We’ve been reading 1984 by George Orwell, and I thought it would be fun to reimagine its themes for a modern 2025 audience. With today’s technology, like iPhones, apps, and drones, it’s fascinating (and unsettling) to consider how Orwell’s vision of surveillance, propaganda, and manufactured unity might play out in our hyperconnected world. This story is a satirical update, blending the timeless warnings of 1984 with the complexities of our modern age.
At exactly noon, every iPhone in the city buzzed. In unison, hands reached into pockets and purses, a wave of glowing screens illuminating the gray, oppressive streets. The Unity App opened automatically, as it did every day, a mandatory update woven into the city’s digital infrastructure. A hollow anthem blared from speakers embedded in streetlights, its clashing brass notes as grating as the noise of machinery.
Above the crowd, the towering holographic screens flickered to life, each one displaying the face of the chairman. His discolored skin glistened as though polished, his chaotic tuft of hair standing in odd tufts, defying any attempt at order. His grin stretched wide, but his eyes betrayed a dark calculation, sharp and predatory.
“Citizens!” His voice boomed through the streets, crackling slightly from the sheer force of the volume. “We gather today to remember who we are. The builders. The righteous. The deserving.”
The holograms flickered, and the chairman’s face dissolved into a rapid sequence of images. Illegal immigrants climbing fences, their faces distorted into exaggerated sneers. Protestors with raised fists, their eyes burning with rage, doctored into caricatures of menace. Teachers in classrooms holding books emblazoned with titles like Equality for All. And then, faces of ordinary people—a man smiling as he handed food to a homeless child, a woman embracing her partner under a pride flag. Each image bore the same labels: Enemy. Traitor. Parasite.
The crowd roared. People, adorned with the black circle, began screaming at the screens, their faces contorted with fury. Some threw trash at the holograms, others spat at the ground as though their rage could reach the projected faces.
“They hate you!” the chairman shouted. His hologram reappeared, his voice filled with venom. “They want to steal your success. They want to destroy your families. They are not like us. And we will not let them win!”
The roar of the crowd became deafening, a wave of anger cresting and breaking over the city. People shouted insults at the screens, fists raised. A man beside a food truck slammed his phone against the ground, screaming, “Get them out! Get them all out!”
Cora stood in the middle of the chaos, her hat pulled low over her face. She felt trapped, suffocated by the noise and heat of the mob around her. Her iPhone vibrated in her pocket, displaying her personal “Anger Score,” a number that climbed higher the louder she screamed or the harder she gestured. She watched the numbers on others’ phones rise rapidly as they lost themselves in the ritual.
A coworker, Todd, turned to her, his face flushed and wild. “You’re not shouting, Cora!” he barked, his breath hot and sour. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you care about the country?”
“Yes, of course,” she muttered, forcing her mouth into a fake snarl. She half-heartedly raised her fist. “They… disgust me.”
Todd squinted at her, suspicious, but the chairman’s voice bellowing above them distracted him.
“Unity is strength!” the chairman howled, his arms stretched wide, a god of rage. “Compassion is weakness! Together, we will CRUSH the weak! The traitors! The filth!”
The words echoed off the buildings, and for a moment, Cora thought the walls themselves would crack under the weight of the sound. Her throat felt tight. Around her, the crowd reached a fever pitch, their faces twisted into something barely human.
She backed away slowly, her heart hammering. She had to get out. She knew the drones circling above were scanning the crowd, their cold mechanical eyes searching for anyone whose Anger Score wasn’t high enough.
Reaching the edge of the square, Cora ducked into an alley. Her hands shook as she pulled out her phone and swiped away the Unity App’s notifications. It demanded she report her anger, to contribute to the collective rage that kept the system alive. She refused.
As she pedaled her bike away, the chairman’s voice echoed faintly behind her, the screens still blazing in the square.
“We are the strong. We are the future. They will kneel before us—or be erased.”
The streets were empty outside the square, silent but for the occasional buzz of drones. The air felt heavier than before. Cora knew what came next. Tonight, the Party would release new propaganda. New accusations. They would target someone—an immigrant family, a dissident artist, a journalist who had dared to question the chairman.
And the crowds would gather again, fists raised, eager to see the punishment meted out.
As the city receded behind her, Cora clenched her fists on the handlebars. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep pretending. She didn’t know how long she could keep the anger at bay.
But she did know this: someday, someone had to stop the chairman. Before there was no one left who could.
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