Dystopia is a tricky thing. We know what it is, although we sometimes struggle to define the edges of it. One definition I’ve seen is “A dystopia is a eutopia gone wrong.”

But I’ve been thinking a lot about dystopia this week, and I’d like to postulate a different definition.

“A dystopia takes a negative trend(s) in society and exaggerates it/them to its logical conclusion.”

For example, there is an entire subgenre of dystopias which take reality shows and make them deadly. These days, most people would think of Hunger Games, or the Korean drama Squid Game. In some ways, Ekpeki’s “O2 Arena” falls into this category. But it’s older than that. The Running Man was released in 1987 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (and has a few ripoffs). That’s the oldest example I can think of, but there may be older.