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This isn't unique to Walking Dead, I've noticed it a lot. It is almost like these worlds are always alternate timelines where no one ever thought of Zombies before. Is that the case? Or is there some alternate reason why it seems like this?

It really pulls me out of the show sometimes.

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Excessive GenreSavviness can ruin the story even worse than GenreBlindness – Nick T Oct 23 '11 at 17:57
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@NickT: False Dichotomy. In a story where it was done well, such as World War Z, taking it from the stand-point where people know what's happening the moment it starts doesn't need to result in Genre Savvy characters. – DampeS8N Oct 23 '11 at 21:09
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Why does everything have to happen in our universe? Clearly this is a case of "Zombies only happen in universes where zombies aren't known of". Which is great, because we're really safe then! – Rob Oct 25 '11 at 15:34
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One of the neat things about Mira Grant's (awesome) Newsflesh series is that people have in fact heard of zombies before, and George Romero is actually a kind of hero for unwittingly teaching everyone how to survive against them. – grautur Nov 2 '11 at 4:36
I was just about to comment the same this as grautur has here. Mira Grant's Newsflesh series handles this particularly well (and they worship zombie reference material: George and Shaun are popular post-Rising children's names), but this also makes sense (to me) as part of the reason that civilisation is not so completely screwed as in other genre works. They're definitely worth reading. – Owen Blacker Feb 26 at 12:36
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3 Answers

up vote 13 down vote accepted

In The Walking Dead universe there are no such things as zombies. They don't exist in the media and fiction of the universe either.

At least not before the outbreak. That's why they don't automatically use that word or understand what's happening around them.

Robert Kirkman explains this in the second episode of Talking Dead, a companion TV show that follows the new episode reruns on AMC:

One of the things about this world is that people don't know how to shoot people in the head at first, and they're not familiar with zombies, per se," Kirkman said on Talking Dead. "This isn't a world the (George) Romero movies exist, for instance … because we don't want to portray it that way, we felt like having them be saying 'zombie' all the time would harken back to all of the zombie films which we, in the real world, know about.

That's also why they call them "walkers," "roamers" and such. The word isn't even in the universe's lexicon.

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up vote 18 down vote

There are a few movies that mention the idea - Shaun of the Dead comes to mind first, with the famous "zed word" gag:

Ed: Any zombies out there?

Shaun: Don't say that!

Ed: What?

Shaun: That!

Ed: What?

Shaun: The zed-word. Don't say it!

Ed: Why not?

Shaun: Because it's ridiculous!

Most works of speculative fiction require a healthy suspension of disbelief to begin with. Pair that with the initial shock of "there are rotting corpses trying to eat my flesh, how do I survive now" and I can understand why people don't really bother talking about how their situation has been presented in popular media. Pop culture references in general aren't particularly common, and when they are used it is often used to point out how different life is post-apocalypse.

For reference, you're not the only one wondering this:

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up vote 0 down vote

I think the writers want to stray away from using the word "Zombies" It takes away from the originality of the show itself. I think it's awesome that they never even used the word...well yet anyway. "Walkers" are much more appreciated by me, rather than hearing "Zombies" every other five minutes. You get me?

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Welcome to our site. Please read our FAQ. We work a bit differently than your standard forum, so don't take what I'm about to do (down vote) personally. We strive for complete and detailed answers to questions and as this one already has a couple very good ones that encompass your own. You should absolutely stick around however, and try to gain reputation by asking more Walking Dead questions. Better ones. We can use them, as this is one of the many areas we are trying to become an authority on. You should consider deleting this answer, or editing it. – DampeS8N Feb 20 at 5:35
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