Makes me wanna bundle up with some hearty fare
I’m not sure about dystopian stories, but I think the big appeal with post-apocalyptic and disaster stories is the fantasy of being able to start society over from scratch. To get a fresh start at a scale where the individual has a stronger influence on whatever group they’re part of.
I think as real life society becomes more complicated, oppressive and individuals lose their sense of agency, those kinds of stories become more popular.
Yeah, the modern world is incredibly complex. Human brains did not evolve to be able to communicate with the number of people we deal with everyday, so the post-apocalyptic stories, with just afew hundred survivors is much more manageable
Smaller monkeyspheres
I case of the dystopian stories like CP2077 or Shadowrun, the “coziness” comes from that the companies and the state dont care about the individual at all, in a way that they dont even try to control you directly anymore and that can be kind of freeing. If no one cares anymore if you squat in some abandoned building you are free to live your life there as you want.
I can imagine that even this feels freeing compared to nowadays where you are, as long as you dont fit in, you get actively and very directly antagonised by systems and people.
And i find it also terribly sad that i feel that way.
I agree with all this and also I think company tends to be more limited in these types of works because you can’t really trust most people so people keep smaller more intimate/well-bound groups.