Our Obsession With Zombies Might Be Due to Inescapable Progress [Video]

Man, zombies, am I right? They’re the cicadas of horror tropes right now, all gross and dumb and only scary in numbers — and if you’re like me, you can’t even walk ten feet outside of your door without them being everywhere you look. Naturally this must say something about us as a society, and Mike Rugnetta and PBS Idea Channel are here to hypothesize about it, specifically on how the undead might currently represent a fear of technological progress. Wonder what our next big cultural fear is going to manifest as in monster movie terms? I’m thinking we’ll loop around back to alien abductions, but that’s just me.

Meanwhile in related links

• PBS Idea Channel also has some weird theories about why math is a thing 
• TED-Ed scholar David Hunt can save you from the zombies
• Pranksters in Montana attempt recreate War of the Worlds levels of panic with zombies