To truly appreciate the rich cultural symbolism of 28 Years Later, the zombie-apocalypse-plague movie whose characters are currently projectile-vomiting blood in a theater near you, it is necessary to return first to 28 Days Later, the original zombie-apocalypse-plague film to which it is a followup. Danny Boyle's initial foray into the living dead oeuvre was groundbreaking within the genre — it was, among other things, the first time anyone dared to imagine zombies of the fast-and-furious rather than shambling-and-stupid variety — but it was also eerily prescient about what the then-nascent internet was about to do to us. In a moment when neither smartphones nor social media yet existed, 28 Days Later captured the digital age concept of viral outrage via the classic zombie virus framework (in this case, after projectile vomiting bit, the infected party attacks every person he encounters in a mindless, murderous frenzy). Its central thesis was one that, in the online era, we understand intuitively: rage travels fast and spreads like wildfire, and the only thing worse than those consumed by it are the ones who take advantage of its destabilizing effects to seize power for themselves.

Boyle's original film was a cautionary tale about how dangerous we can be to each other, but it ended on a positive note: reassuring us that some people — the good ones — can find each other, and save each other, even when the world is falling apart. That same sense of optimism was ubiquitous in the early days of the social web, as introverts, artists, and fandom members found their people on Reddit and Livejournal, on Tumblr and Twitter, on forums and blogs and microblogs. For a little while, it seemed like the internet was going to both change and save the world, that we'd created the ultimate tool for human expression, and with it, for human connection.