Category: Dystopian

The 90s Anime That Predicted Your Doomscrolling: Why You Need to Watch Serial Experiments Lain

Have you ever stared at your phone at 2 AM, blue light burning your retinas, wondering if the “you” on the internet is the real you?

If yes, congratulations! You are living through the plot of Serial Experiments Lain.

Released in 1998—back when the internet was mostly just chat rooms and slow-loading pictures of cats—this anime didn’t just tell a story. It looked into a crystal ball, saw our modern obsession with social media, memes, and digital identity, and said, “Hold my juice box.”

It is weird. It is confusing. And it is arguably the most important anime ever made about the digital age. Here is why this 25-year-old show is more relevant today than ever.

Wait, What is it About?

Okay, explaining the plot of Lain is like trying to explain the flavor of water. But here is the simple version:

Lain Iwakura is a quiet, awkward middle school girl. Her life is boring until her classmate, Chisa, jumps off a roof. A week later, Lain gets an email from Chisa.

The email says: “I have only abandoned my physical body… God is here.”

Lain gets curious, upgrades her computer (called a “Navi”), and dives into “The Wired” (the internet). As she spends more time online, the barrier between the real world and the digital world starts to break. People see Lain in places she hasn’t been. She develops different personalities. Reality starts glitching like a bad video game driver.

Why It’s Still Mind-Blowing Today

You might think a show featuring clunky CRT monitors and dial-up sounds would feel dated. But the themes? They are terrifyingly fresh.

1. The Internet Isn’t Just a Tool; It’s a Place

In the 90s, the internet was something you “visited” for an hour before your mom needed the phone line. Lain predicted a world where we never log off.

In the show, the “Wired” bleeds into the real world. Today, we have Augmented Reality, the Metaverse, and people walking into traffic because they’re looking at TikTok. Lain understood that eventually, there would be no difference between “online” and “offline.” We live in the Wired now.

2. The “You” Online vs. The Real “You”

Lain develops a split personality. There is the shy, quiet Lain in the real world, and the bold, terrifyingly powerful “Lain of the Wired.”

Does that sound familiar?

  • Real Life: You are too shy to ask for extra ketchup at McDonald’s.
  • Twitter/X: You are a fierce political commentator fighting strangers at 3 AM.

Lain asks the big question: Which one is the real you? Is it the physical body, or the data floating in the cloud? If everyone knows the “online” you, does the “offline” you even matter?

3. The Loneliness of Connection

There is a recurring haunting phrase in the show:

“No matter where you are, everyone is always connected.”

It sounds nice, right? No! It’s actually a horror story. The show depicts a world where privacy is dead and everyone is mentally linked, yet the characters feel more isolated than ever. It perfectly captures that specific modern sadness of having 5,000 followers but nobody to eat lunch with.

Is It Hard to Watch?

I’m not going to lie to you—yes.

Serial Experiments Lain is an “avant-garde” show. That is a fancy way of saying “you will spend 50% of the time staring at the screen asking ‘What is happening?’“

There are long silences. There are shots of power lines buzzing for no reason. There is a guy in a suit with laser goggles. It is a mood piece. It’s less about understanding the plot perfectly and more about the vibes. It feels like a fever dream you had after scrolling Instagram for six hours straight.

The Verdict

You should watch Serial Experiments Lain not just because it’s a classic, but because it is a warning we ignored.

It predicted that we would upload our memories to the cloud. It predicted that rumors online could change reality. It predicted that we would all worship the glowing rectangles in our hands.

Plus, the opening song (“Duvet” by Bôa) is an absolute banger that will get stuck in your head for the next decade.

So, go watch it. Just remember: if you get an email from a dead classmate, maybe just delete it and go touch some grass.

Welcome to the Cyberpunk City: Where the Future is Always on Fire

You’ve seen the movies. Neon skies, flying cars, everyone looking mysteriously cool in leather jackets at 3 AM. Living in a cyberpunk city sounds stylish until you actually live in one. Here, the reality is less “cool hacker with sunglasses” and more “I can’t afford rent because my left arm update is overdue.”

This is the future humanity ordered on express delivery, and it came with no return policy.

The Streets

Walking through the city is like scrolling through five different apps at once, but physically. Billboards don’t just shine—they scream. They know your favorite snack, your debt status, and the fact that you bought cheap knockoff cyberware last month. Giant neon signs flash EAT, DRINK, OBEY while you tiptoe around puddles of rainwater that suspiciously glow in the dark.

Everywhere you look, people are plugged into something: goggles, helmets, random wires hanging out of their heads. Old folks say things like, “Back in my day, we had conversations face-to-face.” Now, if someone makes eye contact with you, you assume they’re trying to hack your bank account.

The Buildings

Nothing in this city is designed for humans. It’s designed for corporations—giant towers stabbing into the polluted clouds like middle fingers to the people below. The rich live so high up that the air is actually breathable. The rest of us live in the shadows of those towers, in cramped apartments where the power goes out every other night, but the rent never does.

Elevators barely work, the staircases leak, and yet somehow there’s always a 200-foot screen blasting ads for “luxury brain implants you’ll never afford.”

The People

Everyone here has a “half-upgraded” look. One guy has top-tier robot arms but can’t afford to fix his teeth. Another has glowing cyber-eyes, but his shoes are held together with duct tape. That’s life here: a mix of high-tech and low-budget survival.

You talk to friends over encrypted chat while sitting across from them because—let’s be real—trust is dead. Even relationships are corporate-sponsored now. Want love? Just download it. There’s literally an app called Rent-a-Soulmate. Don’t ask how it works.

Law and Order (Ha, Good One)

There are no “police” here, only “security contractors.” Their job isn’t to protect you—it’s to protect whoever paid them. If your neighbor owes money to a megacorp, good luck. You’ll wake up to his entire apartment being repossessed, including the fridge, the bed, and possibly his cybernetic leg.

Justice here depends on your credit score. If you’re broke, you’re guilty—end of story. If you’re rich, congratulations, the law doesn’t even see you.

The Daily Struggle

Why do people stay here? Honestly—because leaving is worse. At least in the city, the Wi-Fi is decent, and you can still buy soy noodles at 4 AM. Sure, the air tastes like burnt plastic, and your boss tracks every heartbeat you take, but outside these walls? Desert wasteland. At least here, misery comes with neon lights.

We laugh about it because if you don’t laugh, you’ll start screaming. And once you start screaming, the corporate sound meters will fine you for “noise pollution.”

Final Thoughts from the Bottom Tier

Life in the cyberpunk city is dark, weird, and exhausting—but it’s ours. We have our neon lights, our glitchy street markets, our unreliable cyberware, and our community of broke, sarcastic survivors. We keep moving, paycheck to paycheck, software update to software update, waiting for the day we can afford an escape.

Until then: keep your head down, keep your implants charged, and try not to choke on the smog.

Because the future is here.

And the future sucks.