nobody likes you when you're dead

[intertribal]

Chuck Klosterman has this interpretation for why we're living in a zombie moment (I remarked upon this a couple nights ago, when I noticed two different zombie video games being advertised on TV):

In other words, zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which the only true risk is being consumed by the avalanche. The principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do.

I'm pretty sure zombie fiction is popular because it's an adrenaline rush to live vicariously through people who are slamming axes through other people-not-people's heads.  That had to be part of what it was for me.

Five years after 28 Days Later blew my mind, I think I'm exhausted of the genre.  I just don't think much can be done with it, after all.

Comments

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I had that moment too when I read that sentence. I was like "YES!" And then "Huh? Oh, it's about Twitter."

Your second paragraph is exactly what I feel about the current zombie craze (I first started thinking about this while watching Zombieland). I think it's gone into hyper mode since 28 Days Later, which was much less kill-all-zombies (more like kill-all-soldiers in that movie) and much less... hyper and happy about it.