Could all of this be George Orwell’s fault?

From 1948 to the present day

Written at the end of World War II and published in 1949, the work “1984” is based on an analysis by Eric Arthur Blair, known worldwide as George Orwell, of what the future of postwar humanity might be.

The feature of the work that marked generations of readers was the lack of privacy. Devices unknown to the great masses at the time, but already in development—and some even implemented and deployed by governments around the world—controlled every step of every citizen worldwide.

Winston, the story’s protagonist, is a character dissatisfied with the social and political system in force in Oceania, one of the powers remaining after the armed conflicts, governed by a single party that controls every aspect of its citizens’ lives.

Known as Big Brother, the Party leader is a supernatural and omnipresent entity in Oceania, a figure who presents himself as one who sees everything, knows everything, and is aware of everything. The greatest fear of the proles, the working class, who enjoy no privilege or prominent position within the Party, is being caught or found committing an offense by Big Brother.

Without realizing it, because of the mass dissemination of information, many television viewers around the world succumbed to the power of Big Brother, originally the Big Brother, remaining hypnotized in front of a television screen. Worse: completely sold on and surrendered to the socioeconomic system, in search of their 15 minutes of fame, as Andy Warhol predicted, real-life characters opened the doors to their privacy and intimacy for a handful (a significant one, it is true) of money.

Meanwhile, there is the other side: those who pay (yes, because even free-to-air TV is sponsored, and advertising messages become ingrained) to see the level of debauchery, loss of identity, and permission to exploit intimacy reached by a confined group of people. For money, is anything acceptable?