I think a good part of any dystopia is tapping into the Dystopia in the culture. Because yeah, there can be a nuclear war, but it's how that nuclear war effects people. And yeah, there can be a borderline fascist state, but its how that fascist state could be allowed to come into being and be supported by the people or how the people react to it.
Looking back on some of the culture and media from my formative years (the 90's), that decade, or at least the earlier years (and stretching back into the late 80's), was scummy and nasty and stupid as fuck in a lot of places. I think a lot of it has to do with the Generation X'ers; a generation thinking everything needed to be "Xtreme!!!!!!!", which was raised on pop culture, and thought everything needed to have multiple giant super guns. It was like a generation raised on nothing but Cheetos and Coca-Cola. And Generation X, and everything presented to Generation X, which tried to be deep or artistic failed miserably because it was done by idiots.
The 90's saw the Dark Age of Comics where comic characters were characterized by self doubt (which, due to poor characterization, just made them whiny babies), or Xtreeeeme willingness to use violence and guns to be hardcore, and where Rob Liefeld was considered the greatest artist of a generation thus making for giant and unnatural muscles, muscles which don't exist, unrealistic proportions, and women without spines given how much their backs arch. The 90's also gave us an unsustainable collectors market, the main elements being Baseball cards and Comics; things are only valuable if they're rare, but manufacturers sold comics and baseball cards telling customers they were going to be worth something someday, made multiple special editions, comics made multiple "1st Issues" which were said to be worth something someday but no one cared about the characters other than them being collectible. And since everyone bought these, they weren't worth anything, leading to a major market collapse from which neither comics or baseball cards has ever fully recovered. Baseball cards as a business has especially been not worth a damn. Marvel comics almost went out of business.
Shortly before the 90's started, there was also the beginning of Trash TV. Springer, Geraldo, and (the one I think is the worst) Morton Downey, Jr. Geraldo, I think, also started a moral panic with the whole scare over Satanists where people were scared out of their minds that there were millions of secret Satanists who were sexually abusing their children in day cares and involving them in secret rituals and stuff, which was due to a bunch of dumb therapists, lawyers and social workers, and children who were were goaded into giving false memories by these people. And media overall hopped on that dysfunctional bandwagon, and became all about boobs and guns and appealing to the lowest common denominator in a lot of places. And there was the rise of Right Wing radio and all that stuff.
Media overall just became really dysfunctional and scummy in a lot of places, and all about appealing to the lowest denominator and basest instincts like the Roman arena of a modern age. If you take these and balloon them up even more, then you have better dystopia.