Notes on the Zombie Apocalypse

Day 1,323, 15:34 Published in USA USA by Silas Soule



Greetings. You are all perfect in your own way. And far be it from me to discount the individual pain and pleasure of your individual libidinous drives and your utterly unique personal desires.

But, as I pondered what should be the next step into the psychological underpinnings of eRep economic, political, military and social behavior, I suddenly had an inexplicable hankering to do some work on the iconic and ironic reflection of the Zombie Apocalypse (ZA) meme into the New World, particularly as it applies to the e-United States.


Yes, that's right! You read my mind, you clever goose. It's true: I had been pondering ways in which Jungian archetypes get expressed in the game world. And I was going to write another ponderous tome on that very topic.





Most of that would be so obvious. I mean, ho hum...


The Hero


The Bawdy Pirate and Young Innocence Deflowered


Hunting, Searching, Wandering


The Trickster


Anima


Animus


Avatars



But! Exploring how the Zombie Apocalypse meme plays out as an eRepublikan lietmotif? Now that's good times!


So...

Naturally I'm thinking focus first on USWP politics as incubator/zombie-mother. Obviously, that's the iconic part. It's iconic because, within the collective story-telling of e-World (or, at leastt, e-USAnian) consciousness, whether the USWP truly embodies zombie behavior or not, they already have the zombie icon attached to them. In other words, it is still a popular meme, one they even promote themselves.

Plus there's that wonderful Mommy aspect to the USWP that resonates so well with that major psychological touchstone.

So examining how the USWP is the "Zombie Mother of US All" provides us with kind of a baseline perspective on this important question.


Eat your brains, dear!


Then I'd prolly move on to doing some "demonology" studies on the US Forums around the theme of archetypal annihilators and tricksters. That's the ironic part.

You know, get in a few zany reflections on being too cool for the zombie apocalypse meme because that is so 2009, but, in fact, participating in the game world just like real zombie would, returning from the grave to terrorize the survivors, eating brains of course, and going on various utterly inane rampages just 'cause, well, after all, what else is there to do?


US Forum bottom-feeders?

Thereby -- ironically -- providing evidence for the strength of the ZA meme after all.



And then maybe I'd finish up with a look at how various motifs involving heroic young actors, wise old men and wise old women play out over and over again, thereby providing the all-important psychological counter-point ("There is hope for us yet.", etc., etc.) and, not incidentally, organizing all us happy shoppers at the mall to fight off the zombie hordes while hewing to the spirit of integrity, unity, honesty and good, clean fun.


Because punk rock will never die.



The problem with all this is... beautiful as it as a deconstructive framework, in fact I don't know crap, really, about the Zombie Apocalypse meme. I mean, I've seen all the Night of the Living Dead movies, as well as Shaun of the Dead, plus one or two others.

But I'm not really deeply versed enough in ZA mythology to do this topic justice.


Therefore... I leave it up to you, gentle reader:

Please share your favorite zombie stories and let us all know how you think they are reflected in eRepublik.



The best, most interesting stories will be collected and turned into yet another epic bit of psycho-wonderous journalism for the pleasure of you, the reading, thinking, not-zombie public.


Thanks for reading and happy hunting,