Terrifying Beijing advertisement offers 'glorious glimpse of our dystopian future'

Heavy air pollution in Beijing offers a glimpse of our own future.
(Image credit: GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)

Welcome to 2017, everyone:

See more

Beijing-based Bloomberg News technology journalist David Ramli tweeted the terrifying subway ad early Monday morning, as well as a link confirming the portable anti-haze air purifier is no parody.

Nothing about air pollution in China is a joke, in fact; smog could cause one in three deaths in certain parts of the nation, where it has a comparable impact on health as smoking cigarettes.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
See more

The portable air purifiers come in orange, red, two shades of blue, as well as gray and classic black. You might want to pick yours out now — in 2016, the American Lung Association found that more than half of Americans live in places where air pollution is dangerously high.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.