this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

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[–] SunshineJogger@feddit.org 1 points 10 hours ago
[–] Potzblitz3001@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

(1953) The War of the Worlds

(1966) Fahrenheit 451

(1973) Soylent Green

(1984) 1984

(1999) Matrix

(2004) Children of Men

(2012) The Hunger Games

[–] jve@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

(1984) 1984

Thanks for the list, ChatGPT.

[–] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Also if you want to be an asshole, the title is Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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[–] JayDee@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Hmm, I think you've got a mistake in there bud. /s

It's a fair joke.

[–] Emerald@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think I'd cum if I stepped into that 2000's future. Place looks hella cool. 1950's future just looks like car dependent AI slop and 1980's future looks really bright and light polluting

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Elder millennial here. I knew I was in an earth destroying dystopia the entire time.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 107 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Terminator (1984), Terminator 2 (1991), and The Matrix (1999) have entered the chat...

[–] MutantTailThing@lemmy.world 70 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 60 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Soylent Green. Alphaville. Logan's Run. A Clockwork Orange.

Planet of the Apes.

[–] Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk 33 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I hate every chimp I see, from chimpan-a to shimpan-z

[–] in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 hours ago

"Can I play the piano anymore?" "Of course you can!" "Well I couldn't before."

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[–] ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 8 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Oh man. Soylent Green is pretty fucking close to what we're living right now.

  • Climate change
  • Housing being out of reach for working people who are now living in staircases and in the streets
  • Women losing their rights and becoming "furniture"
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[–] DrakeAlbrecht@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Terminator: "War is inevitable."

Terminator 2: "Actually, maybe not."

Terminator 3: "Oh yeah, never mind, there it is."

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Terminator: Arnie is the bad guy

Terminator 2: no wait, the first one made him a huge star so he's the hero now!

Terminator 3: Quick, let's squeeze one last one out before he becomes The Governator in a few months!

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 days ago

True Names (1981), Software (1982), Neuromancer (1984), Hardwired (1986), Wetware (1988)

Cyberpunk is lowlife and high tech. It's completely dystopian. The early 1980s was the height of the Cold War with Reagan in power. People were not optimistic about the future in the 1980s, they were just hoping that it wouldn't end in a nuclear war.

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[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Educated people saw the 2020 vision as far back as 1950s. They warned us many times, but we never listened.

[–] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 day ago (5 children)

"we"

You mean the rich and powerful who could've solved the systemic environmental issues didn't, who got it told directly all the time. Who could've done something against Exxon and the others. Don't lump the masses together with such assholes.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There /is/ a large portion of the masses who are perfectly aligned with the goals of the rich and powerful and are happy to shit on their own doorstep for even a moment's convenience

[–] jve@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Propaganda, indoctrination, and de-education, especially when applied over generations, are a hell of a force.

[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I mean 'we' as everyone collectively, as society. It's just manner of speaking. I wasn't even alive for most of the time frame mentioned, so I'm perfectly aware not everyone was actually able to 'listen' to the warnings.

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[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 58 points 2 days ago (32 children)

I do miss feeling optimistic about the future

[–] Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago

Don't worry, we were fucked since before you were born. We overshot our ecosystem long, long ago, it just takes decades for the consequences to catch up.

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[–] Xerxos@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, if we had risen up against the rich, instead of letting them rule the world at least the last image would have been avoided.

[–] LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Keep dreaming m8

The 1970s and 80s sadly was the start of the apocalyptic shithole future. Look up cyberpunk. The 90s economic computer boom really lead to a lot of optimism, but that is long gone now.

[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

lol ignoring the entire Cold War

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago

Finally, all the time in the world to read my books.

[–] HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub 4 points 1 day ago

Last time the wealth disparity before rich and poor was anywhere close to current one, we call it "medieval dark ages".

[–] gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

i mean, this mostly applies to american mindset. "work hard" is a function of progress; in the absence of progress, it stops making sense. and people who only knew how to work hard their entire life suddenly see that way of life ending.

there's a lot of americans who think that way. "work hard and you can make it". nah

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[–] Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 21 points 2 days ago

I mean the rich are building bunkers so the bottom Fallout 1 death screen is appropriate if you know the lore of the vaults/bunkers.

[–] chellewalker@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That last example is from the original Fallout game, which came out in the late 90s, not the 2020s.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That's not the implication or reason it's being used, at all.

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[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm reminded of the futurama time lapse when Fry is first frozen. Destroy, rebuild, destroy, rebuild, and so on...

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[–] DandomRude@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

This is exactly what those who are broadly portrayed as visionaries want.

Unfortunately, it never seems to have dawned on the general public that those who market themselves this way were never the visionaries.

Take Dennis Ritchie, for example, one of the original creators of C, who died just days before Steve Jobs: The media went out of their way to emphasize what a loss humanity had suffered, while failing to acknowledge that someone had died to whom humanity owes a great deal. They celebrated only the greedy capitalist who knew how to market a technology, but not at all the rather humble man who made a tremendous contribution without enriching himself at the expense of the common good.

That was a long time ago, but today’s world is still exactly the same - it even got way worse from there: no recognition for those who actually achieve great things, but only for those who step into the spotlight and thus appear to be the ones to whom humanity owes something.

In my view, this encapsulates everything one needs to know about our time—the absurdity of charlatans desperately wanting to be billionaires or even trillionaires.

This attitude has nothing to do with the real world, and it is a hubris that no halfway decent person would ever presume to have—yet humanity is ruled by exactly these megalomaniacal monsters because it collectively allows it.

So we are ruled by the worst that humanity has to offer—by unscrupulous opportunists who live only for themselves, have no sense of community, and have set up a system of undeserved triumph in such a way that only their own despicable kind can follow them.

It is a system that is directed against humanity itself.

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

We need to bring back reverse dominance hierarchy. Even in systems more "fair" like democracy, many of the most popular politicians are just shitty people very good at manipulation. Just picking people at random to serve would probably produce better results.

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[–] xxxb@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago

Understandable, but ysk that it is an illusion. You always think the past was better than it is now.

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