The year is 1984. Or at least Winston Smith thinks it is. George Orwell's dystopian novel sees his protagonist sitting at a small table in a hidden nook in his apartment.
Pen in hand. A diary lies open on the table before him. He is trembling at the thought of what he is about to do. Finally summoning the courage to make manifest his thoughts, he jots down an account of his previous evening - a trip to the cinema. He describes the happenings in detail, despite his uncertainty as to whom he is actually writing this diary for.
It is 1984 and Winston inhabits a province called Airstrip One, a totalitarian state run by Big Brother. Every aspect of Winston's existence is monitored and his every move observed. His days are lived at the behest of a system that seeks to control and track all aspects of his public and private life.
Winston yearns for a revolution. "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER," he scribbles. He knows that the only way this can be realised is by enlisting support from the disenfranchised working class. Ashamed at the "thought crime" he has just committed by expressing feelings contrary to the status quo, and fearful of the possible retribution he could face at the hands of the "Thought Police", he quickly closes the book.
In the canteen at work the next day, Winston encounters a colleague who is working on the Newspeak dictionary. A language devised to limit freedom of expression and remove even the possibility of original thought by eliminating rebellious words from the language entirely. Synonyms, antonyms and undesirable concepts are eradicated and new words are created to simplify speech and make communication less emotive.
Winston works at a place called the Ministry of Truth - the bedrock of propaganda. His job entails "rectifying" all forms of literature or expression throughout history that conflict with the ideals of the time. Essentially, he is tasked with making those in positions of power look good by erasing anything that may reflect poorly on them.
Moving swiftly ahead
The year is 2015. A modern-day Winston Smith sits in a trendy coffee shop in the Cape Town City Bowl. A spot so trendy that people go there to be seen and to be able to tell others that they've been there.
With his fingers gently poised atop the mousepad of his MacBook Air, Winston is trembling. Having spent the night before at an indie documentary film festival held on a rooftop in the centre of town, he contemplates which hashtags he should use to accompany the selfie he took at the event: Winston's pouting face in the foreground with the sun setting behind Lion's Head in the background. Freshly edited. Consumed with angst he settles on #WinstondoesCapeTown #LionsHead #sunset #amazing. And obviously #nofliter. Pressing post, he hopes the image and the accompanying hashtags will garner the approval of his peers in the form of likes.
Essentially, he is tasked with making those in positions of power look good by erasing anything that may reflect poorly on them.
It is 2015 and the digital native (connected to the restaurant's free WiFi) loads his Facebook page. He continues to check-in at the aforementioned coffee shop, with an obligatory snap of his Chai latte, before updating his status to detail his previous weekend's dalliances. He continues to like a few pages, comment on photographs and dole out his personal information in the hope of winning several competitions. Everything about Winston can be found online. Information that will be used by big brands to gauge his sentiment towards things and will allow them to better market their products to cater to his individual likes and dislikes.
His breed of social upheaval is rooted in slacktivism. Rather than actually participating in a physical protest - that would be far too working class, he thinks - he does his civic duty by spending the next few minutes signing an e-toll-related Change.org petition, commenting on a #Rhodesmustfall piece, and reposting an article in support of transgender people documenting the big reveal of Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner) on the cover of Vanity Fair. His main incentive for doing so is to appear engaged with the topics everyone is talking about.
Moving on to Twitter, Winston removes unnecessary punctuation and vowels from words in an attempt to adequately capture his thoughts in the 140 character limit. Totally becomes "totes", obviously becomes "obvs" and crazy has evolved into "cray cray".
Later, Winston gets to work. He is a PR and social media guru for a large corporate. His duties for the day involve handling the reactions to a controversial tweet about Nkandla posted by one of the company's executives. Remembering the backlash that befell Justine Sacco (of "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" fame) and Jessica Leandra (the infamous k-word-wielding FHM model), he deletes the comment but wishes he could erase the ill-advised musing from history.
While George Orwell's tale was set in mid-1980s, much of it did not come to fruition by the time 1984 actually rolled around. Perhaps this anti-utopia Orwell envisioned would be better positioned to describe the year 2015? And inevitably years to come.
* A former ITWeb journalist, Joanne Carew now resides in the Mother City, where she is admiring the mountain and completing her Masters studies at UCT.
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