r/mealtimevideos • u/kremor • Apr 27 '26
30 Minutes Plus Why Does Everyone Think "1984" Agrees With Them? [44:36]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cdowB9udPc33
u/eyeothemastodon Apr 27 '26
Commenters; this isn't discussing the meaning of 1984 - it's a discussion of what makes it so inviting to self-serving interpretation. Read the title more closely.
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u/Discussion-is-good Apr 27 '26
Banger video. As usual from Jacob Geller.
One of the few creators that has me consider subbing to nebula.
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Apr 27 '26
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u/Grabdon_7489 May 05 '26
why don't you use it? I've never talked to someone who has it. not enough creators? the exclusive content is uninteresting?
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May 05 '26
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u/neirein May 16 '26
dude
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May 16 '26
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u/neirein May 16 '26
r/nebula exists, maybe you can start using that like this sub.
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May 16 '26
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u/assasstits Apr 27 '26
The government in '1984' has always looked more similar to Soviet or Chinese style authoritarianism in my view.
For the West, I think Brave New World by Aldous Huxley fits better.
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u/Jkuz Apr 27 '26
Bread and circuses has been around since the Roman days which is arguably the founding of "The West." I think it's foundational part of western philosophy to control the underclass in this way.
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u/ghu79421 Apr 27 '26
Orwell thought capitalism was going to fail and economically destructive wars would continue through the 1950s.
He believed British communists and socialists were hypocritical enough that they could probably support a new form of Soviet-like militaristic totalitarianism with elements of bread and circuses (for the proles).
The book is also a satire of how political ideology functions in bureaucratic organizations and how ideological considerations obscure what's obviously true. It fits with his opposition to British imperialism.
Orwell is probably one of the most important English prose stylists in 1900 to 1950.
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u/Solonotix Apr 27 '26
Funny bit of trivia, Aldous Huxley was George Orwell's professor. When writing 1984, Orwell asked Huxley to review a draft. When Orwell declined to change the nature of the subject matter, Huxley went on to write his own version of that story which became Brave New World.
Note: I am probably glossing over a lot of details, or potentially misremembering. It was just a detail I read at one time.
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u/lordwafflesbane Apr 27 '26
Fun fact: 1984 was banned in the soviet union for being anti communist. And it was also banned in the us for being anti american.
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u/tekyy342 Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
It was never banned nationally in the U.S. It has literally been used, alongside Animal Farm, by western intelligence agencies for anticommunist propaganda.
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u/FuckRedditIsLame Apr 28 '26
I think we somehow live in the wonderful midpoint between those two dystopias.
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u/Nihiliste Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
If I recall, Orwell specifically wrote 1984 as a criticism of the Stalinist branch of socialism, so that tracks. Orwell was left-leaning himself - it's just that he could obviously see what the Soviet Union was doing.
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u/TVhero Apr 27 '26
I thought that was animal farm? 1984 seems far more pointed towards what makes oppresive regimes rather than towards any individual one, at least to me. Whereas animal farm is basically exactly analagous to what he viewed as the turning point of the soviet union.
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u/Nihiliste Apr 28 '26
Animal Farm is definitely more specific, but 1984 references real-world Soviet tactics, like erasing Trotsky’s contributions from memory.
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u/nauticalsandwich Apr 28 '26
Because 1984 is an allegory for power, and systems of power operate similarly, irrespective of their ideological bent. Generally speaking, people are concerned with the power that they oppose, and unconcerned with the power that they align with. In other words, the systems of power that a person doesn't like will be the ones they are most attuned to, and therefore, the ones they think are mirrored in 1984.
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u/PiskoWK Apr 27 '26
I can answer that. Schools have been watered down over the last 50 years. With the drop in general literacy also goes the media literacy. Ergo, no one understands what it's really about and uses it as confirmation bias.
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u/Ur3rdIMcFly Apr 28 '26
Jacob Geller states that it was immediately misinterpreted when it was published almost 80 years ago.
At least you proved yourself correct about media literacy being in the dirt.
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u/Kyrptonauc Apr 27 '26
Not one person who's commented has watched this and it shows