Essay:
Stranger Than Fiction Is life increasingly imitating art?
( 1 ) Succession's writers created such a convincing portrait of a feuding media empire family that Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan allegedly accused his brother, James, of leaking stories to the creators of the hit show.
( 2 ) “Sultana's Dream" also imagines a utopia called Ladyland, where women are in charge and men are secluded—an inverse of purdah, the traditional segregation that Hossain experienced at the time. As a result, there is no crime in Ladyland and the working day is only two hours long (men had wasted six hours smoking). Even the act of writing the story in English was a protest—Hossain had been forbidden to speak the language by her parents as it was thought to expose women to unsuitable ideas.
( 3 ) Neuromancer is considered an archetypal cyberpunk novel, a subgenre of science fiction that typically features a “combination of lowlife and high tech," as author Bruce Sterling writes in the preface for Gibson’s short story “Burning Chrome."
( 4 ) Zumas said in an interview with The New York Times in 2018 that “it was very intentional to make the situation in the novel feel ordinary, and therefore more frightening. One of the things about looking at the world through a feminist lens is that we are already in a dystopia.”
( 5 ) The interdisciplinary field of future studies, or futurology, is often considered to be a pseudoscience, given the sheer complexity of predicting the future and the number of factors that need to be considered. However, in recent years, it has become possible to study the subject academically and the job of futurist is becoming increasingly professionalized.
( 6 ) Authenticity, it seems, can be bought. In 2023, fast-fashion brand SHEIN invited six American influencers on an all-expenses-paid trip to visit its facilities in China. When the influencers posted about their experiences, with some allegedly reading prepared statements, the contrived authenticity and positivity—about a company that has long been criticized for violating workers’ rights—was quickly condemned by their followers and campaigners alike.
A billionaire’s rocket blows up in space. An ailing media mogul keeps an iron grip on his sprawling empire despite his feuding family. A new digital media platform announces layoffs. All were key plot points in the television series Succession, the final season of which swept awards season earlier this year. But these events have also subsequently happened in real life—think Musk, Murdoch and sadly, much of the media industry in recent years.
It can certainly feel as if it is becoming harder to distinguish between art and reality, especially with the increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence and theatrical politics in both the news cycle and as plot points in contemporary cultural works. But are writers really getting better at predicting the future, or is normal life just starting to feel ever more dramatic?
“Are writers really getting better at predicting the future, or is normal life just starting to feel ever more dramatic?"
( 1 ) Succession's writers created such a convincing portrait of a feuding media empire family that Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan allegedly accused his brother, James, of leaking stories to the creators of the hit show.
( 2 ) “Sultana's Dream" also imagines a utopia called Ladyland, where women are in charge and men are secluded—an inverse of purdah, the traditional segregation that Hossain experienced at the time. As a result, there is no crime in Ladyland and the working day is only two hours long (men had wasted six hours smoking). Even the act of writing the story in English was a protest—Hossain had been forbidden to speak the language by her parents as it was thought to expose women to unsuitable ideas.
( 3 ) Neuromancer is considered an archetypal cyberpunk novel, a subgenre of science fiction that typically features a “combination of lowlife and high tech," as author Bruce Sterling writes in the preface for Gibson’s short story “Burning Chrome."
( 4 ) Zumas said in an interview with The New York Times in 2018 that “it was very intentional to make the situation in the novel feel ordinary, and therefore more frightening. One of the things about looking at the world through a feminist lens is that we are already in a dystopia.”
( 5 ) The interdisciplinary field of future studies, or futurology, is often considered to be a pseudoscience, given the sheer complexity of predicting the future and the number of factors that need to be considered. However, in recent years, it has become possible to study the subject academically and the job of futurist is becoming increasingly professionalized.
( 6 ) Authenticity, it seems, can be bought. In 2023, fast-fashion brand SHEIN invited six American influencers on an all-expenses-paid trip to visit its facilities in China. When the influencers posted about their experiences, with some allegedly reading prepared statements, the contrived authenticity and positivity—about a company that has long been criticized for violating workers’ rights—was quickly condemned by their followers and campaigners alike.
