The Zombie Apocalypse: Why It’s Been Happening for Over a Decade

The Zombie Apocalypse: Why It’s Been Happening for Over a Decade

Jeff LoPilato

Since 1968, with the release of Night of the Living Dead, zombies have become one of the most recurring monsters in the media (Barber).  They are in film, television, comics, books, and video games.  Some of the most popular media featuring zombies include Dawn of the Dead, The Resident Evil Game Series, The Walking Dead, and World War Z.  The zombie breakout began when the theme returned from the grave in 2002 with the release of 28 Days Later and hasn’t slowed down since (Barber).  Just when they seem to be dying out they pop back up again and come at you.  Uncertain times we are living in, anxiety about the future, an intrigue in survivalism, and our hope that the human race would rise from a large scale disaster cause our fascination with zombies and zombie apocalypse narratives.                    

Over the past decade we saw banks failing, new and more extreme weather patterns due to climate change, terrorist bombings, and a United States federal government shutdown.  These events trigger thoughts to enter people’s heads about a collapse of the system.  People question what would happen if everything we know in today’s society deteriorated, and how that would happen.  These events wrap people’s minds around these thoughts so much that they end up wanting to watch films and play games with these same themes.  It was only a couple weeks after the U.S federal government shutdown that the 4th season of The Walking Dead premiered with 16.11 million people tuning in, which was 5 million more than the previous season’s commencement (Barber).

Max Brooks, the writer of the book World War Z was based off said that in our society we see constant scary global catastrophes on the news.  The stream of disasters gives us as viewers a desire to explore our fears about potential apocalypse in a safe way that won’t give us nightmares or anxiety, AKA other media outlets like film and television.  The media allows people to see the end of the world and understand what that might be like without having to fear what they see because it’s fictional.  Zombies therefore take on a contemporary fear and fantasy, becoming the genre of apocalyptic fantasy that people are curious about (Barber).

Recently there has been a movement among many people to prepare for disaster.  They are influenced by events like nuclear explosions and pandemics in other countries.  The September 11th attacks, in particular, shifted people’s concept of what kind of disaster was capable of happening close to home.   These events also trigger us to imagine what the future will be like, and based on what we see it doesn’t look bright.  The interest in what could potentially happen is what drives people to prepare for any type of apocalypse.  They will stock up on food, airguns, ammunition, warm clothing, and so on.  Of course these slight extremists will be watching all of the apocalyptic media, especially that which contains zombies (Geiser).

When a zombie apocalypse hits, there are always a group of survivors who were lucky and or strong enough to remain unaffected by the outbreak and are faced with fighting the zombies that roam the earth.  The hope for this group of people is that they survive against all odds and rebuild the world from its ruin.  I’ve already explained why we as viewers are fascinated with the end of the world aspect of zombie media, but we are also hopeful for survival of the end of the world.  It gives us a freedom to think about starting anew in a new post-apocalyptic world (Geiser).  It is the classic phoenix rising from the ashes scenario, and it is that final hook that zombie media has on us.  Let’s face it a film like World War Z wouldn’t have done nearly as well as it did in the box office if eventually everyone, including the luscious haired Brad Pitt, died, leaving zombies to rule the world.  They instead, captivate us and continue to thrive in the media, outlasting all other similar themes including vampires and werewolves.  With The Walking Dead just airing its 6th season and Nazi Zombies still being released as a part of the Call of Duty franchise, the zombie apocalypse will continue to thrive in our media.

Barber, Nicholas. "Why Are Zombies Still so Popular?" BBC. BBC, 21 Oct. 2014. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

Geiser, Kelsey. "Stanford Scholar Explains Why Zombie Fascination Is Very Much Alive."Stanford News. Stanford University, 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.