In media, the phrase often evokes the terror of the unknown or the "unseen."
: In Colson Whitehead’s Zone One , the protagonist asks, "If there's nothing out there, what's the point?" . This captures the bleakness of surviving in a world where the structures of society have been replaced by a literal and figurative void. There's Nothing Out There
: When landscapes like the Great Basin Desert are viewed as disposable or empty nothingness , they become targets for exploitation, such as radioactive waste repositories. In media, the phrase often evokes the terror