Wow, great blog post. It made me both think and reminded me that I still had to see Diary of the Dead.

I agree totally. I’m a huge Romero fan, and willing to give him the benefit of every doubt. But in this case it’s just too thin.

For anyone looking for a much more sophisticated take on the role the web would take in a pandemic type situation I would suggest World War Z by Max Brooks (son of Mel).

In one chapter of this “oral history of the Zombie War” a young Japanese Okatu tells his story of sharing and distributing information with a wide group of people around the world.

It’s been a while since I read the book, but it seemed fairly plausible… with the exception of a still-functioning power grid amidst mass panic.

Perhaps Mr. Haque has read this book and can offer his thoughts?

ha ha. Love this post. I think your analysis is spot on.

it was AMAZING as a Romero’s zombies addicted to find such a post!

There’s a book called “The World Without Us” by science writer, Alan Weisman. He details what would likely happen to all our collective “stuff” if we disappeared instantaneously. It seems that power plants have numerous safety systems which shut down pretty quickly without an operator. Without power more things than you care to imagine would be in trouble. Picture subway tunnels filling with water (no power, no water pumps).

I haven’t read the book so I don’t know how the web could be affected but I think communication would be pretty spotty in the event of a severe pandemic or war. Oddly I think I’d rather take the zombie war, they’ve never struck me as overly strategic and so they might hit the mall before the power plants buying us a little time.

Either way it would be exciting times, pigeons would reign supreme yet again.

As a matter of fact, I’m reading World War Z right now, unfortunately I haven’t reached the part about how well the Internet fares, but I’ll post an update when I do. Excellent book for those who haven’t read it. It ventures into the social, political, economic, and military implications of an apocalyptic event – in this case zombies – but probably equally relevant for any other mass global catastrophe. Seems to be pretty well researched and thought out.

Craig, thanks for the heads up on The World Without Us – I’ve added it to my Amazon list and plan on checking it out.

I just watched the scene you were quoting and had to see if anyone was talking about the quote. I am glad to see that you are.

That being said, I took it to mean the opposite given the context of the quote. She is talking about how the media obfuscates the facts and that is why it is important for them to document the truth and broadcast it on myspace. Maybe I am reading into it, but it sounded more like a criticism of mainstream media creating spin (like the deceitful editing of the initial scene).

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