In both reality and fiction, escapism is commonly employed as a coping mechanism to distract from the more disappointing elements of day-to-day existence. However, the key thing is that it's a personalized strategy and is meant to deal with the things about the real world that one particular character can't deal with. But what happens when these unbearable elements aren't limited to one character's personal tastes? What happens when the entire world is so harsh, so hopeless, so objectively awful for just about everyone that the only means of escape is in dreams?
In these objectively terrible settings, it's not uncommon for the main character to seek solace from the miseries of reality in some form of elaborate fantasy life; VR is a popular variant, as are drugs, dreams, and other fantastical experiences. In some cases, multiple characters may also inhabit this fantasy, and in especially miserable settings, it may be a common practice across the entire world.
Often, this trope is used in order to make the Anti-Escapism Aesop more complicated: after all, if the real world is too miserable to find any lasting happiness in, can the characters really be blamed for looking elsewhere? Characters who Prefer the Illusion are common in such environments, and in some cases, might be quite outspoken in their dislike for reality.
More idealistic stories may attempt to counter such characters with the message that only by confronting the problems of the outside world can our characters solve those problems and make the world a good place to live again... but in the darkest of such stories, the setting may be so hopeless that retreating into a dream or virtual world full-time might be regarded as the nearest thing to a happy ending on offer.
In Crapsack Worlds that have become full-fledged Dystopias, the escapism might even be a means of controlling the population, keeping people distracted with virtual Bread and Circuses to prevent them from rebelling against real injustices.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this trope may metamorphose into Simulated Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic Reality.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Code Geass, there is a drug known as Refrain that induces hallucinatory flashbacks to pleasant experiences. Needless to say, for the conquered Japanese living under Britannian rule, use and addiction to the drug is extremely common despite it being officially illegal since the Britannians created it as a means of controlling the conquered populace. Due to this, part of the Black Knight's early operations following their reveal involved going after Refrain distributors and smugglers.
Comic Books
- Late in Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale, during the decades following John's victory against the aliens, Earth is hit by a devastating series of post-war viruses that force the human population to dress in protective gear while outdoors or in company. With physical intimacy rendered extremely difficult, humanity seeks solace in virtual reality, at first merely using it to connect with others in the midst of the pandemic, then for accessing an increasingly decadent array of entertainment — most of it extremely addictive. Unfortunately, it results in the population becoming complacent, allowing the aliens to mount a counterattack, leaving the Earth in ruins before John finally returns from the dead to rally the surviving human population to his banner.
- In IDW Publishing's Transformers comics, Simultronics (described as "Reality inside Reality) allowed a Cybertronian to escape into a fantasy world by hooking wires directly to their heads. It was noted that repeated exposure to this had a high chance of scrambling their circuits, but several Transformers turned to it regardless as their society crumbled thanks to the Decepticons launching a full-scale war, and even racing champion Blurr was tempted to hook up to a machine when he realised that the races (and his career) were over for good.
Film — Live-Action
- Brazil is set in a bureaucracy-clogged police state in which inefficient gadgets, repressive security measures, endless paperwork and a total lack of accountability have made daily life increasingly unbearable. In this miserable existence, Sam Lowry finds comfort in dreams of being a winged superhero rescuing the damsel in distress from a monstrous realm of dark skyscrapers; these dreams increase in intensity as the real-world drama intensifies, until Sam finally breaks while being tortured by Information Retrieval and retreats into his fantasy full-time.
- Minority Report: In an Advert-Overloaded Future with invasive surveillance everywhere, the Precrime division of the police has virtually eliminated murder, at the cost of condemning anyone who might be about to kill someone to a life sentence without trial. Worse still, the system is based on the suffering of three Precogs kept drugged and trapped in their nightmares of the future, and given that their predictions aren't always perfectly accurate, there's a good chance that innocent people have been jailed because of said system. In this increasingly oppressive setting, various forms of legal and illegal escapism are popular: on the legal side, cyber-parlors like Rufus Riley's "Dreamweaver" allow people to live out their fantasies in virtual reality, while on the more illicit side, drug addiction is skyrocketing. Notably, Detective John Anderton uses Neuroin to combat his depression, enhancing his high with Happier Home Movies of his wife and son that he interacts with as if they were real.
Literature
- Paul McAuley's Fairyland is set in a hellish, war-torn version of Earth plagued with oppressive governments, unopposed organized crime, crooked cops, an ongoing refugee crisis, skyrocketing homelessness, and a new drugs trade for programmable viruses — which can also be used to brainwash the aforementioned homeless people into joining cults, by the way. Plus, by the second act of the book, the previously docile Servant Race of Dolls have essentially become The Fair Folk. But alongside the perception-altering viruses, Cyberspace has become quite popular by the story's third act, almost certainly as a direct response to the growing miseries of the real world.
- Overlord (2012) is nominally set in a future version of Earth where pollution is so endemic that just going outside requires gasmasks, corporations practically rule the world, mandatory education has been abolished, the divide between the rich and poor is immensely vast, fresh produce is rare to the point of being a luxury, and remarks suggest that the world is still recovering from World War III. In this miserable setting, virtual reality MMORPGs are popular, as was the case with the now-defunct YGGDRASIL; though the escapism falters somewhat when main character Momonga finds himself stuck inside the game, but even trapped and facing down real dangers, Momonga wonders if he should really bother trying to leave when the real world is so unrelentingly terrible.
- Ready Player One: In the 2040s, the world has been gripped by an energy crisis on top of climate change. People escape to the OASIS platform, whose currency is actually more stable than any in the real world and is essentially the only thing keeping the world together. The plot centers around attempts to control OASIS after the death of its creator, who made a posthumous challenge that the first person to find the Easter Egg he hid inside the game will inherit his fortune and his company. The Anti-Escapism Aesop is also downplayed here — as the virtual reality is seen as a tool that can better humanity if used to its full potential, but its current use as escapism is limiting this — and ultimately broken when protagonist Wade wins precisely because he's so obsessed with OASIS.
- Red Dwarf: Earth is a polluted has-been, working in space is boring as hell, the really nice off-world colonies are off-limits to everyone but the wealthy, and most of the others are either depressing military/industrial outposts or crime-ridden hellholes. Also, there's a new illegal drug sweeping the solar system: Better Than Life, a virtual reality game that makes the user's desires come true in a tailor-made simulation. The game erases all memory of starting play, leaving the user trapped inside until they starve to death — and even if they do realize what's going on, gameplay is so addictive that few users ever voluntarily leave. And yet, there's no shortage of new users willing to risk death for the ultimate escapist fantasy, to the point that one Game smuggler among the Red Dwarf crew expected to make ten years' wages from a single shipment to Triton. And things only get worse three million years in the future...
- In The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, climate change has left the Earth almost unlivable, while overpopulation is such a pressing problem that the government has started conscripting people in order to colonize the other planets of the solar system just to ease the pressure. Unfortunately, colonial life is so bare and soul-crushing that many colonists have turned to the use of Can-D, an illegal drug that allows its users to share idyllic hallucinations guided by doll furniture. However, the mysterious Palmer Eldritch has created a new drug called Chew-Z that can provide an even more immersive experience for the stimulation-starved colonists, and without the need for props. Best not ask about the side-effects, though...
Live-Action TV
- Black Mirror: In "Fifteen Million Merits", the citizens of a dystopia must power their society by cycling away on exercise bikes, live in tiny cube-shaped rooms without ever seeing real sunlight or nature, and getting overweight will result in demotion to the Fantastic Underclass. At work and at home, the people are kept distracted from the drudgery of their horrible lives by a constant steam of reality TV, porn, and video games, projected on every wall of their cells to give the illusion of reality; the only way they can express themselves is by buying accessories for their in-game avatars, as they aren't allowed physical possessions. The episode ends with Bing accidentally achieving stardom and being upgraded to a much bigger cell, with access to organic food and drink, huge digital "windows" to the outside world, and even physical possessions... but it's still essentially a prison, something that Bing is painfully aware of.
- Maniac (2018) is set in an especially bleak alternate world where the cost of living has become so aggressive that poorer members of society have sign up with "ad buddies" just to afford public transport, and actually paying the rent can require selling your likeness to an advertising agency or taking part in shady drug trials. Blackmail material can be legally purchased from strip-mall shops, the divide between the rich and the poor is wider than ever, and isolation and alienation are rampant, to the point that many people hire "proxy friends" just to feel connected to their estranged loved ones again. As such, the virtual reality offered by the Neberdine drug trial becomes quite attractive to Owen and Annie, especially the latter, who's already addicted to the trial's "A" pill by the start of the story. This comes to a head when the GRTA, masquerading as an evil sorceress in the first "C" trial scenario, offers to grant Annie a permanent place in the dreamworld, though it will mean her body will be brain-damaged to the point of catatonia.
- Red Dwarf: In "Back to Reality", the crew discovers that their experiences aboard Red Dwarf have all been part of a virtual reality game they've been playing for the last four years. Though the crew initially believe that they only played for so long because of their own unsatisfying real-world lives, it turns out that the game is incredibly popular in the society they've awakened in, to the point that there's a two-year waiting list, though the crew doesn't find out why until they leave the gaming arcade: the real world is a fascist dystopia where petty larceny is punishable by death and anyone who might vote against the ruling party ends up on the receiving end of a mass-execution. And then it's discovered that the virtual reality reveal was just a hallucination brought on by ink from the Despair Squid.
- Westworld: Many rich people go to the titular park to do whatever they want which includes indulging in the most twisted and sickest fantasies such as killing and raping the hosts. As revealed in Season 3, the park is more of a sanctuary for these rich people because the world outside is a Techno Dystopia where an A.I. system called Rehoboam enslaves much of humanity to keep everybody under control and anyone who is a threat to the system reconditioned or sent into a cryogenic state.
Tabletop Games
- The Old World of Darkness is a legendarily horrific place: on top of all the mortal atrocities, it's infested with vampires, werewolves, mages, changelings, ghosts, demons, mummies, fanatical monster hunters, and even stranger entities — all of them playing elaborate games for the fate of the world, all of them committing atrocities and having atrocities inflicted on them in turn. Also, every single supernatural group seems to have some kind of apocalypse scheduled in the very near future. In the face of this bleakness, Mage: The Ascension is one of the few games in the setting that offers escapism to the inhabitants of this dismal realm, with the mages opting to alter or even escape the grim reality rather than try to work within it. Most notably, the Virtual Adepts regularly drop into the Digital Web in pursuit of adventure and missions to recode reality in their favor. For good measure, the Technocracy — Iteration X in particular — like to dismiss the Virtual Adepts as fantasist kids who want to abandon their bodies for meaningless thrills in VR.
Video Games
- Alice: Madness Returns is partly set in Victorian London, a polluted industrial metropolis rife with violence, crime, social inequality, greed, misogyny, rape, and despair. The mentally ill are "treated" through abuse and exploitation, children are prey to all kinds of horrors, and the few do-gooders still around are helpless. Unsurprisingly, Alice Liddell is strongly tempted to return to her Happy Place of Wonderland and despite her best efforts to live in the real world following the events of the previous game, more focus is given to fixing Wonderland than solving real-world problems — to the point that Alice doesn't notice that Dr Bumby has been brainwashing her fellow orphans and pimping them out to wealthy clients, and is secretly trying to erase Alice's memories so she won't remember that he was responsible for the fire that killed her family. In the end, after discovering that Dr Bumby can't be brought to justice for his crimes, Alice opts to just shove him in front of a train, then retreats permanently into the rebuilt Wonderland rather than put up with another minute of the hell that is London.
- The eponymous setting of Fallen London (also featured in Sunless Sea) is a subterranean Wretched Hive plagued with corruption, bureaucracy, conspiracy, oppression, crime, and all manner of supernatural threats, along with some of the less-than-pleasant Victorian-era mindsets... and beyond the confines of London, things get even worse, with cultists, devils, monsters, and outright Eldritch Abominations being frighteningly common throughout the 'Neath. Oh, and you don't even have the luxury of returning to the surface (for long) as sunlight will kill you. Unsurprisingly, the drugs trade is thriving down here, with Prisoner's Honey and the highly illegal Gaoler's Honey being among the most popular of them: Prisoner's Honey allows the user to enter Parabola, the realm of dreams, while Gaoler's Honey (AKA Red Honey) allows the user to experience the memories of the unfortunate victim used to produce the honey — said victim being left alive in order to increase the honey's potency and suffering horribly every time someone tastes said honey.
- The setting of Ripper is a gloomy cyberpunk nightmare where everything seems miserable: the cityscape is grim and likely polluted; corporations fund shady research and own law enforcement agencies; crime is rampant, with high-ranking gangsters operating freely via blackmail and corruption; the police are not only in the pay of the aforementioned corporations but are so focused on collecting bonuses that they're prepared to brutalize just about anyone and fake all manner of evidence if it means getting a conviction. Oh, and did we mention that there's a serial killer emulating Jack the Ripper on the loose? With so much misery in the real world, Cyberspace is flourishing — to the point that the entertainment in this world seems almost exclusively virtual in nature, from the library that Quinlan regularly visits, to the VR games played by the Web Runners. Even the hackers treat Cyberspace as a form of escapism as much as a source of business, with Soap Beattie rhapsodizing about being about to walk while decked in and Joey Falconetti amusing himself in a circus-like private playground — while his drug-fueled body is left neglected dangling from a harness in his decrepit apartment.
- Sunless Skies:
- In this setting, Fallen London has ascended to the stars and formed an intergalactic steampunk British Empire. Unfortunately, nothing has been improved: Queen Victoria has seized ultimate power, Parliament has been banished, the Clockwork Sun built to replace the previous local Judgement is a horribly cruel god who delights in turning people to glass, the Ministry of Public Decency is even more powerful and smothering than before, workworlds like Brabazon condemn their workforce to premature aging simply for the sake of convenience in manufacturing, corruption is everywhere... and that's just in Albion. Elsewhere, monsters, nightmarish phenomena, and Eldritch Abominations infest the darker regions of the High Wilderness, the Judgements that dominate the universe are cruel and capricious gods with no regard for mortals, and even dying is no escape, because it means getting trapped in a miserable Celestial Bureaucracy ruled over by another hateful Judgement. In the face of all this, Prisoner's Honey and Gaoler's Honey have made a comeback...
- The quest for the Martyr King's Cup has consumed numerous people across the High Wilderness, ostensibly for the promise of immortality, but what truly makes people remain Questers are the Silver Dreams of a Golden Day: the more they search, the more detached from reality they become, repeatedly descending into an idyllic mediaeval fantasy world ruled over by the Unseen Queen. For good measure, many questers find reality unglamorous and oppressive, especially after being forced to return to it, and take every opportunity to remain in their visions of the Golden Day at any opportunity. You can adopt this mindset while searching for the Cup - or force yourself back into reality through sheer willpower. In the finale, one possible ending upon claiming the cup and unlocking its power involves you achieving immortality by permanently descending into the Golden Day, where you will live forever in heroic fantasies.
- We Happy Few: In Wellington Wells, the overwhelming majority of the populace is addicted to Joy, a wonder drug that not only prevents them from remembering the Very Bad Thing that happened during World War II but also erases negative thoughts and allows users to perceive reality on a much happier basis. As a result, Wellington Wells has become a police state driven to persecute anyone who isn't taking the drugs, while the society's obsession with happiness has meant that vital infrastructure isn't being attended to, but the people are too high on Joy to notice failing necessities. In fact, the escapism is so enforced the population is in danger of starving to death.
