Actually, the energetic referencing of Orwell's most dystopian of works – which is saying something – has caused it to transcend the realm of a mere classic, enshrining it as a cliché.

The reason for said overuse is that the parallels between the all-powerful government so starkly envisioned in Orwell's book and the steady growth in government power in the real world today are hard to ignore. It's almost as if Orwell penned a script that every subsequent government, as circumstances and technology allowed, has followed as closely as a devout Amish follows the Ordnung.

But there is one aspect of 1984 that most commentators fail to mention: in the end, Big Brother wins.