The outside world - mystery or not?

Hey, I was wondering what you guys think about the outside world in Severance.

Do you think it’s meant to be, so to speak, our world, but altered by some kind of event that makes everything feel a bit off? I feel like there are a few unsettling hints that suggest it’s not quite the reality we know.

For instance, the way food is portrayed, especially in the first season—people go to parties where there’s no food at all, and this lack of food seems to linger subtly in the background. We hardly see anyone eating.

Then there’s the way people behave—they all seem either a bit limited, naive, or like they’re operating on strange, rigid patterns. Is this because they’re part of some kind of cult or cult-like mindset, and that’s just a reflection of their mentality? Or is it that people in this world generally act and think differently?

Do you think there’s a mystery behind how the outside world functions, or is it simply a stylistic choice by the creators—to give the world a sense of grotesque humor or surrealism, exaggerating it for aesthetic purposes without a deeper twist behind it?