“I am Trying to Believe”: Dystopia as Utopia in the Year Zero Alternate Reality Game

Postmodern culture has been marked by a loss of utopian energy that is the result of the cultural dominance of late capitalism. This loss has been represented, in small part, by the proliferation of the dystopian genre (which, incidentally, begins in the modernist era), whose very name suggests its being anti- or simply not utopian. More than outright bleak, however, dystopia as a genre is more cautionary, and is not without utopian energy. Therefore, dystopian works act as social criticism warning of what is to come if the system they are produced under is allowed to continue. Related to the socially critical nature of dystopian works is the influence of technology on post-utopian culture. While Enlightenment utopianism stemming from scientific advancement was cut short by the sinister end reached after the development and subsequent use of the atomic bomb, new technologies such as the Internet are allowing cautionary, dystopian stories to be told in new ways. In spite of the technological pessimism that emerged after the attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, technology’s role in the transmission of these types of works is quite utopian. One example of this is the emerging genre of the Alternate Reality Game (ARG), which i