Those suckers became zombies; those suckers fell to the plague; can you believe those suckers weren't prepared for the robot invasion? A good apocalyptic story has to wipe nearly everybody else out, but still leave room for you to picture yourself there, to play out your daydreams of converting your college campus to a fortress, of tricking out your truck with spikes and harpoons, of getting yourself an Australian Shepherd and a bitchin' leather jacket and looking smugly back on all the works of man that you've outlasted. The idea of the apocalypse is so personally empowering that it actually twists itself to appeal to every type of person and every type of arrogance in its own way: There are hipsters out there right now that, ten years ago, would've laughed in your face if you said you owned a gun. They would've thought of you as a brutish idiot. Now, they're field stripping submachine guns and practicing at the range on the weekends. They may ironically, laughingly admit that they're preparing for the zombie apocalypse, as if to say "of course we're not serious." But they are: You can see it in their eyes. Even hipsters don't sink that much time and money into sheer irony. The post-apocalypse milks every aspect of their self-importance that used to be satisfied by knowing the latest indie band, nurturing the most obscure hobbies, and making the insiderest of the insider jokes. Is it any wonder the idea of being the last person alive offers so much appeal to them?

"Do You like The Kills? Oh, I'm sorry, you wouldn't have heard of them, because you're all fucking dead."

The apocalypse appeals to rednecks for the very simple reason that they already have their skillsets honed: They fix trucks, they hunt, they know guns and they tend to stay away from the cities. Of course they'd survive the end of the world - hell, they wouldn't even have to make any major lifestyle changes, because they had the right priorities all along. It appeals to the nerd types because they already barely function in society: They grew up isolated and alone, and many view most human beings as strange, croaking monsters who want bizarre and horrifying things from them. To nerds, the only thing different about facing down super mutants is that they're doing it outside of gym class now. All the assholes that tormented them are dead, or undead, or you can at least fire rocket launchers at the raiding bands they've formed, instead of just telling Mrs. Warburton on them. Don't get me wrong: Mrs. Warburton is great, but she is ill-equipped to deal with Raiders. And it appeals to us in the "Miscellaneous" category because there's nobody left to judge us when most of humanity has been converted to biofuel for the slave-engines. In every post-apocalyptic story, there's always the one crazy old man with the wacky helmet muttering about Revelations, and all the heroes take pity on him - "look at the poor soul, driven mad by all the death he's witnessed." But that's bullshit: We weren't driven mad at all. We were like this way before Armageddon, we just weren't allowed to show it because of all those damn people everywhere with their precious "morals" and "laws." That's our arrogance: We would gladly trade the continuation of the species and possibly the lives of our loved ones just to not have "misdemeanors" be a thing anymore. To us, the apocalypse is like being released from a prison where you were inexplicably forbidden to race go-karts through the white house or dress like a pervert Captain Planet.

No way he's wearing that unless most of life has already been exterminated.

So that's my answer: When it comes down to it, the reason there were so many alien stories in the early twentieth century, the reason there are so many zombie movies right now, and the reason there will be so many nanobot movies or whatever in the future, all comes down to simple playground logic: The apocalypse is just a big game of King of the Hill with no other players left alive to retake the mountain.

Which was how every game ended anyway, if you played it the real way.

You can buy Robert's book, Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead, or follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Or you could skip all that and just start stocking up for the End Times now: Remember to start with the instant mashed potatoes and machetes. They're always the first to go. Man, why is that? Weird.

More Blogs