Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Despite the West's view that We might be communist propaganda, The Soviet Union had serious objections to the book and refused to let the author publish it. (Source)
If you notice, all of the female characters in We have names starting with vowels, and all of the males have names starting with consonants. We're not sure what they mean, but there it is. (Source)
Among all the other things this book helped inspire, you can add Star Trek to the list. The malicious Borg—bald, uniformly dressed, and frowning on little things like emotions or individuality—became one of the biggest threats that the far-flung future had ever seen, even to the point of "assimilating" Jean-Luc Picard. We're guessing that a least a few of the writers who made them up had a copy of We on the shelf. Here's a clip of their appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Source)
For a film about toy bricks, The Lego Movie actually touches on a lot of the same themes as We… so much so, in fact, that we suspect someone on the production knew about the book. Even if they didn't, the pop culture vibes are unmistakable. Look at this scene of the Lego construction workers doing their job, and tell us there isn't at least a little of D-503 in there somewhere. (Source)
Before he provided quirky/creepy themes for every Tim Burton movie under the sun, composer Danny Elfman fronted a New Wave band called Oingo Boingo. One of their early songs, "Perfect System," was inspired more or less directly by We. Take a listen over on YouTube if you're of a mind, and pay especial attention to the lyrics, which the poster helpfully wrote down for us. (Source)