I’ve heard a lot of Gen Z people confuse dystopian and utopian. Usually I don’t care about “correct” language at all, I’d even argue languages that change are alive and changes are often invisible to those with rigid or discriminatory thinking. In this case the confusion seems almost deliberate or directional as in having an origin in some media where it is confused heavily though.
I never would “correct” a person IRL about this, but I am really confused how it is possible that several people can make the exact same error. Are the assigned meanings to those words changing?
My guess would be an ironic intentional misuse of the phrase that got out of hand.
Either “let us contemplate the utopian setting of fallout where everyone has the liberty to shoot anyone else at any time and there are robots and monsters and other cool things” or “can you believe this dystopian socialist vision where NOBODY is rich, we have to just feed everyone, and you can spend a night in jail for throwing pigs blood on a trans man who had an abortion?”
… Come to think of it, maybe the originating usage wasnt so much ironic as just ignorant.
~and yes I’m perfectly aware that what I described is probably satirical or sardonic rather than classical irony. Blame Alaniss Morissete~
Or just poor education.
This, more than likely