Zombie Apocalypse: 5 Reasons Why We Are Obsessed With Zombies

Culture

Zombies are gross and scary. They’re basically animated corpses resuscitated by black magic (and now, apparently, synthetic drugs) who wander in broad day light feasting on humans faces and brains.

But for some reason, these hypnotized and consciousness-free monsters are extremely popular. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. They're in the News: 

The “Zombie Apocalypse” meme has gained increased popularity after a string of cannibalism attacks in the United States and Canada during the last two weeks, allegedly caused by the ingestion of a new synthetic drug called “bath salts.”   

2. They're in the Movies: 

The mass media popularized the term zombie through 20th century horror fiction films, from which George A. Romero's 1968 Night of the Living Dead, and Victor Halpering’s 1932 White Zombie (starring Bela Lugosi) are the most iconic ones.

3. They are in Protests: 

The 1929 novel The Magic Island by William Seabrook reportedly introduced the term ‘zombi’ into the cultural realm. Similarly, the meme zombie has also been used as a metaphor in protests songs (some of them performed during Occupy Wall Street demonstrations) to symbolize mindless adherence to authority.

4. They are in Apps: 

The zombie genre has made it to the technology and social media worlds through gaming applications for both iPhone and Android distributed through the Apple Store and Google Play. Two of the most popular ones are PopCap’s “Plants vs. Zombies” and GREE’s “Zombie Jombie.”  

5. Zombie Apocalypse:

In our tumultuous times, zombies have come to represent more than anything the messengers of the end of times and “the breakdown of our civilization,” occurring when most of the population become flesh-eating zombies. Let the battle for survival start.