story
1984
The totalitarian surveillance state that polices not just actions but thoughts.
Origin
George Orwell's 1949 novel. Winston Smith lives under the Party and its omnipresent figurehead, Big Brother, in a regime that rewrites history and criminalizes independent thought. He rebels, is caught, tortured, and broken into loving the system. The book gave the language Big Brother, thoughtcrime, doublethink, the memory hole, and the adjective Orwellian — its vocabulary now travels further than its plot.
Modern usage
Invoked whenever a state or corporation overreaches into surveillance or rewrites the record. Its constant foil is Brave New World — Orwell's boot versus Huxley's comforts.