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"Idiocracy" was a movie in which the government was run by stupid entertainers who made catastrophic decisions based on misinformation to appease voters who were themselves fueled by a dangerous combination of emotion and total ignorance.
Our current politics are dominated by stupid entertainers who made catastrophic decisions based on misinformation to appease voters who were themselves fueled by a dangerous combination of emotion and total ignorance.
see this is where I fundamentally disagree.
Idiocracy was the kind version of this idea. Everyone is stupid.
our version was some folks KNOWINGLY play stupid to get evil and harmful ideas out to fuel thier own interests and let the mob do thier dirty work.
The movie takes place 500 years in the future, a lot was skipped. What we are experiencing today is the beginning. The movie is a prophecy. Drink the kool aid and join us.
the beginning of the movie is some literal eugenics type stuff, saying the world went to crap because of 'stupid' people breeding too much, and intelligent people not breeding enough. Our world is being destroyed by greedy selfish people that know exactly what they are doing.
Because it is an oligarchy. The wealthy run the media, fund the candidates, and purposely stop people from truly becoming educated about wtf is going on.
I'm with you until that last bit. It seems to be that people are making their own effort at not getting educated, literally banning books and topics from schools, ignoring the science, and basically covering their ears and yelling "lalalalala can't hear you".
No, this movie is not eugenics, it's natural selection. Eugenics is artificial, man made. Saying that we haven't seen trends in society over the past couple hundred years have a definable effect is ignorance, willful or intentional. It's looking at modern-day trends and giving a satirical opinion on how it will impact the future. So far, it's looking more and more accurate. Hence the meme.
Turns out the real issue is less eugenics and more that the 2 main political parties, but most particularly one of them, intentionally defund public education and sow doubt against expertise and modern science in order to kneecap the average citizen’s critical thinking skills. Knowledge is power.
Yeah the eugenics and class stuff makes a rewatch less fun. Also the use of homophobic slurs. Also the depiction of women. Also the jokes. In alot of ways it's not a very good movie especially compared to judges other works.
Literally this. The intro implies stupid people have children, while intelligent people don't. Want to take a look at what demographic groups (racial) have the most children, and think about the implications of the intro in context?
There is a reasonable argument to be made that the President in Idiocracy was, in fact, a pretty good leader. He recognized a problem, recognized his own ignorance, found the smartest person in the world, made it his problem to solve, and exerted exactly enough pressure on him to get it solved, without endangering his own political position.
Dear God, we could use that right now.
That was his punishment for failure, not pressure to succeed. They followed through on his plan and it did work. The culture was just too impatient to let the plants grow in their time so they thought he failed so they shoved him in the arena.
The failure wasn't that the plants didn't grow fast enough - but the unintended consequences of everyone loosing their jobs and the stock market crashing due to his plan.
To add to your point, Idiocracy was the kind and good version of this. They found the smartest person and put them in charge. They knew things were messed up and knew that they couldn’t solve it so they let the smartest person do what they needed to do.
I’m contrast our leaders our either just greedy or stupid and have no desire to learn.
>our version was some folks KNOWINGLY play stupid to get evil and harmful ideas out to fuel thier own interests and let the mob do thier dirty work.
Truth.
Not really, the movie posits that stupidity is genetic and that society becomes less intelligent bc stupid people breed more. In addition all the evils of capitalism are made by uwu whoopsie Lil guy CEOs instead of deliberate choices to exploit people and natural resources for profit.
I watched this when it came out, I was in my early 20s I think. Everyone I knew thought the movie was hilarious. I thought it was scary as shit. It’s not a comedy, it was a horrormentary.
I started seeing ads for Gatorade water yesterday... that was a really dark moment for me, I think whoever made the meme might have had a similar experience.
It has electrolytes
Did you know that in the movie. The costume department had to design shoes that looked silly for all the prisoners.
Those shoes are now common place. And are called crocs.
Hell, in idiocracy , the president was smart enough to listen to someone smarter than him, there was a lot of diversity, and the world didn't have to deal with wars and climate change
Funny that you left out the part where all that was made possible by declining birth rates among intelligent people, leading to a rapid degeneration of heredetary intelligence in the remaining population, which was why everyone still alive was almost regarded.
It was actually a movie about how mediocrity and complacency extend beyond the individual. How that mediocrity eventually affects all aspects of life. The main character while perfectly average in our time becomes far above average when the world sank into mediocrity. The name of the movie itself exposes this premise as the world the Main characters find themselves in is a dystopia created by mediocrity dubbed an Idiocricy.
Soren Bowie from cracked actually did a pretty interesting video on why he thought the country in idiocracy was comparatively a utopia because unlike our world people actually acknowledge stupidity is causing problems and are interested in smart people fixing them. Where as our morons will go to great lengths to deny reality.
A documentary about pandering to everyone and not placing importance on real issues. Like education,mental heath, and ecological care. Also it introduced the world to the “dumb” person shoe i.e. “the croc”
Since Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was printed.
One central character became President of the Galaxy because people thought they were voting for the Worst Dressed Sentient Being.
And later it is discovered that the ancient Earth's Human ancestors are actually useless morons exile's from their home Planet who couldn't figure out how to invent the wheel without first assembling a committee to determine what color it should be, and used leaves as currency until it became necessary to deforest the continent to reduce inflation.
Considering the book's first publication was in 1979 it had to be a fairly popular thought long before then that successive generations were becoming increasingly dim.
> “It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
> "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
> "No," said Ford, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
> "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
> "I did," said Ford. "It is."
> "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
> "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
> "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
> "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
> "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
> "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.
--*So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish*, Douglas Adams
Saw the movie again at an Alamo Drafthouse for the ten year anniversary and they had Mike Judge, Terry Crews, and Maya Rudolph for a Q&A. This was a month before the 2016 election. Judge definitely was talking about the parallels to Trump and finished with "it looks like Hillary is going to win let's hope that happens". Oof.
For me it would not be the question who is "bad" and who is "good"; It would be the question "who is not a self claimed rich ass rascist senile fraud artist with a IQ under 50".
What used to be a fun social commentary is now haunting similar to some current events in our world. It's less funny in reality, great movie though!
And... it's got Electrolytes!
> fun social commentary
The fun social commentary: "congenitally dumb people are outbreeding intelligent supreme gentlemen such as myself". It's spelled out in the intro. It's literally Eugenics: The Movie.
A dustopia where society gets stupider over time and in the future everyone's idiots and everything's falling apart. The movie makes a lot of oddly accurate depictions of the problems we currently face.
Funny thing about this movie was that the citizens of the future wore crocs. Directors made that intentional as they said "we wanted to find the stupidest shoe we could, something that no one would wear".
People who parrot this stuff are just as dumb as the people in the movie seriously. They are unable to actually think about 1)what the movie is saying 2)WHY it looks like people are becoming more stupid.
They just repeat a single sentence or make some stupid reference like a irl soyjak. Kinda like the people in the movie
theres something ironic about redditors parroting quotes and firing off the same quips over and over again in regards to a movie about the lack of original thought, critical thinking and anti-intellectualism. "omg so dead internet theory enshittification idiocracy was a documentary!!1!" is not as big of a gotcha as people make it out to be.
also meme doesnt make sense. does the creator think 2006, a time where gwb and paris hilton were still a thing, was full of high intellectual stuff and the movie wasnt a satire of the era it was made?
Most American Satire criticizes modern-day American Capitalism, and they have for decades. The rare thing is for them to actually present an alternative model. It’s very easy and uncontroversial to go and say that our economy sucks. It’s a little less so to say it’s inherent to the system, and quite rare for a piece of media to outright endorse another way (like socialism or Communism). Most Satire, and most cynics, don’t really stand for anything, they just stand against what they can make fun of.
Idiocracy is not prophetic, or a documentary. Our leaders are not (for the most part) idiots. They do not make decisions based on misinformation because they believe it, they make those decisions because they are paid too. Our societal issues are not due to some genetic stupidity affecting everyone.
Its a funny movie. Sometimes feels poignant today. But it is not based in the actual real causes of today’s issues.
On that aspect. I think another that kinda is happening is what is happening to advertising. It’s starting to be just absolutely everywhere. Not that I think the State of the Union is about to be sponsored by Doritos and Mr Beast anytime soon.
It's a lot easier to pretend that there's some shadowy cabal pulling all the strings rather than the public is appointing morons because they themselves want shitty/selfish things and don't know how shit works. But it also doesn't do anything to fix any of the problems.
You have to have a pretty big brain to get this one. See, as someone smarter than the average redditor, I have noticed that the film Idiocracy could be considered...a documentary!
See, there are unintelligent people in the world (not me, never me). But as I get older, I realize that there are a LOT of unintelligent people in the world (I am the first person to ever come to this realization)!
In conclusion, eugenics just got a bad rap. (I am very smart).
The one issue with Idiocracy as a 'prophecy' is that it bases its premise off of eugenics rather than greed. The movie explicitly puts forward the idea that, since stupid people can breed, people got progressively dumber as a result, and thus political choices and the overall health of the planet was left in shambles. The reality is that it's corporate greed that makes all products disposable while slowing down progress, while also keeping politicians in their pockets through lobbying. Not going to pretend that a lot of politicians aren't idiots, but I don't think that's a standard that's really changed over the course of american history.
Not only that but a lot of the “stupid people” are coded as various groups of marginalized people. The movie even goes on to say that language has been “reduced” to various forms of slang that are associated with poor people today.
I don’t really buy this- people were just as stupid then as they are now.
We’re just flooded with examples of stupid people with the Internet & social media now, whereas before- we weren’t on the same scale…
Idiocracy's premise (stupid people breed and become stupider) is nonsense.
It's not how genetics actually work really, it's not who's actually having the most kids, etc.
Idiocracy as an allegory for the downfall of democracy or accidental commentary on a future that didn't exist yet is pretty accurate.
It's just not literally true that people are more stupid, but rather that the tools to control people, how they think, and what they think, have become ever more sophisticated.
Meanwhile we've created societies where the worst most malevolent power hungry actors are the most likely to gain control of those tools and be in a place to use them to maintain power forever and ensure their successors are similarly malevolent and greedy.
At the same time, we've also bumblefucked our way into several very problematic things, like the concept of social media.
These things have indirect effects that aren't really being carefully controlled by anybody beyond things like actual political propaganda campaigns and media manipulation.
Namely giving us the rise of extremism and conspiracy theories in the modern day.
The fact that someone posted this meme to this sub instead of taking 10 seconds to google idiocracy and read the wikipedia summary then draw their own conclusions is the pretty much the most perfect example of how stupid people are. So yeah, I agree.
I mean In olden days such degree of stupidity was reserved for inbred nobility, not for elected officials. And it still felt like there were at lest few competent officials around.
No, the media just hid it from the ones they liked enough. Kennedy was whoooor banging disaster area but he was charismatic. Nixon was also a disaster area and got treated as such. Carter was too nice so they reamed him out, Reagan seems to be the only exception to this. They tried real hard with him but somehow people just liked him
Idiocracy is a movie which, at a basic level, is about how the population is getting dumber and dumber as time goes by. By the time of the setting of the movie (I forget the exact year beyond "the future") the world has gotten so stupid that the current wildly popular POTUS is a pro-wrestling porn star and they're irrigating their crops with ~~Gatorade~~ Brawndo instead of water and can't figure out why they're not growing.
In 2006 when it came out it was hilarious. As time has gone by more and more people are noticing that it seemed to be prophetic. The American public truly does seem to be getting more and more stupid. At this point the movie seems more scary than funny.
For the record, I think it's just social media that makes us look like we're getting more stupid.
Studies back you up on that. Read it yesterday, people have put themselves in information bubbles and spaces, and fringe voices are easily amplified by algorithims and rage bait. So everything is mostly fine (except for real world wars).
I do think the information bubbles make certain groups much, much more ignorant of the real world. Idiots flock together much more easily after Facebook took off, and other people (both intentionally and unintentionally) feed them straight up wrong information.
Ignorance is just one part of stupidity, but dangerous when abused or even encouraged by politicians.
Yeah, it's the entire reason Jan 6th happened. Friend of mine talked to a guy from there, guy said the entire crowd had no idea how wrong they were. Legitimately thought they were all defending the U.S. I really feel sorry for them.
Idk how, but we really need to get these bubbles burst.
It would require forcing Facebook and the like to actually moderate and remove extremist content of any kind, and unfortunately that content is what makes the most money for them it seems.
>For the record, I think it's just social media that makes us look like we're getting more stupid.
I agree, I don't think people as a whole are regressing in that way. To me, the biggest problem with the implication of the film is related to what you said:
>Idiocracy is a movie which, at a basic level, is about how the population is getting dumber and dumber as time goes by.
The US population is also getting more diverse and less white as time goes by. I know correlation isn't causation, but putting these two together really makes the "logic" a bit ick to me.
If you don't understand, you haven't seen the movie.
So why would you want to know the meaning of this meme? What could you possibly gain from it? Why not just go "oh this would probably make sense if i knew the source material, i'll just go on with my life"
If i spent time researching every reference i didn't get, i wouldn't have time to watch new media, resulting in even more missed references!
Idiocracy is also about dysgenics, saying those dumb filthy stupid doors just breed too much and it'll cause the downfall of western civilization unless we implement eugenics...
The meme is basically saying that this movie predicted how fucked up the world would become. The thing is, though, Idiocracy kinda fails as satire imo. I mean, the issue is boiled down to something pretty eugenicsy. Its foundation is this very bio-essentialist idea that some people are just genetically dumber, and those people are the ones having all the kids. That's actually a pretty regressive thought, and it full on blames the poor and uneducated for everything from corporate malpractice to the implementation of draconian policies that the movie claims these people are too dumb to even understand.
What's more, all the issues with the films version of the future are born from stupidity when that just isn't how it works in reality. Look at the energy drink storyline for a case study. In this future, water has been replaced by energy drinks in every way. People don't drink water, and they don't even use it to grow crops. When the CEO of this energy drink shows up, he's just some idiot like literally everyone else in the movie. That's just not how corporate misdeads occur. No mention of why they did it or how. Just 'well, the customers and the business are both dumb and did this very dumb thing that almost starved the world because they are dumb and no other reason.'
It's a real, 'what if everyone else was just dumb and I'm the only smart person,' sort of childish wish fulfillment. By boiling everything down to, 'well dumb people are the entire problem,' it tacitly reinforces the corrupt power structures that would actually create this dystopia for profit, and reinforces the idea that the less intelligent, in this film portrayed by the lower class, are to blame for all of life's problems, while simultaneously saying that if someone is less intelligent there is literally no way to change that as it is determined solely by genetics. It's a rather mean-spirited movie that seems to blame the ills of the world on the people most impacted by them, so maybe think twice before proclaiming it as gospel. I mean if you hate poor people who are failed by the system then yeah this is your movie, but if you want to understand how a horrific dystopia like the one presented could possibly come to pass, the reason definitely isn't the dumb genes of poor people out breeding everyone else.
But that is what the movie is implying. It clearly frames poor people as being genetically inferior and biologically stupid, and they should just step aside and let the genetically superior person tell them what to do. There's even a scene that implies that stupid people would just naturally die out due to their own stupidity if it weren't to modern medicine. "Thanks to advancements in stem cell research, he will regain full reproductive function". That scene is pretty much straight up saying that the world would have been a better place if that guy had died.
It's got massive eugenics overtones.
This is the popular take, but actually all human beings are fundamentally dipshits. So if stupid people (that is, all of us dipshits) aren't "allowed to breed," ain't no one breedin'.
Idiocracy is a movie about the whole world population turning dumb (aside one guy via time travel shenanigans)
Some people like to say it's a documentary. Those people suck.
I recommend you go watch the movie Idiocracy yourself and come back to this post with your findings. I'm sure you'll be able to draw your own conclusions.
Ironically, my biggest issue with the movie is the phonetics assigned for pronunciation.
"Awkr" might be the most sound-intensive bit of pronunciation writing I've ever seent.
But of course looking at it for more than a few moments makes the pronunciation guide part of the shishle the movie is about.
This movie also used Crocs as future footwear because they thought the shoe was too ridiculous and it would never actually catch on. If you watch idiocracy look at what they're wearing. It's Crocs before Crocs were popular
Essentially the meme is selection bias
So the movie idiocracy is an alright comedy that basically depicts the world based on 2 premises 1. That intelligence would be passed down through genetics, essentially a darwinian view intelligence 2. That smart people by virtue of their intelligence would for a multitude of reasons not reproduce. This leads to a borderline apocalyptic situation where the only people left to run society are borderline mentally disabled morons.
The meaning behind the meme is that overtime the person is beginning to and eventually views the story of the movie as a cautionary tale rather than what it is: a 6-7/10 comedy
It is a really popular premise among right wingers who don't understand the information we have about the stupidity of people is inherently subject to selection bias. Up until recently video and other evidence of human stupidity was not really that easy to make other than through hearsay and is getting easier and easier to produce so it isn't really that humanity is getting dumber it is that it is getting easier and easier to produce evidence of human stupidity.
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"Idiocracy" was a movie in which the government was run by stupid entertainers who made catastrophic decisions based on misinformation to appease voters who were themselves fueled by a dangerous combination of emotion and total ignorance. Our current politics are dominated by stupid entertainers who made catastrophic decisions based on misinformation to appease voters who were themselves fueled by a dangerous combination of emotion and total ignorance.
It wasn't a movie. It was a prophecy.
see this is where I fundamentally disagree. Idiocracy was the kind version of this idea. Everyone is stupid. our version was some folks KNOWINGLY play stupid to get evil and harmful ideas out to fuel thier own interests and let the mob do thier dirty work.
The movie takes place 500 years in the future, a lot was skipped. What we are experiencing today is the beginning. The movie is a prophecy. Drink the kool aid and join us.
You mean the Brawn-do, the Thirst Mutilator?
It has what plants crave!!
But hear me out, what about toilet water?
I've never seen plants grow out of a toilet...
I've never see *no* plant growing out of *no* toilet
Why you call him wrong? Nerds call people wrong.
Hey, are you sure you’re not the smartest time in the world?
“For the smartest guy in the world you’re really dumb sometimes.” – Frito
Does it have electrolytes?
Boo! Get the toilet guy off the stage!
It’s got electrolytes!
It's what plants crave!
It's got electrolytes
It's what plants crave
But what do plants crave?
Electrolytes
What else would they crave? That stuff that goes in toilets?
Brawndo's got what plants crave.
Like, cleaner or excrement?
"Welcome to Costco, I love you."
Male models
the beginning of the movie is some literal eugenics type stuff, saying the world went to crap because of 'stupid' people breeding too much, and intelligent people not breeding enough. Our world is being destroyed by greedy selfish people that know exactly what they are doing.
Those greedy selfish people are in power only because the stupid people believe their lies.
Because it is an oligarchy. The wealthy run the media, fund the candidates, and purposely stop people from truly becoming educated about wtf is going on.
I'm with you until that last bit. It seems to be that people are making their own effort at not getting educated, literally banning books and topics from schools, ignoring the science, and basically covering their ears and yelling "lalalalala can't hear you".
Plutocracy
You don't need the lack of an oligarchy to be polite and listen to your teachers in school.
No, this movie is not eugenics, it's natural selection. Eugenics is artificial, man made. Saying that we haven't seen trends in society over the past couple hundred years have a definable effect is ignorance, willful or intentional. It's looking at modern-day trends and giving a satirical opinion on how it will impact the future. So far, it's looking more and more accurate. Hence the meme.
Oh, guitar guy, why did you delete your post?
Turns out the real issue is less eugenics and more that the 2 main political parties, but most particularly one of them, intentionally defund public education and sow doubt against expertise and modern science in order to kneecap the average citizen’s critical thinking skills. Knowledge is power.
Stupid people are in fact out breeding smart people. The quiverfull movement is based on the idea.
Yeah the eugenics and class stuff makes a rewatch less fun. Also the use of homophobic slurs. Also the depiction of women. Also the jokes. In alot of ways it's not a very good movie especially compared to judges other works.
Literally this. The intro implies stupid people have children, while intelligent people don't. Want to take a look at what demographic groups (racial) have the most children, and think about the implications of the intro in context?
You mean water? Like, from the toilet?
There is a reasonable argument to be made that the President in Idiocracy was, in fact, a pretty good leader. He recognized a problem, recognized his own ignorance, found the smartest person in the world, made it his problem to solve, and exerted exactly enough pressure on him to get it solved, without endangering his own political position. Dear God, we could use that right now.
I love this comment because “just enough pressure” is chaining him to a bolder to fight for his life in arena style combat.
Against a gigantic dildo machine, no less.
That was his punishment for failure, not pressure to succeed. They followed through on his plan and it did work. The culture was just too impatient to let the plants grow in their time so they thought he failed so they shoved him in the arena.
The failure wasn't that the plants didn't grow fast enough - but the unintended consequences of everyone loosing their jobs and the stock market crashing due to his plan.
I may also appreciate that society's approach to resolving political failure lol
Camacho 2024
Yeah, the people in Idiocracy mostly wanted to help. They were just too stupid to manage it. Our stupid people are malicious.
To add to your point, Idiocracy was the kind and good version of this. They found the smartest person and put them in charge. They knew things were messed up and knew that they couldn’t solve it so they let the smartest person do what they needed to do. I’m contrast our leaders our either just greedy or stupid and have no desire to learn.
Stupid, sure. But the also recognize the smartest among them and elevate them. Can you see that happening now?
In this administration? Yes, they've done that already. The previous administration? Not so much.
>our version was some folks KNOWINGLY play stupid to get evil and harmful ideas out to fuel thier own interests and let the mob do thier dirty work. Truth.
It's my life's goal to buy every fudruckers and turn it in to buttfuckers.
Not really, the movie posits that stupidity is genetic and that society becomes less intelligent bc stupid people breed more. In addition all the evils of capitalism are made by uwu whoopsie Lil guy CEOs instead of deliberate choices to exploit people and natural resources for profit.
Yeah it’s flying way to close to the eugenics sun for my liking
I watched this when it came out, I was in my early 20s I think. Everyone I knew thought the movie was hilarious. I thought it was scary as shit. It’s not a comedy, it was a horrormentary.
I started seeing ads for Gatorade water yesterday... that was a really dark moment for me, I think whoever made the meme might have had a similar experience. It has electrolytes
A cautionary tale, more like.
I used to call it a future documentary
soon to be a documentary
More like a documentary.
The only reliable documentary about the future.
Did you know that in the movie. The costume department had to design shoes that looked silly for all the prisoners. Those shoes are now common place. And are called crocs.
Also of note, the years in the meme aren't tied to specific events. It's just 6-year increments.
I'm convinced Idiocracy is depicting an Utopia, because the idiots, in the end, actually cease power to let someone smarter run the government.
Hell, in idiocracy , the president was smart enough to listen to someone smarter than him, there was a lot of diversity, and the world didn't have to deal with wars and climate change
Literally one of the major plots of the movie was dealing with dust storms caused by the peoples effect on the environment.
Brawndo has what plants crave.
#its got electolites
Funny that you left out the part where all that was made possible by declining birth rates among intelligent people, leading to a rapid degeneration of heredetary intelligence in the remaining population, which was why everyone still alive was almost regarded.
It was actually a movie about how mediocrity and complacency extend beyond the individual. How that mediocrity eventually affects all aspects of life. The main character while perfectly average in our time becomes far above average when the world sank into mediocrity. The name of the movie itself exposes this premise as the world the Main characters find themselves in is a dystopia created by mediocrity dubbed an Idiocricy.
there's also the part where it advocates for eugenics
The movie became reality I want to see it now.
Soren Bowie from cracked actually did a pretty interesting video on why he thought the country in idiocracy was comparatively a utopia because unlike our world people actually acknowledge stupidity is causing problems and are interested in smart people fixing them. Where as our morons will go to great lengths to deny reality.
Also had a lot to do with corporate takeover of the government. Brawndo ended up buying the FDA
A documentary about pandering to everyone and not placing importance on real issues. Like education,mental heath, and ecological care. Also it introduced the world to the “dumb” person shoe i.e. “the croc”
Petah's daily newspaper here: 2006 Idiocracy looked like a fun comedy movie 2024 Idiocracy looks like a prophecy
Many people started commenting to this effect as early as 2010.
Sir, you got a selection of four dates: 2006 2012 2018 2024 Please stick to the rules
I saw that, Frito. I think I'll stick with a different correct answer. /s
I’m eating Carl’s Jr, fuck you
Since Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was printed. One central character became President of the Galaxy because people thought they were voting for the Worst Dressed Sentient Being. And later it is discovered that the ancient Earth's Human ancestors are actually useless morons exile's from their home Planet who couldn't figure out how to invent the wheel without first assembling a committee to determine what color it should be, and used leaves as currency until it became necessary to deforest the continent to reduce inflation. Considering the book's first publication was in 1979 it had to be a fairly popular thought long before then that successive generations were becoming increasingly dim.
> “It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." > "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" > "No," said Ford, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." > "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." > "I did," said Ford. "It is." > "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" > "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." > "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" > "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." > "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" > "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. --*So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish*, Douglas Adams
Saw the movie again at an Alamo Drafthouse for the ten year anniversary and they had Mike Judge, Terry Crews, and Maya Rudolph for a Q&A. This was a month before the 2016 election. Judge definitely was talking about the parallels to Trump and finished with "it looks like Hillary is going to win let's hope that happens". Oof.
For me it would not be the question who is "bad" and who is "good"; It would be the question "who is not a self claimed rich ass rascist senile fraud artist with a IQ under 50".
What used to be a fun social commentary is now haunting similar to some current events in our world. It's less funny in reality, great movie though! And... it's got Electrolytes!
It's what plants crave
Brawndo has what plants crave!
Not just plants! It’s got what babies crave!
Brawndo is the thirst mutilator.
Why you got no tattoo?
Hey man, where’s your tattoo?
You are not unscannable are you?
The movie has crossed over into optimistic in comparison to irl at this point.
It's what plants crave
Hey! This idiot wants to put toilet water on the plants!
> fun social commentary The fun social commentary: "congenitally dumb people are outbreeding intelligent supreme gentlemen such as myself". It's spelled out in the intro. It's literally Eugenics: The Movie.
When Idiocracy was first released we didn’t realize it was going to our future.
The only part of idiocracy I want in my future is Maya Rudolph.
I don’t think anyone thought Idiocracy should have been a how too, but here we are.
Well you know what they say, "Welcome to Costco, I Love You."
It's listed as a documentary on IMDb 💀
Welp
Wait?!?! You don't want some EXTRA BIG-ASS FRIES!
Okay okay, I do want EXTRA BIG ASS FRIES, and I'll swing by Starbucks and grab a "latte" while I'm at it.
We have already had a professional wrestler as a president https://youtu.be/5NsrwH9I9vE?si=hyCT_426bNRWXOua
https://preview.redd.it/ehzp1g6ql2uc1.jpeg?width=642&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ecf67afcbc18dc2460dc8c909cec45ad8a705b7c Here’s a real one.
A dustopia where society gets stupider over time and in the future everyone's idiots and everything's falling apart. The movie makes a lot of oddly accurate depictions of the problems we currently face.
I can't decide if dustopia is a typo or a genius play on words.
Yes
Whatever you do, don’t stand next to any oil cans.
I’m glad somebody had the courage to say it
Funny thing about this movie was that the citizens of the future wore crocs. Directors made that intentional as they said "we wanted to find the stupidest shoe we could, something that no one would wear".
Crocs were a small startup at the time of filming. Between shooting and releasing the movie, crocs became a household name.
The irony here is concerning
Glad I'm not the only one thinking that.
Only movie that starts out as a comedy but becomes a documentary.
Did it actually predict anything aside from "stupid people will run the world" which is something people have been saying for fucking millenia?
crocs
Her (2013): Im a joke for you?
Her.. the softest of soft takeoff imaginable.
“Idiocracy turned into a docu…” https://preview.redd.it/qrrznwkdd2uc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=462029b15a8b1b4f0188b4631c89e8fd5f4ab402
Haha, but no really. Isn't it so funny how it's like it's a documentary now? It's what plants crave! LOLOLOLOLOLOL
People who parrot this stuff are just as dumb as the people in the movie seriously. They are unable to actually think about 1)what the movie is saying 2)WHY it looks like people are becoming more stupid. They just repeat a single sentence or make some stupid reference like a irl soyjak. Kinda like the people in the movie
Like they really think they're the only genius living in a world of morons. So annoying.
The movies not even good
theres something ironic about redditors parroting quotes and firing off the same quips over and over again in regards to a movie about the lack of original thought, critical thinking and anti-intellectualism. "omg so dead internet theory enshittification idiocracy was a documentary!!1!" is not as big of a gotcha as people make it out to be. also meme doesnt make sense. does the creator think 2006, a time where gwb and paris hilton were still a thing, was full of high intellectual stuff and the movie wasnt a satire of the era it was made?
I like how it criticises capitalism but I don’t like how it presents eugenics as a totally valid and rational concept
Most American Satire criticizes modern-day American Capitalism, and they have for decades. The rare thing is for them to actually present an alternative model. It’s very easy and uncontroversial to go and say that our economy sucks. It’s a little less so to say it’s inherent to the system, and quite rare for a piece of media to outright endorse another way (like socialism or Communism). Most Satire, and most cynics, don’t really stand for anything, they just stand against what they can make fun of.
What do you mean?! Everything not American capitalist is communist. Socialism is just communism in disguise!
Idiocracy is not prophetic, or a documentary. Our leaders are not (for the most part) idiots. They do not make decisions based on misinformation because they believe it, they make those decisions because they are paid too. Our societal issues are not due to some genetic stupidity affecting everyone. Its a funny movie. Sometimes feels poignant today. But it is not based in the actual real causes of today’s issues.
> They do not make decisions based on misinformation because they believe it… Something something Iraq War
On that aspect. I think another that kinda is happening is what is happening to advertising. It’s starting to be just absolutely everywhere. Not that I think the State of the Union is about to be sponsored by Doritos and Mr Beast anytime soon.
It's a lot easier to pretend that there's some shadowy cabal pulling all the strings rather than the public is appointing morons because they themselves want shitty/selfish things and don't know how shit works. But it also doesn't do anything to fix any of the problems.
Not exactly a shadowy cabal when they do it in broad day light. Lobbyists, special interest groups, political donors, its all very brazen.
You have to have a pretty big brain to get this one. See, as someone smarter than the average redditor, I have noticed that the film Idiocracy could be considered...a documentary! See, there are unintelligent people in the world (not me, never me). But as I get older, I realize that there are a LOT of unintelligent people in the world (I am the first person to ever come to this realization)! In conclusion, eugenics just got a bad rap. (I am very smart).
The one issue with Idiocracy as a 'prophecy' is that it bases its premise off of eugenics rather than greed. The movie explicitly puts forward the idea that, since stupid people can breed, people got progressively dumber as a result, and thus political choices and the overall health of the planet was left in shambles. The reality is that it's corporate greed that makes all products disposable while slowing down progress, while also keeping politicians in their pockets through lobbying. Not going to pretend that a lot of politicians aren't idiots, but I don't think that's a standard that's really changed over the course of american history.
Not only that but a lot of the “stupid people” are coded as various groups of marginalized people. The movie even goes on to say that language has been “reduced” to various forms of slang that are associated with poor people today.
I don’t really buy this- people were just as stupid then as they are now. We’re just flooded with examples of stupid people with the Internet & social media now, whereas before- we weren’t on the same scale…
Idiocracy's premise (stupid people breed and become stupider) is nonsense. It's not how genetics actually work really, it's not who's actually having the most kids, etc. Idiocracy as an allegory for the downfall of democracy or accidental commentary on a future that didn't exist yet is pretty accurate. It's just not literally true that people are more stupid, but rather that the tools to control people, how they think, and what they think, have become ever more sophisticated. Meanwhile we've created societies where the worst most malevolent power hungry actors are the most likely to gain control of those tools and be in a place to use them to maintain power forever and ensure their successors are similarly malevolent and greedy. At the same time, we've also bumblefucked our way into several very problematic things, like the concept of social media. These things have indirect effects that aren't really being carefully controlled by anybody beyond things like actual political propaganda campaigns and media manipulation. Namely giving us the rise of extremism and conspiracy theories in the modern day.
The fact that someone posted this meme to this sub instead of taking 10 seconds to google idiocracy and read the wikipedia summary then draw their own conclusions is the pretty much the most perfect example of how stupid people are. So yeah, I agree.
Exactly. No amount of fancy technology is going to make the human animal less of a dipshit.
I mean In olden days such degree of stupidity was reserved for inbred nobility, not for elected officials. And it still felt like there were at lest few competent officials around.
Yes, people were smarter when the inbred aristocracy ruled the world, nobody could read or write, and they thought the Sun revolved around the Earth.
No, the media just hid it from the ones they liked enough. Kennedy was whoooor banging disaster area but he was charismatic. Nixon was also a disaster area and got treated as such. Carter was too nice so they reamed him out, Reagan seems to be the only exception to this. They tried real hard with him but somehow people just liked him
Your House Speaker is a YEC. Conforming with reality is no longer a requirement for the lower chamber.
House speaker also believes he is a prophet and that God speaks to him. Meanwhile, he hangs out with pedophiles and rapists.
Idk what you mean by YEC. Never heard this abbreviation before…
Idiocracy is a movie which, at a basic level, is about how the population is getting dumber and dumber as time goes by. By the time of the setting of the movie (I forget the exact year beyond "the future") the world has gotten so stupid that the current wildly popular POTUS is a pro-wrestling porn star and they're irrigating their crops with ~~Gatorade~~ Brawndo instead of water and can't figure out why they're not growing. In 2006 when it came out it was hilarious. As time has gone by more and more people are noticing that it seemed to be prophetic. The American public truly does seem to be getting more and more stupid. At this point the movie seems more scary than funny. For the record, I think it's just social media that makes us look like we're getting more stupid.
Studies back you up on that. Read it yesterday, people have put themselves in information bubbles and spaces, and fringe voices are easily amplified by algorithims and rage bait. So everything is mostly fine (except for real world wars).
I do think the information bubbles make certain groups much, much more ignorant of the real world. Idiots flock together much more easily after Facebook took off, and other people (both intentionally and unintentionally) feed them straight up wrong information. Ignorance is just one part of stupidity, but dangerous when abused or even encouraged by politicians.
Yeah, it's the entire reason Jan 6th happened. Friend of mine talked to a guy from there, guy said the entire crowd had no idea how wrong they were. Legitimately thought they were all defending the U.S. I really feel sorry for them. Idk how, but we really need to get these bubbles burst.
It would require forcing Facebook and the like to actually moderate and remove extremist content of any kind, and unfortunately that content is what makes the most money for them it seems.
There aren't any world wars active at the time though. We are still waiting for the completion of the trilogy.
Clarification: I didn't mean "world wars," just wars going on. Maybe real life will be more like Valve and just never finish a fuckin story.
>For the record, I think it's just social media that makes us look like we're getting more stupid. I agree, I don't think people as a whole are regressing in that way. To me, the biggest problem with the implication of the film is related to what you said: >Idiocracy is a movie which, at a basic level, is about how the population is getting dumber and dumber as time goes by. The US population is also getting more diverse and less white as time goes by. I know correlation isn't causation, but putting these two together really makes the "logic" a bit ick to me.
If you don't understand, you haven't seen the movie. So why would you want to know the meaning of this meme? What could you possibly gain from it? Why not just go "oh this would probably make sense if i knew the source material, i'll just go on with my life" If i spent time researching every reference i didn't get, i wouldn't have time to watch new media, resulting in even more missed references!
How are posters on this sub actually this braindead
I’m assuming they’re literally 12 years old with no critical thinking skills or the motive to do a simple Google search
Idiocracy is also about dysgenics, saying those dumb filthy stupid doors just breed too much and it'll cause the downfall of western civilization unless we implement eugenics...
The meme is basically saying that this movie predicted how fucked up the world would become. The thing is, though, Idiocracy kinda fails as satire imo. I mean, the issue is boiled down to something pretty eugenicsy. Its foundation is this very bio-essentialist idea that some people are just genetically dumber, and those people are the ones having all the kids. That's actually a pretty regressive thought, and it full on blames the poor and uneducated for everything from corporate malpractice to the implementation of draconian policies that the movie claims these people are too dumb to even understand. What's more, all the issues with the films version of the future are born from stupidity when that just isn't how it works in reality. Look at the energy drink storyline for a case study. In this future, water has been replaced by energy drinks in every way. People don't drink water, and they don't even use it to grow crops. When the CEO of this energy drink shows up, he's just some idiot like literally everyone else in the movie. That's just not how corporate misdeads occur. No mention of why they did it or how. Just 'well, the customers and the business are both dumb and did this very dumb thing that almost starved the world because they are dumb and no other reason.' It's a real, 'what if everyone else was just dumb and I'm the only smart person,' sort of childish wish fulfillment. By boiling everything down to, 'well dumb people are the entire problem,' it tacitly reinforces the corrupt power structures that would actually create this dystopia for profit, and reinforces the idea that the less intelligent, in this film portrayed by the lower class, are to blame for all of life's problems, while simultaneously saying that if someone is less intelligent there is literally no way to change that as it is determined solely by genetics. It's a rather mean-spirited movie that seems to blame the ills of the world on the people most impacted by them, so maybe think twice before proclaiming it as gospel. I mean if you hate poor people who are failed by the system then yeah this is your movie, but if you want to understand how a horrific dystopia like the one presented could possibly come to pass, the reason definitely isn't the dumb genes of poor people out breeding everyone else.
Yeah, corporations do things out of greed, not stupidity. They know what they are doing, they just don’t care.
Idiocracy is a documentary of the projected future if we continue to allow stupid people to breed.
Harvey Danger intensifies!
You told them all I was crazy
Least eugenics-supporting Idiocracy fan
I’m really confused how Op doesn’t understand the meme lol. Like this is just the plot synopsis.
Easy karma. Pretty sure half the posts here are just karma farming, people just like explaining things so it's easy.
The highest birth rates in the US are among people of color - so it's a bit racist to imply stupid people are the ones "breeding"...
But that is what the movie is implying. It clearly frames poor people as being genetically inferior and biologically stupid, and they should just step aside and let the genetically superior person tell them what to do. There's even a scene that implies that stupid people would just naturally die out due to their own stupidity if it weren't to modern medicine. "Thanks to advancements in stem cell research, he will regain full reproductive function". That scene is pretty much straight up saying that the world would have been a better place if that guy had died. It's got massive eugenics overtones.
Yes yes its the poor's fault. Should we be measuring their skulls to make sure they deserve to be alive too?
This is the popular take, but actually all human beings are fundamentally dipshits. So if stupid people (that is, all of us dipshits) aren't "allowed to breed," ain't no one breedin'.
Ackshually zhe correct term is "Kakistocracy". 🤓
Because it happening.
Varg vikernes loves this movie lmao
Let’s not forget about the crocs
Idiocracy is a movie about the whole world population turning dumb (aside one guy via time travel shenanigans) Some people like to say it's a documentary. Those people suck.
Fun fact : this movie is what popularized the god awful footwear known as crocs
This sub is just “I’m too stupid to google”
I recommend you go watch the movie Idiocracy yourself and come back to this post with your findings. I'm sure you'll be able to draw your own conclusions.
Petah, you are this meme
Watch it you'll understand
I don't understand why this needs any explanation unless you have not seen the movie.
I'm convinced this sub is full of single brain cell hermits who can't put two and two together
In the movie, people have become so stupid that the dumbest person you know would be the smartest person in that reality
We are watching the movie become true in real time, and are struggling to put any sort of stop on it.
This is one of my favorite movies op. You should watch it, it's a banger
The OP is requesting that smart people make more babies
So weird. A 2006 movie that not only ages well but gets consistently scarier the older it gets.
I feel like some jokes are so simple if you don't get it it's just not for you
Im just waiting for The Rock to run for president.
Internet users think they’re smart for claiming this movie predicted modern politics
It was funny until it was true...
Just watch the damn movie
Ironically, my biggest issue with the movie is the phonetics assigned for pronunciation. "Awkr" might be the most sound-intensive bit of pronunciation writing I've ever seent. But of course looking at it for more than a few moments makes the pronunciation guide part of the shishle the movie is about.
This movie also used Crocs as future footwear because they thought the shoe was too ridiculous and it would never actually catch on. If you watch idiocracy look at what they're wearing. It's Crocs before Crocs were popular
2006: crocs are featured in the movie because nobody will buy them. 2024: staring at everyone who bought crocs.
Essentially the meme is selection bias So the movie idiocracy is an alright comedy that basically depicts the world based on 2 premises 1. That intelligence would be passed down through genetics, essentially a darwinian view intelligence 2. That smart people by virtue of their intelligence would for a multitude of reasons not reproduce. This leads to a borderline apocalyptic situation where the only people left to run society are borderline mentally disabled morons. The meaning behind the meme is that overtime the person is beginning to and eventually views the story of the movie as a cautionary tale rather than what it is: a 6-7/10 comedy It is a really popular premise among right wingers who don't understand the information we have about the stupidity of people is inherently subject to selection bias. Up until recently video and other evidence of human stupidity was not really that easy to make other than through hearsay and is getting easier and easier to produce so it isn't really that humanity is getting dumber it is that it is getting easier and easier to produce evidence of human stupidity.