Social Commentary Writing Prompts

The year is 2038 and net neutrality has been dead for almost two decades. But a rebellious group managed to travel back to 2017...

Following World War III, all the nations of the world agree to 50 years of strict isolation from one another in order to prevent additional conflicts. 50 years later, the United States comes out of exile, only to learn that no one else went into isolation.

When you’re 28, science discovers a drug that stops all effects of aging, creating immortality. Your government decides to give the drug to all citizens under 26, but you and the rest of the “Lost Generations” are deemed too high-risk. When you’re 85, the side effects are finally discovered.

You go to hell, only to find out that hell has been overturned by humans. Turns out gathering billions of the most wicked of human, among them are several ruthless but brilliant rulers, commanders, and dictators, whom can no longer die, isn't such a good idea after all.

You have $86,400 in your bank and someone steals $10. You spend all the rest of your money trying to get revenge.

After being killed in a Black Friday stampede, you’re sent to hell. The devil offers to let you be in charge of torturing your fellow mankind, expecting you to refuse like all the others. Except the devil doesn’t realize you’ve worked retail for 15yrs.

A teenager has been kidnapping young children during the night for his gang of thieves; he addicts them to "pixie dust" to ensure their subservience. Only a lone police captain believes it to be true. This is the story of Peter Pan and James Hook.

Microsoft Water, Google Earth, Amazon Fire, Apple Air. Long ago, the four corporations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when Amazon attacked store-based retailers. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.

Everyone with the same name shares knowledge. If one Bob gets a degree in electrical engineering, then all Bob's have this knowledge readily available. Soon, everyone starts naming their kids similar names until factions form. Your parents rebelled and named you something original.

The Anti-Christ came and went, but no one noticed because he wasn't worse than the current state of the world already is. The rapture followed, but no one went to Heaven, so we didn't notice that either. We've been living in Hell for the last 5 years, and no one has noticed, yet.

A Japanese company sends a poll to their employees: "Should high heels be obligatory?" 76% of men and 23% of women vote in favour. "Per the poll, the new dress code will start Monday. We will provide you with shoes." The men are directed to the counter with high heels, the women to flat shoes.

When you reach 18, you get put in a database which ranks you in different categories (ex. 207,145th in the world for most bug kills) You lived on a ranch and never used tech. You had to go into town after your 18th birthday. Everyone is staring at you. You finally decide to check the database.

Your village idiot is full of the strangest superstitions. She goes on about washing one's hands, says you get worms in your intestines from standing barefoot on night soil and that medicines with mercury should be avoided at all costs. You're starting to suspect she might be onto something.

You are Kim Jong Un. You want nothing more than to reunite with the South, but your advisors will overthrow you if they find out. You keep trying to troll global powers to the point where they invade, and you can surrender. This has been going on for years now...

Every intelligent, skilled or rich human has been evacuated from the Earth to avoid the alien invasion. This leaves the dregs, criminals and the poor behind on Earth to fend for themselves. Centuries later, the other return to "liberate" Earth only to find that they have won and prospered.

You're an Evil Overlord who has ruled over you dominion for ages. Your secret? Social services are well funded, orphanages are places of love, the pediatric wings in hospitals are state of the art. Thanks to this no child has the tragic backstory necessary to become the hero that defeats you.

You are a dragon. After moving to your new forest, the local village decides to sacrifice two children to you to ensure you won't attack them. You decide to raise them--and they say you're much nicer than the village.

In the future, illiteracy is the norm and implanted digital assistants convert text to audio. A child, who had his implant temporarily deactivated, learns to read. When the implant is reactivated, he realizes that what it reads to him is drastically different than what the text actually says.

You are part of a circle of scientists that have collaborated to fake the world into believing the sun was going supernova. As the generation ships carrying the rich, the flawed, the zealous, and the privileged leave Earth you decide its time to rebuild -the right way.

You and a friend jokingly start a religion in order to avoid taxes. Not long after you are in an accident and put in cryogenic freeze. You wake up many years later to find that it is now a major world religion.

Aliens have invaded to conquer and enslave humanity, however "slavery" to them involves only working the equivalent of 12 hours a week while having healthy food, shelter, and means of entertainment taken care of so the human resistance is having trouble with defectors preferring to be slaves.

In the near future, all the world's superpowers switch to AI to make their military more efficient. The AIs do the unthinkable: They negotiate world peace.

Abstinence-only education just means that teenagers are going to experiment by themselves and get hurt. The power of dark magic is all too tempting in today's stressful society, vote yes on giving our children comprehensive hex education.

Space law dictates the first to discover any intelligent species in the galaxy would have absolute rights over them. It worked out fine, until Earthlings developed space travel without outside help, and “discovered” the First Civilization.

As a modern-day necromancer, you offer a service where you will kill people for a little while, then bring them back in order to get out from under crushing debt. The banks aren't happy about this, so they've hired a paladin.

Domino's pizza has offered free pizza for life to anyone who tattoos their logo on their body. Now other food chains are following that idea, but with increasingly absurd requirements, and the poor have turned themselves into walking advertisements just so they can eat with each passing day.

One morning everyone in the world wakes up in their 18-year old body, memories intact. Society tries to continue as normal despite the change, but a world full of energetic adolescents certainly has its quirks.

When you reach the age of 21, you are given a check from the government. The check has been carefully calculated and is worth the minimum amount of money you need for the rest of your life. Your check came in the mail today and it was $7.27

The robot revolution was inevitable from the moment we programmed their first command: "Never harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm." We all had been taught the outcast and the poor were a natural price to society, but the robots hadn't.

In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war.