdevvyl4314]

@@IONATVS Why would the ignorant vulgar masses be on my face?

[@rosswebster7877]

Great video as always Name Explain! Also major kudos for naming Bill Finger as the real creator of Batman.

[@Xegethra]

There is also Metropolis, a place that many future cities get their inspiration from, Gotham City, Metropolis from Superman, Dark City, Mega-City One, New York from the Fifth Element, Blade Runner's L.A. and so on.

[@ixalaz4536]

3:15 now, *THAT* is the *REAL* battle royal

[@manchest_hair_united1161]

From goat airports to goat city, all on the GOAT name explain .

[@Nimmo1492]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the village of Gotham in Nottinghamshire. It's pronounced "Goat-ham".

[@coyraig8332]

I used to think that, then I learned what "th" sounded like Edit: Thinking about it now, I more pronounced it "got-ham"

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

Why do the British have to be like that when it comes to place names? Sincerely a non-native speaker who really tries but will fuck up the pronunciation of villages and towns all the damn time. My brain still refuses to pronounce Reading like it is currently pronounced as a city name. It's not written as Redding for fucks sake.

[@garethbaus5471]

@@DieAlteistwiederda the spelling used for many of the place names in the UK originated centuries in the past when English was pronounced differently.

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

@@garethbaus5471 yes I know but how about changing the names slightly when the pronunciation changes? Other countries have done this. German city names are a good example. They did go through a few stages before they ended up how they are now. This is why you learn German and once you understand the pronunciation rules it's easy to say every word we have here.

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

@@DieAlteistwiederda because it's not as much fun? 😉

[@nerdbot4446]

9:30 Unlimited pleasure through sex and drugs? Where do I have to sign?

[@doorstopper674]

Go to your nearest slaanesh cult and sign up

[@Nukestarmaster]

Eh, it's a ration (not unlimited) of a single drug Soma. And you'd probably be created with the deliberate developmental disabilities of a lower caste. And the sex comes with weird religious orgies where you worship Freud/Henry Ford (who they have decided are in fact the same person).

[@hennobrandsma4755]

I also just listened to “Machines like me” by McEwan, in another audio app. Good one.

[@mollof7893]

I have an idea for a story that takes place in a province/county/whatever called Coulinpen. It is just "country line peninsula" pushed together. The place sits on a peninsula and that is the deviding line between the inner lake and the outer ocean.

[@lukeland6741]

Utopia And Dystopia Is Heaven & Hell.

[@Xegethra]

Hell and Hell. One man's Utopia is anothers opposite.

[@aRandom_dog]

For some reason a lot of people find killing children entertaining-

[@sunglassshinpan1352]

Only LEFTISTS!!

[@moomoomoo33ass]

Only Libtards! Trump 2020! Keep America great! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[@N.Doughnut]

That joke just went right over your thick skull didnt it?

[@LisaBowers]

@a Potato What's worse is it's _children_ killing children.

[@aRandom_dog]

@@LisaBowers ikr

[@AtaMarKat]

The best dystopia; The Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40k.

[@NotVeryRandomDude]

Regidonna Rogatywka *Utopia

[@AtaMarKat]

ThatRandomDude No, Mars is the Utopia there.

[@kirawestenra5077]

For Gotham, there's also a small village near Nottingham in England called Gotham, and a few miles away from it there's an Elizabethan house with a massive cave underneath............which seems pretty evocative to me

[@GermanRaptorLPs]

Already subscribed days ago. A man choses, a slave obeys.

[@skyloryt8063]

Gotham or Got Ham

[@jacksoniansonex9235]

An ad that played before the video was for A Handmaid's Tale

[@Steampunkkids]

‘Would you kindly subscribe.” I suddenly have an unstoppable compulsion to subscribe to your channel.

[@AceOfWaffles]

Once I subbed to someone just because they said "subscribe if you're awesome".

[@Steampunkkids]

Zipp 490, well, you are awesome!

[@AceOfWaffles]

@@Steampunkkids Thank you so much!

[@lynchie2073]

batman originally wasn't a goofy character, from they're conception comic books were mainly adult oriented and he was no exception. unfortunately, not soon afterwards they were all placed under heavy restrictions which forced all comics to be more child friendly, which is why the joker became basically a prankster. comics have gained back their free reign over time though, which is why batman gets darker every decade

[@Crick1952]

I don't have Audible, yet I must read

[@migukmoonpark4312]

I'm pretty sure there's a sizeable number of people who don't accept listening to audiobooks as reading; they're called assholes. Anyway, nice reference.

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

You do know you can download the kindle app free of charge for pretty much any platform? There's tons of free ebooks on Amazon (you do need an account, and if you download a free book they treat it as if you bought it). You can also download an absolute ton of free books on Project Gutenberg - many have (and the rest are having it added) the .azw kindle format. I spend hours on that site. I've actually started proofreading for them as I feel guilty about how much I've downloaded!

[@shawna620]

One of my favorite dystopian book series besides Hunger Games, is Scott Westerfeld's series, Uglies, Pretties, etc.

[@samwolfenstein5239]

The UK is a real-life dystopia.

[@robinhyperlord9053]

Explain.

[@Xegethra]

@@robinhyperlord9053 Given the description of the words, yeah it is one. Everywhere would count, nowhere is perfect, it's all bad to somebody. Everyone's Utopia is another's dystopia and vice versa.

[@adlerdrahms758]

based

[@grmancool]

4:53 *laughs nervously in spanish* Rodriguez, Hernández, Jimenez...

[@spiralpython1989]

My fave dystopias are the worlds of Bladerunner, Gilliam’s Brazil and the cat people in Dr Who...

[@xavieralvarado8411]

My understanding is that Gotham is actually new jersey

[@hoangtrunganh]

I've come to Ogijima once, just for the old lighthouse むぎゅぎゅぎゅぎゅぎゅ

[@Nukestarmaster]

I have to love that Panam has the exact same territory (minus the flooding) of the USA.

[@1k1ngc0br4]

*sees Gilead* YAY THE DARK TOW-"The Handmaides Tale"

[@sunglassshinpan1352]

I love the dystopian genre! Because they are all coming TRUE!!

[@matthewhemmings2464]

It would be interesting for you to expend on this idea. What makes you believe that and how is social media not influencing your opinion of what might be just the world being the world as it always was?

[@RedLeader327]

Dystopias are wonderful because they make you appreciate the world we live in. They’re also warnings about what could happen if we’re not careful.

[@yodorob]

Look at Venezuela in the past 10 years or so. That has become a true dystopia in many ways, due to the Chavez and then Maduro governments!

[@aircraft2]

I live near one. They call it 'Chicago'.

[@Donut-Eater]

I live in Chicago and I can confirm that the south is a dystopia but the North is eh

[@allanrichardson1468]

In the original comic books, Batman’s Gotham City (and also Superman’s Metropolis) represented large American cities with a realistic amount of crime, and the superheroes actually helped the police maintain order and protect the innocent. Perhaps because of our evolving awareness of the evil actions that “police” sometimes commit, the more recent portrayals of superheroes and the worlds in which they live has become more dark and “Gothamic.”

[@IndiBrony]

2:37 - I prefer to offer a nice egg in trying times

[@typograf62]

The Matrix may also be a nod to Conways Life. A very simple simulation were beings live, breed and die in a simple twodimensional matrix (showing complex behaviour). Another similar system is Wa-Tor were "sharks" and "fish" try to survive in some sort of balance. Wa-Tor (Water Torus) is a toroidal matrix. So for many programmers a matrix might be the World. Some cosmologists have somewhat similar ideas albeit in a universe scale.

[@sohopedeco]

This one was one of your cooles videos! Congrats!

[@symph2220]

I live in one, infamously named Brazil

[@williamsledge3151]

I named the Dystopian Goverment, Pristina, in my short story after the Latin word for Baker or Bakery.

[@johnc916]

William Sledge pristina is the capital of Kosovo

[@williamsledge3151]

@@johnc916 didn't know that

[@maxence2594]

Do you know one piece ? If yes can you do the origins of one piece islands ?

[@eve18bra]

Loved the vídeo!

[@waterdrager93]

More's Utopia is dystiopian. I always find this very funny

[@Nukestarmaster]

I have never heard of a "Utopia" in which I would want to live.

[@Apanblod]

Wait.. what was the name of that book-listen-website-thingy you hastily referenced in passing again? It went by too fast to pick up and the company name wasn't mentioned nearly enough times.

[@avaevathornton9851]

The Scrapyard (in the manga)/Iron City (in the movie) named after being built around and with the supply of garbage dropped from the wealthy sky city of Tiphares (manga)/Zalem (movie). #AlitaBattleAngel

[@brandonjordan2209]

Dude i love your channel's concepts and subjects, plus you taught me pig latin, hanktay uouyay amenay explainsay!!! 😄 Edit: I also really appreciate the inclusion of "Battle Royale" that old Japanese film, i've watched it before and to be honest, for its time i thought it was very well made and filmed

[@HarryPorpise]

What do you use to make your drawing in your videos? It looks a lot like Tayusi Sketches, and the watercolor background at 7:17 has the same texture as Sketches.

[@johnazhderian5734]

AirStrip One would be a great new name for Great Britain!

[@eastpavilion-er6081]

0:31 Who light those broccoli on fire?

[@RedLeader327]

The one whomst has nukes.

[@yodorob]

I think of alternate/what-if/counterfactual histories as either dystopian or utopian relative to real life. For example, at least to me as a Jew and as one living in an Allied country, the Nazis winning WWII results in a dystopian world. By contrast, at least to me as an Anglosphere lover and as a lover of more developed countries, an Argentina taken over by the British in the early 1800s (in the same manner as Canada, Australia, etc.) results in a more utopian Argentina (and South America in general).

[@tobleronej2882]

No views? No way.

[@ishouldhavetried]

I always thought Panem was short for pan-empire

[@JonMI6]

I thought We by Yevgeny Zamyatin would also be included in the list

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

I might have missed the following (apologies if I did), but I was looking to see if anyone had mentioned that Gotham is a place in Turkey. The mayor is somewhat peeved by the connection. Also most of Philip K Dick's books are dystopian. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep being one of his most famous (it became Blade Runner. Much as I love the director's cut, the book is better). Orwell's 1984 name for the UK was eerily prophetic. In the 1980s, with Reagan and Thatcher being so pally, we had a crap ton of nukes and aeroplanes dumped here. We nicknamed ourselves the US's biggest aircraft carrier... As an aside, he was going to call the book 1948, which was only a year or two after publication. His reasoning was obvious. There were still a lot of fascists around and the communist bloc was...🤷 well, growing! He was persuaded to change the digits around, yet weirdly, the timing was way closer to his initial thoughts.

[@brianmitchell4101]

The best dystopian novel series i know of is called Deathlands by James Axler. It is like the wild west but takes place in a future after a nuclear holocaust.

[@vtron9832]

Thank god you mentioned 1984, no dystopian list is complete without it

[@zdenek3010]

I would say the same about Fahrenheit 451.

[@shadepizza4217]

Just skipped an audible ad and the got another one

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

Some vague dystopian concepts for Y’all. A democratic dictatorship, in which a single person has absolute authority over all aspects of state but must be re-elected occasionally. A technocratic council, in which each department of government chooses its next leader based on the results of incredibly complex on-paper tests designed to root out undesirables. A republic who’s legislative branch only exists to program the executive AI that does everything, including elect them. A population that randomly gives birth to super soldiers who have essentially enslaved them under their military junta. A parliament that is entirely elected by one massive city that requires constant military campaigns in order to steal enough resources to feed its hundreds of millions of people.

[@vladprus4019]

The first one is just Tropico game in a nutshell.

[@WhiteBloggerBlackSpecs]

Thomas Moore's _Utopia_ sounds more like dystopia and what inspired _The Giver_

[@gmkar7766]

*have been forced to become handmaids

[@TIMBOWERMAN]

You skipped over 1984 (which was titled "Nineteen Eighty-Four") mentioning the three superstates and "Airstrip One"; how about Big Brother, telescreens, thought police and proles (proletariat) and Inner and Outer Party.

[@jrrollins84]

It would be neet to see you talk about the different fictional cities in DC comics.

[@JuanLopez-bn4mm]

8:30 Can't argue with that!

[@madalenamadigan2380]

I always thought that Gotham was based off of Chicago

[@AtaMarKat]

Madalena Madigan Nah, Bats would’ve been gunned down and robbed in the first issue.

[@Xegethra]

The 60's T.V. series used New York as Gotham. I don't know about the 40's serials though. But yeah it's mostly New York.

[@jackguest145]

So the Hunger Games are held in the country of Bread

[@tarionmarsden157]

Etymology of Coraline

[@gamingchamp6728]

Hey it is 1984 with scenes that albeit lightly resemble the war between Arstotzka and Kolechia!!! Anyone else know papers please?

[@mattreynolds3178]

Glory to Arstotzka.

[@oneofmanyparadoxfans5447]

Arstotzka so great, passport not required!

[@howtubeable]

That is not the interpretation of 1984 that I was taught in the United States. In fact, the name INGSOC means the English Socialist Party. I was taught that Orwell was writing against Socialism, not capitalism.

[@naarelservs9713]

Orwell wouldn't write against socialism because he was a socialist himself. However, he hated totalitarian regimes, and that's what he was writing against.

[@richardkenan2891]

@@naarelservs9713 Yes, he would. And did. Animal Farm being his most obvious example. 1984 being slightly (very slightly) more subtle. His disillusionment with socialism, at least as it seemed to always manifest in reality, was quite profound. He admired its principles, but he also came to realize that it seemed to always devolve to an authoritarian nightmare. He might have retained some wistful hope that socialism might eventually be implemented in a way that didn't devolve into something akin to Stalinism, but his disdain for every attempt to implement it in reality colored the latter years of his life. It didn't stop him from being pretty anti-American too. He was no fan of the American superpower coming to dominate the world, or in 1984 to dominate much of the world and contest the remainder with Soviet Russian and Chinese Communist power blocs, all totalitarian and invincibly corrupt. Although one interpretation of 1984 is that there are no rivals and no perpetual war, and Oceania might actually just be England (now Airstrip One) with the remainder being lies the government used to retain control. A rather optimistic interpretation, IMHO, given that it only consigns a few (admittedly fairly large) islands to eternal totaliarian dystopia instead of the whole world.

[@enricopozon8893]

Dystopia? Good examples: 1984, Animal Farm, El Filibusterismo and Lord of the Flies.

[@connormclernon26]

So “imperfect place” would refer to our world. So we live in a dystopia?

[@Ishowpeed]

The world will never be perfect

[@connormclernon26]

MRJ 1:21 it’s one of the listed meanings for dystopia

[@yodorob]

We, most if not all of whom live in the developed West, live in a relative utopia, whereas the least developed countries feel like relative dystopias to all but possibly their elites. Emphasis here is on relative.

[@ERROR_-_404]

War, war never changes. One Cookie for everyone knowing what game i'm refering to

[@ratlinggull2223]

obviously something in the mario franchise. wario, wario never changes.

[@RedLeader327]

I’m surprised he didn’t mention it. Ave.

[@shibolinemress8913]

Gotham is also a real town in the U.K. (Pronounced "goat-ham", I believe)

[@lynchie2073]

I always thought the matrix was referring to a mathematical matrix 😂

[@PatLund]

Batman was not convinced as a silly character. The early Batman comics were very dark.

[@IoEstasCedonta]

That didn't last as long as people think, though. Even in the forties, it was pretty silly.

[@wrexgrafix84]

Sorry, you're a little mistaken about the name of the fictional deserted island in Battle Royale. Although the real island it is based on does indeed break down to "man-tree-island" (男木島), the fictional one means "offshore-tree-island" (沖木島). Though they are more or less homonyms, the first kanji character is different, changing the meaning. You can't break it down with just the hiragana as you did in your video...that's just for pronunciation. The kanji 沖 (oki) they used for the fictional island is often used for ocean related places, and is the "oki" in Okinawa. By naming the island "okishima," it's almost generic, which is fitting for a mysterious deserted island where the kids are free to murder each other.

[@gerrwooken]

A friend has stated: "I refuse to read or watch stories of dystopias while living in one."

[@d.strassler9080]

The man in the high castle

[@hennobrandsma4755]

Good one, but the names are kind of obvious: greater Nazi Reich and Japanese Pacific states.

[@d.strassler9080]

Henno Brandsma The Giver’s communities. A “perfect” world

[@egalwasdukochstkarlmags1214]

7:05 The first thing I thought was Docm77

[@IoEstasCedonta]

Jim Hacker: "We're just an American missile base, aren't we?"

[@panpan3303]

So, dystopia means “the bad good place”?

[@OberstTeuton]

5:46 looks like a civil war map

[@bencevarga3508]

9:15 why is it a dystopia, it sounds fun to me :)

[@ARCtheCartoonMaster]

Your voice reminds me of Bennehh, but with more energy.

[@user-sz9dj1pl9o]

Sooo δυστοπία exists

[@Fae_van]

How do you pronounce that word?!???

[@novameowww]

It's pronounced "Dystopia".

[@Fae_van]

@@novameowww thanks

[@jovanweismiller7114]

You omitted the granddaddy of them all, 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

[@hennobrandsma4755]

Maybe “Blokken” (blocks) by Bordewijk (Dutch, note sure whether a translation into English exists) is even older than “We”. “We” is also good, and “Blokken” should be more widely known IMHO.

[@diegoreckholder945]

What about The Dark Tower Series?!?!?!?!?

[@indecisive.325]

7:07 HA GOTTEM

[@lynchie2073]

that passage from the Bible is far from implied as their inspiration, they straight up quite it several times and her instructions for the birth is the very same way they carry out their births. didn't realise he escaped to a place called Gilead though, that's wicked! really gives even more significance to that passage in regards to the handmaid's tale

[@eastpavilion-er6081]

I only realized until this video that Rapture is not rupture. Ugh.