It’s 2006. Mike Judge—the guy who gave us Office Space and Beavis and Butt-Head—releases a film called Idiocracy. It barely gets a theatrical release. Fox essentially buries it.
The premise: Average guy gets frozen in a military experiment. Wakes up 500 years later in a world that’s gotten exponentially dumber. He’s now the smartest person alive by default.
We watched it and laughed. It was satire. Exaggeration. Social commentary. “People would never actually…” (or was that me being young and naive?)
Two years later, Pixar releases WALL-E. It’s a massive hit. Critics love it. Kids love it. Everyone thinks it’s adorable.
Both films show futures where humans have stopped thinking for themselves. We watched them and laughed. Satire. Exaggeration. Social commentary. “People would never actually…”
And then Dictionary.com announced their 2025 Word of the Year: “6-7.” (I feel like there should be some ominous music playing in the background here.)
Not a word. Two numbers from a viral song that literally means nothing. They described it as “meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical…it has all the hallmarks of brainrot.”
And they’re celebrating it.
If you’ve seen either film, you know exactly why this should concern you.
Table of Contents
Two Films, Same Warning
Idiocracy (Rated R) follows Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), selected for a military hibernation experiment because he’s aggressively average. He wakes up 500 years later to find:
- Education has been replaced by entertainment
- Complex thought has been replaced by empty spectacle
- Anti-intellectualism isn’t just accepted—it’s celebrated
- People want immediate gratification over long-term thinking
- Credentials matter more than competence
- Nobody reads anymore (“Why would I? I just watch TV”)
- The most popular show is literally just a guy getting hit in the crotch
Mike Judge was extrapolating from trends he saw in 2006: Consumer culture, Reality TV, Anti-intellectualism. The dumbing down of public discourse.
We thought it was funny because it felt impossible.
WALL-E (2008) – Rated G
Earth is abandoned. Humans live on a spaceship where:
- Everyone floats in chairs staring at screens
- All thinking is outsourced to technology
- Physical capability has atrophied
- Human connection has been replaced by digital interface
- No one questions the system until one robot shows them what they’ve lost
Different approaches. Same warning: We’re choosing convenience and entertainment over capability and thinking.
What I’m Seeing in My Classroom
In Idiocracy, people want solutions but won’t do the work of thinking. In WALL-E, humans want everything done for them and eventually forget they CAN do things themselves. Does this sound like your students:
- Wanting the A without the learning?
- Wanting the credential without the education?
- Using AI to do their thinking for them?
- Asking “Just tell me exactly what you want” instead of wrestling with the work?
Performance Over Substance Everywhere
Idiocracy shows people who LOOK like they’re doing important things but accomplish nothing meaningful. WALL-E shows humans going through motions on screens without ever DOING anything real.
Sound like:
- Productivity theater in education (documenting everything, improving nothing)?
- Administrative compliance without actual learning?
- Students performing engagement without genuine thinking?
- Grade optimization without understanding?
Optimization for the Wrong Things
Characters in these films optimize for immediate gratification, entertainment value, and ease—never for long-term thinking or genuine problem-solving.
Sound like students optimizing for:
- Grade maximization over understanding?
- Shortcuts over depth?
- Appearing smart over being smart?
- What can be measured over what matters?
The Student Activity: Recognizing the Pattern
I’ve created an activity that works with EITHER film (use WALL-E for G-rated option, Idiocracy for older students if appropriate):
Part 1: Watch Key Scenes Students watch selected clips from Idiocracy or Wall-E (classroom-appropriate scenes showing education, media, and decision-making in the future).
Part 2: Identify the Satire What’s being satirized? What real-world trends is this exaggerating? What does the film suggest about what we value?
Part 3: Pattern Recognition Where do you see these patterns today? In education? In media? In how we make decisions? What are we optimizing for?
The Bigger Picture: Teaching Cultural Patterns
This lesson is about more than one film. It’s about teaching students to recognize cultural patterns—to see what we’re building toward and make conscious choices about whether to participate or resist.
When they can see the pattern, they can choose differently.
Want more frameworks for teaching cultural analysis? My podcast episode on “6-7” Word of the Year goes deeper into what this moment means for education and why teaching for meaning is resistance.
Resources
Watch WALL-E (2008): Rated G – Available on Disney+
Watch Idiocracy (2006): Available on Hulu, rentable on most platforms (Note: Rated R, contains adult language and situations. Preview before showing clips to students)
Download the student activity: Wall-E or Idiocracy: Pattern Recognition Activity
Read more context:
- Full podcast episode: “‘6-7’ Word of the Year and We’re Living in Idiocracy”
- Quiz Show Mini-Unit (another great film for discussing the consequences of anti-intellectualism)
- Against Brainrot: What It’s a Wonderful Life Teaches Me About Flawed Classics
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