Relating to or describing a dystopia; depicting a nightmarish or oppressive future society.
Adjective form of dystopia, following standard English formation with '-ian' suffix. Became popular in literary criticism during the 20th century to categorize science fiction and speculative fiction.
The word 'dystopian' has actually become more common than 'utopian' in modern culture—we seem obsessed with imagining worst-case scenarios! This might say something about how we process anxiety: by reading about fictional societies worse than ours, we feel oddly reassured.
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