Gather Your Village!

In my second post I pointed out that the idea of an apocalypse was cause for empowerment in the masses of fans. The young, able-bodied believers of the zombie apocalypse live with the idea of being the sole survivors after the dead return to walk the earth. Zombie media (films, video games, comics/books) provide the consumers of this genre with a sense of immortality that can only be fulfilled through the terms of the apocalypse but, is this the only reason why someone might lead themselves to believe in the destruction of the human race by bloodied corpses?

Aside from the fact that any responsibilities (aside from killing zombies) are thrown out the window, could it be that this group of people wish to see the world in chaos? If so, then why? Most might say they wish to see modern, human society crash and burn so they no longer need to bother with the rules and laws forced upon them. This may be true but, as social creatures, we do require interaction with other humans. 

However, do we really need that much?

150. This is the number of social relationships one person can maintain at a given time (give or take). I do not care how many friends you have on Facebook, you cannot keep up with every single one of them, nor can they always keep up with you. According to Jonathan Barrickman, this can be related back to man’s earliest forms of living in communities: villages.

With modern developments (i.e. more or less anything that improved living from the onset of the Industrial Revolution onwards) we’ve been forced to live in huge cities with thousands of other people that we have no desire to connect with let alone interact with. Besides your 150 relationships, your modern day village, these people are just road blocks (sometimes literally) in your life. Who cares if they were to actually become a zombie?

The ideal world for the zombie-obsessed would be one that must be started from the ground up or for others just left as it is. The most important thing is the removal of these modern cities full of people. By a certain age we have reached our current capacity for social relationships and as far as a believer of the apocalypse could be concerned, everyone except for their ‘village’ can just go off and die (and be reanimated to walk the earth of course).

So, for these people who are involved with zombies, be it through film, games, or some form of literature, the idea of the zombie apocalypse is the only tangible option short of removing themselves and their 150 closest friends out to the country to form a self-sustained farming community. At least with the rest of the human populace wiped out they only need to be concerned with killing the zombies that threaten their lives. In the world of Zombieland, farming is not required. And as most zombie fans know (at least the ones that are active on the internet), Farmville has taught us that farming is not fun.

Check out the amazing zombies from Toronto's Zombie Walk 2010: 

Let the Training Begin

Workshops to help improve your
zombie camouflage are available
in the Greater Toronto Area.

How Will You Survive?
In my last post I mentioned the preparation that college students are going through for the “impending” apocalypse. Whether it is being prepared to blend in to the new ‘majority’ that might possibly be the onslaught of the zombie race or practicing their zombie-survival skills out in ‘the field’ there are a number of different means to an end (or in this case to prevent an end).

The first of these events, and the longest running, is the zombie walk. The earliest known case of a zombie walk was in the summer of 2001 in Sacremento, California. These walks, sometimes turned pub crawls (zombies need to stay hydrated too!), take place mostly in urban centers including Toronto (Saturday, Oct. 23). Suitable seeing as, if the apocalypse occurs, the larger cities will be overrun in very little time. Participants dress up in zombie costumes and shuffle through the streets groaning for brains, much to the dismay of Romero fans who believe that zombies do not necessarily desire the brain specifically much less have the capacity to pronounce the word.

These ‘walks’ are not only fuel to sate the zombie fan’s dose of ‘apocalypse’ but, can also be seen as preparation as camouflage for when the undead rise up. Similar to the tactic used by Bill Murray (played by himself) in 2009’s Zombieland. If the zombies do not base their choice of victim on anything but appearance, these zombie walkers are set for life (literally). 

Other college students are taking a more hands-on approach. Beginning at Goucher College in Baltimore Maryland in 2005, a group of students invented the game HumansVsZombies (http://humansvszombies.org/). Essentially a big game of tag every player begins as a human while one player is selected to be the first zombie. Lasting over 48 hours, the humans must survive on their campus by shooting or slinging Nerf balls (slings are made out of socks). The aim of the game: Survive the Apocalypse. 

While this game may not be a serious form of zombie survival training one of the creators stated that ‘We like zombies. Let’s find a way to make real zombies at college.” Much like the spread of zombification HumansVsZombies has spread to college campuses around the world. This is mostly thanks to Goucher College’s graduation requirement of studying abroad. 

While these events have mostly formed out of the enjoyment of the zombie genre, they can still be seen as proof of those who believe in the apocalypse. And if these two events are not enough to make you a believer, then just look at any college campus. There you will see those recently inducted into Zombieland. After all, it is mid-term season...