Fears of the Now

Here’s a little exercise! What are the fears of the modern day? I don’t just mean “clowns and Slenderman.” What latent and unresolved notions burrow their way into the modern psyche, whispering frequently and fervently until their refrains becomes a melody of constant dread? We have to know what they are if we’re ever to face them, defeat them, or commodify them for the betterment of the horror canon. Now, this isn’t going to be polished or prepared. I’m just going to spend my evening probing some, and we’ll list as many as we can manage.

• Fear: These stressful responsibilities will never end.
• Fear: Your neighbors and friends will never understand you.
• Fear: Those neighbors who don’t share your beliefs are plotting against you.
• Fear: Our world is dying.
• Fear: Our dying world cannot be saved.
• Fear: Morality is meaningless. It’s been wielded against us by immoral creatures.
• Fear: All of the world’s problems have been solved, but only for the rich.
• Fear: The mob wants to condemn us for our most human and accidental crimes.
• Fear: We are nothing but sacrifices to someone else’s idols.
• Fear: Communication is impossibly and irreversibly broken.
• Fear: Technology was a mistake, and we cannot turn back.
• Fear: Fascism.
• Fear: Modernization erases tradition.
• Fear: Modernization forcefully imposes change.
• Fear: Debt. It piles. It cannot be stopped. It grows.
• Fear: Choices that determine our future are being made by madmen and fools.
• Fear: No choice or vocalized opinion matters. You cannot change anything.
• Fear: All your labor were a waste of time. Your work has been for nothing.
• Fear: Abduction.
• Fear: Police violence, particularly racially or sexually charged.
• Fear: Mob violence, particularly political mobs or mobs of consumers.
• Fear: There is nothing magical left to discover.
• Fear: Someone is delighting by your misery.
• Fear: Our favorite things will be taken from us, one by one.
• Fear: You already lost. You already failed. You just haven’t learned or accepted it.
• Fear: No child will ever experience the joys that you knew.
• Fear: You already had the chance to live your best life and totally missed it.
• Fear: You are disposable.
• Fear: Some cancer or STI/STD is already killing you.
• Fear: Identity theft.
• Fear: Your most private information broadcast everywhere.
• Fear: Landmines of the internet dating world.
• Fear: Everything you eat is bad for you.
• Fear: Internet addiction.
• Fear: Epidemics of addiction – opioids, alcohol abuse, a boom in tobacco use.
• Fear: International inferiority.
• Fear: Growing illiteracy.
• Fear: People believe in fallacies and conspiracies at an alarming rate.
• Fear: We already live in a dystopia.
• Fear: The degree you’re working on is meaningless and worthless.
• Fear: Someone has already copied your key.
• Fear: People of different “generations” can never understand or respect each other.
• Fear: Your interests are being used to manipulate you.
• Fear: You are not special.
• Fear: You are special but thoroughly incapable of doing anything about it.
• Fear: The harder you work to be a good person, the more you lose.
• Fear: Someone is watching you through your webcam. Or closer.
• Fear: This modern world is the perfect playground for something evil.
• Fear: Most people are actually very happy with the world as it is. You’re just crazy.
• Fear: Every one else is on track to be saved from whatever this is… except for you.
• Fear: Typos that you never noticed actually cost you fame, fortune, & true love.
• Fear: You and your loved ones will lose everything in a flood or wildfire.
• Fear: People of different races and genders can never truly get along.
• Fear: People would choose money over you.
• Fear: You’re not active enough on social media to ever matter.
• Fear: You’re too active online to actually enjoy your life.
• Fear: Cults are operating all around you.
• Fear: Florida.
• Fear: Everyone is looking for an excuse to kill each other.
• Fear: A lonely life is the only safe life.

Welllllll, that was fun, but I need to go to bed! I’m sure that tomorrow I’ll think of several dozen more that I left out. I hope none of us lose sleep over it. Pleasant dreams!