Why Are We Obsessed With Zombies?

Megalith

Megalith

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Um, I’m not. I think they’re slow, dumb, and ugly. But this writer thinks that zombie aficionados love them because they relate to their lack of emotion and joy, and their relentless urge to consume. Sounds about right to me. Aliens are way cooler.

Ultimately the zombie, like all good monsters, holds our attention because it raises many questions about the nature of the monster itself and about our response to it. This matters because what we are really looking at is ourselves.
 
I never got the whole Zombie thing. Cool for a scary movie, but soon everything was zombies. They aren't THAT cool. It's like they got trendy, then everyone wanted in on it. Like bacon. Yea, it's good, but it got such a huge circlejerk behind it that there are bacon flavored condoms, bandaids, soap..... Jeez. It's cool to like something, but when you're changing your tampon with a zombie green, bacon scented version, it's gone too far. Obsession is too far.

It's almost like those obsessed with zombies are similar to those obsessed with Twilight.
 
I don't think we are, I think apocalyptic whatever is a reflection of populaces economic outlook
 
I too have pondered this. I think it's actually something else.
To explain it, I recalled a dream I had where my closest were behaving erratically. I mean, walking unnaturally fast and jittery. I was very young at the time and wasn't exposed to zombies at all.

Came up with the following theories:
- humans have a natural, atavistic fear of corpses. It's a survival thing. If it wouldn't frighten us, our ancestors would have less chance of escaping a hostile environment.
- you can immediatelly tell a person is dead. It's just something in their expression. Normally it's your mindset that affects the tension of your facial muscles. Once you go, these minute individual features disappear and it's simply odd
- people in advanced stages of alzheimers scare the shit out of me because I realise I am looking at a simple biological machine, looping, replaying the same behavioral paths over and over, with that hollow stare that evokes dread because you don't know who the hell you are dealing with
- same goes for people who experience absence seizures. You're talking to someone and suddenly freak the hell out because the face that stares at you is no longer your interlocutor. His eloquence is replaced with a blank stare resembling the face of death
Again, I think it's an atavism. Parasitic, viral and bacterial disorders have been around for as long as humanity itself and whenever something 'not in the norm' happens you are conditioned to avoid it

Do you know what is the most chilling horror movie scene I recently saw? The one in Grudge, where a person living on one of the upper floors talks to his supposed friend through the intercom, lets him in and within two seconds that person is standing right outside the door, many floors up.
There's something in the human brain that catches events out of the norm and becomes overwhelmed with their absurdity.
 
It was entertaining for the first few Romero films,then it got repetitive and boring. The Walking Dead works not because of the zombies but the human characters and the story lines about their struggles to survive. And zombies make for very boring enemies in games.
 
Zombies are a metaphor for people who will turn on you in the event of shit hitting the fan. Looters, rioters etc.
 
it raises many questions...
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Because most people already act like zombies so it entertains be to shoot virtual ones.
 
here in Toronto there was a yearly zombie walk for the past 10 years, this year is going to be their last because of shortage of funding $50k
 
I've seen decked out "zombie recovery vehicles" which are usually mildly modified jeeps. It's sad that its come to this, believing the shit we see in movies. Though I suppose this has been going on since movies' existence began. Just look at what Reefer Madness did to people. God what an awful movie.
 
I love a good zombie movie as much as the next guy, but the people who seem to prepare for the zombie apocalypse and turn into survivalist weirdo's just boggles my mind.
 
People aren't obsessed with zombies, I'm fairly certain that it's just the easy way to have a large scale end of the world scenario where people are forced into the survival of the fittest/fight for survival scenario,
 
pothb said:
People aren't obsessed with zombies, I'm fairly certain that it's just the easy way to have a large scale end of the world scenario where people are forced into the survival of the fittest/fight for survival scenario,
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Well it seems to bring out the survivalist weirdo in more people.
 
Its a proxy for alienation. You are surrounded by people who you have less and less connection with every day. Since you can no longer connect, their differences are threatening to you and you can no longer trust them. It's genetic to see people who you no longer feel connected with as diseased or inferior in some way.
 
O. unilateralis, also referred to as a zombie fungus, infects ants of the Camponotini tribe, with the full pathogenesis being characterized by alteration of the behavioral patterns of the infected ant. Infected hosts leave their canopy nests and foraging trails for the forest floor, an area with a temperature and humidity suitable for fungal growth; they then use their mandibles to affix themselves to a major vein on the underside of a leaf, where the host remains until its eventual death.The process leading to mortality takes 4–10 days, and includes a reproductive stage where fruiting bodies grow from the ant's head, rupturing to release the fungus' spores.
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If a zombie bit me, it'd slowly succumb to a pattern of existential doubts and a general feeling of confusion. Joke's on them!
 
Dan_D said:
Well it seems to bring out the survivalist weirdo in more people.
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Talking about the entertainment aspect of Zombies purely, I think people love Zombie themed games/movies because of the survival part of it. You are either watching or playing something about individuals trying to do their best to survive something that is world wide with very little hope and you are rooting for the last parts of humanity to survive.

Its fun for sure, but those who take it to the next level and prepare for the Zombie apocalypse are the ones who make it seem lame.
 
Because you can enjoy shooting them, enjoy debating the death of society due to them, etc., without being offensive to others. No ethnic nor race issues. Zombies are dead, and are all dead, not just race/ethnic specific. So, you can have your fun, and it be "politically correct," too...
 
We went through a Vampire craze, and we are finally ending the Zombie craze. So what's next?
My vote/guess is mutated monsters caused by genetic modification.
 
Zombies made ideal fbs targets. They were mostly slow and plodding. They were evil and deserved to die but since their evil was usually due to some afflction killing them had a kind of euthanasia quality. Critics - always crying about violence in games - wouldn't want zombies to go on suffering when they could be released from their tormet (while also providing nice FX when their heads esplode). Zombies were perfect fodder
 
At least the zombie fad got people thinking about disaster preparedness. Sure, some people went overboard and became "preppers", but many more took a step back and actually made realistic plans to be prepared for that hurricane/fire/storm that is a danger in their part of the country.
 
I like a good zombie flick. There are a lot of bad ones though. As many have already mentioned though it's more about the apocalypse and the end of society and survival of the fittest than anything about zombies.

I like the walking dead because even if you secure your shit, anybody who dies turns into one, so you are screwed no matter what. That being said, it sure has a lot of slow episodes I could do without.
 
Of all the apocalyptic end of the world scenarios that are possible I personally find zombie outbreak to be the most frightening.

Zombies are walking dead. Unfeeling, uncaring, relentless. They are forever just shambling around. Get bit and you turn into one of them. What do you do? Wait it out and become one of them simply to shamble around yourself for an eternity or punch your own ticket?

At least in the United States a zombie outbreak would probably be the easiest to deal with. Lots of guns and ammo. All you'd need is a Ruger 10/22, a handful of BX-25 mags and a few bulk bricks of ammo. Low recoil, light weight, and by far the least expensive to stock pile ahead of time. You guys in Australia and parts of the UK, you'd be screeeeeeeewed.

Good scopes are inexpensive too. I have a nice Nikon .22 scope with bullet drop compensation built into it. Good fun and accurate enough for zombie work.
 
Commander FAT said:
Of all the apocalyptic end of the world scenarios that are possible I personally find zombie outbreak to be the most frightening.

Zombies are walking dead. Unfeeling, uncaring, relentless. They are forever just shambling around. Get bit and you turn into one of them. What do you do? Wait it out and become one of them simply to shamble around yourself for an eternity or punch your own ticket?

At least in the United States a zombie outbreak would probably be the easiest to deal with. Lots of guns and ammo. All you'd need is a Ruger 10/22, a handful of BX-25 mags and a few bulk bricks of ammo. Low recoil, light weight, and by far the least expensive to stock pile ahead of time. You guys in Australia and parts of the UK, you'd be screeeeeeeewed.

Good scopes are inexpensive too. I have a nice Nikon .22 scope with bullet drop compensation built into it. Good fun and accurate enough for zombie work.
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So amendment 2, america, and zombies. Got it.
 
Commander FAT said:
Of all the apocalyptic end of the world scenarios that are possible I personally find zombie outbreak to be the most frightening.

Zombies are walking dead. Unfeeling, uncaring, relentless. They are forever just shambling around. Get bit and you turn into one of them. What do you do? Wait it out and become one of them simply to shamble around yourself for an eternity or punch your own ticket?

At least in the United States a zombie outbreak would probably be the easiest to deal with. Lots of guns and ammo. All you'd need is a Ruger 10/22, a handful of BX-25 mags and a few bulk bricks of ammo. Low recoil, light weight, and by far the least expensive to stock pile ahead of time. You guys in Australia and parts of the UK, you'd be screeeeeeeewed.

Good scopes are inexpensive too. I have a nice Nikon .22 scope with bullet drop compensation built into it. Good fun and accurate enough for zombie work.
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Zombies are easy, it's the groups of humans that are the greater and harder to deal with threat. You have to sleep eventually either by choice or you pass out on your roof lol.
 
I'm a bit of an unusual geek.

I'm about as geeky as they get. (I mean, come on, I like Star Trek, and my biggest hobby involves enterprise server and networking hardware)

That being said, I've never been even slightly interested in anything Fantasy/RPG, manga/anime, or zombies.

I tried watching the Walking Dead when it first came out, but I found it required too much suspense of disbelief to be enjoyable.

(I DID enjoy Shaun of the Dead, but mostly because the comedy was up my alley)

I once tried to read the Lord of the Rings, but despite being an avid reader, (having read everything by Isaac Aasimov and Jules Verne among others) I could never get into it. The Fantasy genre was just too offputting from a "suspense of disbelief" perspective.

It's funny, I'm willing to put up with all sorts of fantastical stuff as long as it is science-fiction based, but as soon as magic, wizards, the undead, etc. enter into the equation I check out in a few seconds.
 
Manga/anime could be anything though - or are you just not into cartoons because they don't look realistic?

Aren't there sci-fi based zombies? Like, an outbreak of some experimental virus renders them emotionless and hungry for any other animal flesh, but not as easy to kill as a human and not lasting forever? Or, is that never considered a zombie?

I'm the same way, something too far from reality loses it's appeal. Futuristic and even some alien stuff is ok though, like the original Alien/Aliens
 
Megalith said:
Um, I’m not. I think they’re slow, dumb, and ugly. But this writer thinks that zombie aficionados love them because they relate to their lack of emotion and joy, and their relentless urge to consume. Sounds about right to me. Aliens are way cooler.
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Sounds more like the average teenager :D:D
 
A crowd of uneducated, drunk/drugged religious hungry people organizing a siege of your house because they heard you fooled around with neural networks and they think you're Frankenstein.

Genetic engineering mitosis gone wrong, producing disfigured cancer-like humanoids.

War induced famine while you're the owner of a large crops storage facility.

Showing up in the wrong pub with the wrong t-shirt on on game night.

Getting stuck in Calais because you lost your identification AND being subjest to quarantine due to an outbreak of ebola 2.0.

Getting stampeded during evacuation from a burning building.

Being around alive people is tricky enough...
 
michalrz said:
A crowd of uneducated, drunk/drugged religious hungry people organizing a siege of your house because they heard you fooled around with neural networks and they think you're Frankenstein.

Genetic engineering mitosis gone wrong, producing disfigured cancer-like humanoids.

War induced famine while you're the owner of a large crops storage facility.

Showing up in the wrong pub with the wrong t-shirt on on game night.

Getting stuck in Calais because you lost your identification AND being subjest to quarantine due to an outbreak of ebola 2.0.

Getting stampeded during evacuation from a burning building.

Being around alive people is tricky enough...
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Agreed.

Life would be amazing if it weren't for those "other people"

What the world needs is a lot fewer people. ASAP. :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1041812748 said:
I'm a bit of an unusual geek.

I'm about as geeky as they get. (I mean, come on, I like Star Trek, and my biggest hobby involves enterprise server and networking hardware)

That being said, I've never been even slightly interested in anything Fantasy/RPG, manga/anime, or zombies.

I tried watching the Walking Dead when it first came out, but I found it required too much suspense of disbelief to be enjoyable.

(I DID enjoy Shaun of the Dead, but mostly because the comedy was up my alley)

I once tried to read the Lord of the Rings, but despite being an avid reader, (having read everything by Isaac Aasimov and Jules Verne among others) I could never get into it. The Fantasy genre was just too offputting from a "suspense of disbelief" perspective.

It's funny, I'm willing to put up with all sorts of fantastical stuff as long as it is science-fiction based, but as soon as magic, wizards, the undead, etc. enter into the equation I check out in a few seconds.
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I'm generally the same way. I can watch sci-fi all day but if it's got elves and shit I'm out.
 
Romale23 said:
I don't think we are, I think apocalyptic whatever is a reflection of populaces economic outlook
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That and if you want to make a bad guy out of people, zombies are politically safe. Perhaps the only politically safe alternative than the white male and nazis.
 
OldandCrusty said:
We went through a Vampire craze, and we are finally ending the Zombie craze. So what's next?
My vote/guess is mutated monsters caused by genetic modification.
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The original version of 'Last Man on Earth' (the basis for the zombie movie 'I am Legend') was about the last human in a world full of vampires.

I would say the zombie craze is just a variation of the long-running vampire craze that never really ended.
 
michael.pa2 said:
It was entertaining for the first few Romero films,then it got repetitive and boring. The Walking Dead works not because of the zombies but the human characters and the story lines about their struggles to survive. And zombies make for very boring enemies in games.
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I was all into The Walking Dead the first couple of seasons because it was about the humans vs. the zombies. Then it became humans vs. humans with zombies as a side story almost. At that point I was out.
 
Enough with the zombies bring on Cthulhu. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
 
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