The Best Examples of Imagine a World Where Everyone Has a Superpower

Everyday-life examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower

Forget capes and skyscraper battles for a moment. The best examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower usually start in the dullest places: the DMV, the group chat, the office Slack channel.

Picture a morning commute. Everyone on the train has a different ability. One woman can rewind five seconds of time, but only once an hour. A guy in a hoodie can see everyone’s browser history as glowing text above their heads. A teenager can phase through solid objects, but only while listening to a very specific playlist.

Nobody is impressed. It’s just Tuesday.

Kids use levitation to reach the cereal on the top shelf. Parents use telepathy to confirm if their toddler really did brush their teeth. Teachers mute sound waves in the classroom to stop side chatter. Your coffee shop barista can heat liquids with their hands but still charges extra for oat milk.

This is the sweet spot: powers are everywhere, but drama comes from how people misuse, monetize, or ignore them.

Work and school: examples include office politics with powers

One powerful example of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower is the powered workplace. Not a superhero base. A regular, fluorescent-lit office.

Imagine HR with lie-detection powers. Performance reviews get very tense. Your manager can literally see your stress aura spike when they mention “quick pivot.” Your coworker can duplicate themselves for meetings, but every clone is slightly more unfiltered than the original.

In schools, cheating becomes an art form. A student with perfect photographic memory becomes the human version of Quizlet. Another can project images into others’ minds, so they run a quiet test-answer side hustle. Teachers counter with powers of their own: one can temporarily erase short-term memory to reset a test if cheating is suspected.

You can spin entire stories out of these friction points:

• A burned-out teacher who can freeze time but is forbidden to use it on grading.
• A delivery driver who can teleport packages but still gets nagged about “route optimization.”
• A remote worker who can astral project into any meeting, making it impossible to ever be “offline.”

This is where modern 2024–2025 trends slide in nicely. Think about AI and automation: in a world where everyone has a superpower, does AI still matter? Maybe yes. Maybe everyone’s power is weirdly specific, and they still rely on AI tools for boring tasks. Or maybe powers are regulated like tech—licensed, audited, and tracked.

You can ground this in real-world labor questions. For instance, current discussions about workplace surveillance and productivity monitoring (see research from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) can easily morph into a world where employers try to track, rate, and monetize employee powers.

Social media and dating: best examples of powered culture

Some of the best examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower live on social media and dating apps.

Picture an influencer whose power is to subtly boost serotonin in anyone who watches their content. Their followers don’t just like their videos—they feel better. Brands pay absurd amounts for a sponsored mood boost. Another creator can replay their memories as perfectly edited POV videos, so their content is literally their life.

Dating becomes even stranger. Apps now have a “power filter.” You can swipe only on people whose abilities complement yours. Someone who can see the future in 5-minute snippets avoids anyone whose power is chaos probability manipulation. A person whose power reveals true emotions refuses to date anyone with illusion-based abilities.

Possible story hooks:

• A couple goes viral because their powers combine into something wild—like she can talk to plants, and he can accelerate growth, so they accidentally terraform their apartment.
• An introvert with invisibility falls for a micro-influencer whose power is to make anyone near them more noticeable.
• A power-matching algorithm starts pairing people based on what their children’s abilities might be, raising eugenics-level ethical questions.

You can mirror current conversations about algorithm bias and digital privacy. Think of how real-world platforms already profile users (see discussions around algorithmic fairness from organizations like the Brookings Institution). Now imagine those systems also predicting and classifying powers.

Health, medicine, and mental load: real examples of powered problems

Another rich example of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower is healthcare. Powers sound glamorous until you realize how many medical problems they create.

Someone who can regenerate tissue quickly might still feel pain, just for a shorter time, leading to weird chronic pain profiles. A person who can absorb others’ emotions might end up with burnout that looks a lot like compassion fatigue in healthcare workers. You can draw inspiration from real burnout research, like that discussed by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Real examples you could build around:

• A therapist whose power allows them to literally feel what their patients feel—but they can’t turn it off.
• A surgeon who can see inside the body without imaging, but the constant sensory overload is wrecking their sleep.
• A paramedic who can stop time for 15 seconds at a time, forced to choose which accident victims get those precious pauses.

There’s also the question of regulation. Do governments create power registries, like vaccination records? Are some powers treated like controlled substances? You could echo real debates on public health, disability rights, or genetic privacy. For factual grounding, you might look at how existing systems handle genetic data and privacy (for example, the National Human Genome Research Institute has accessible resources on ethical questions around genetics).

And mental health? Imagine anxiety when you know the worst-case scenario because you can see alternate timelines. Or the loneliness of someone whose power makes everyone around them slightly happier, but nobody realizes the “joy” isn’t fully their own.

Power inequality: an example of a world that isn’t fair, even with powers

A common mistake is to assume that if everyone has a power, the world automatically becomes fair. It won’t. Inequality just mutates.

Here’s a strong example of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower that leans into inequality: everyone has a power, but some are obviously more marketable than others.

• One person can cure any headache with a touch. Another can make any object smell faintly of cinnamon. Both technically have powers. Only one can pay rent with theirs.
• Someone can detect lies, but only when the liar is holding a specific brand of pen. That brand becomes absurdly expensive.
• A person can control weather—but only within a 6-foot radius. They become the world’s most in-demand outdoor wedding planner.

Governments and corporations immediately show up. Power-testing centers emerge, like career aptitude tests but way more stressful. Children are sorted early: “high economic potential” powers versus “niche” ones. A kid whose ability only works in zero gravity gets written off as useless—until space travel becomes common.

You can echo real discussions about talent, privilege, and opportunity. Think about how standardized testing or college admissions work now. Who gets access? Who gets labeled gifted? How does class or geography shape the impact of the same ability?

Quiet, small-scale powers: the most human examples of all

Sometimes the most powerful examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower are the quiet ones.

Imagine a grandmother whose power is that any recipe she cooks tastes like a beloved memory. A bus driver who can always sense when someone is about to miss their stop and gently calls out, “Hey, this is you.” A librarian whose touch temporarily organizes your thoughts, so you walk away knowing exactly what you want to read.

These are not headline powers. They’re the ones that make a neighborhood feel like home.

You can build:

• A community where everyone’s minor power contributes to hyper-local resilience—one person can find lost pets, another can purify a single gallon of water a day, another can always tell when a storm is 10 minutes away.
• A character who is ashamed of their “small” gift until it saves someone’s life in a quiet, unphotogenic way.
• A city that realizes its loudest heroes aren’t the ones on billboards, but the people whose powers keep things from falling apart.

There’s a nice parallel here to how real communities function. Most of what keeps society going is invisible labor—caregiving, teaching, emotional support. You can tie that to conversations about unpaid labor and caregiving burdens, which are well-documented in social science and public health research.

Writing prompts and story sparks using these examples

Now that we’ve walked through several examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower, you can remix them into your own stories. Think of each scenario as a knob you can twist: scale it up, scale it down, or flip the emotional tone.

Try prompts like:

• In a city where everyone has a power, one person wakes up to find theirs is gone—and nobody believes them.
• A support group forms for people whose powers only work under extremely inconvenient conditions (exactly 3:07 a.m., only while barefoot, only when someone nearby is lying).
• A global treaty tries to regulate cross-border use of powers, but one tiny island nation refuses and becomes a chaotic tourist hotspot.
• A teen’s power is to temporarily turn off other people’s powers—but only if they make eye contact and genuinely like the person.
• A reality show pairs contestants whose powers combine in unpredictable ways. The producers are thrilled. The contestants are traumatized.

Use these as launchpads, not cages. The best examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower are the ones that feel oddly close to your own life: your job, your family drama, your commute, your social feeds.

FAQ: examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower

Q: Can you give a short example of a story idea where everyone has a superpower?
A: A city council election in a town where everyone has powers. One candidate can detect lies, another can inspire trust, and a third can erase 10 minutes of memory from any public speech. The campaign becomes a battle over who people choose to trust when everyone knows manipulation is possible.

Q: What are some everyday-life examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower?
A: Think of a barista who can taste someone’s mood in their coffee order, a rideshare driver who always knows the safest route, or a teacher who can literally see which students are confused. These everyday powers shape routine life more than flashy superhero battles.

Q: How do I avoid cliché when using the idea that everyone has a superpower?
A: Focus on limits, side effects, and social rules. Ask: Who profits from this power? Who’s bored by it? Who’s scared of it? The more your world echoes real systems—laws, bias, economics, mental health—the less it feels like a copy of existing superhero franchises.

Q: Are there real examples I can use as inspiration for power systems?
A: Yes—look at how society handles things like genetic information, disability accommodations, and public health. For instance, debates around genetic privacy and discrimination (explored by institutions like the National Human Genome Research Institute) can inspire how your world treats people with rare or dangerous abilities.

Q: How can I use these examples of imagine a world where everyone has a superpower in different formats (novels, comics, games)?
A: For novels, lean into character psychology and long-term consequences of powers. For comics, highlight visually striking powers and how they reshape spaces. For tabletop or video games, treat powers as systems—who has what, how they interact, and what rules govern them. The same core example can become a slow-burn drama, a fast-paced action story, or a narrative-heavy RPG.

Use these questions as springboards. The idea isn’t to copy these examples, but to let them infect your imagination until your powered world feels as complicated—and as strangely familiar—as our own.