Love It or Hate It, The “Clanker” Is Here To Stay.

By Ndyebo Magwevana.

A picture of two robots at a red carpet. Photo courtesy of Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, via Euro News.

Clanker.

It’s a two-syllable word. Rolls off the tongue easily, so it shouldn’t be difficult to pronounce, right? It isn’t necessarily… offensive, right? Does it carry any… negative connotations yet, right? Okay, that’s great.

Now, scream it. Scream it with revulsion, fear, and sheer terror at the sight of the word. Now yell it with a firm, deep voice that seethes with hatred, the lava-like manner of your intonations of this open-ended, two-syllable neologism moulding what was once mere metaphorical iron ore into a weapon — a human-made weapon of mass destruction.

And its target? The robots. They are the clankers. They are who humanity fears. They are who we look at in revulsion and with sheer terror. And we see them through a lens of pure hatred…

Well, at least that’s how I like to picture it.

Nonetheless, this neologism is used as the aforementioned weapon against the robots, originating from the Star Wars franchise in the early 2000s and resurrected through current social media since August of this year. It is a derogatory term formed by the multitudes of humans who loathe and fear the rise of AI. It is a rallying cry to band humanity together against what is claimed to be a rising, autonomous and unfeeling robotic force, and has gained further traction through the many memes that touch on this, too. Of course, the word is not merely restricted to AI, but to all technology that falls in the same line as AI. It was resurrected through the internet out of the myriad of fears humanity has for AI, like the erasure of employment opportunities and the effect that its developments may have on not only humanity, but on nature, as well (look at how gallons of water are drained to maintain reviled AI chatbots like ChatGPT).

One notable example of how this word is used in memes on social media is through a world set in the future where robots now assume the roles of citizens, co-exist with humanity and have romantic relationships with humans. The human may bring their [let’s call it their robot] partner to meet their parents, and, after pleasantries are exchanged, the father talks to the robot in private. In doing so, however, he verbally damages the robot by calling it a “clanker,” amongst many other insults, like a father who loathes the sight of their child bringing in a male not of his liking and needs to warn that male or assert his dominance over it.

Alternatively, the meme may take up the setting of a family dinner, where the human’s robot partner is seated alongside the human’s family who hosts the pair, the father makes backhanded and snide remarks like, “I bet you battery bloods wish you could have a terabyte,” or “Just so you know, there will be no transferring of data between you two,” to the robot or questions its beliefs in what may seem like a false display of innocent interest without explicitly calling the robot a “clanker”, whilst simultaneously side-eyeing the robot.

AI is facing heavyweight opposition from humans, via Dictionary.com.

As funny as this may seem (and as funny as I may find it, too), there are, as with every other meme or trend, always going to be some form of overarching negativity looming over what appears to be a lighthearted joke; a wolf in sheep’s skin, one can say. In this case, that wolf in sheep’s skin is the freedom this kind of meme gives to those who are not so fond of minorities, notably people of colour. It can allow those who take on this meme to subtly (or unsubtly) place a load of derogatory undertones beneath their insults towards AI and robots in their jokes, with this being evident in some TikTokers performing this trend in a manner that painfully echoes the segregation in the 20th century or the death of a man at the hands of white policemen (naming a robot Rosa Sparks, or George Droid should sound a morale alarm within the internet, and that it has).

It can go beyond this dislike of the dark-skinned minority and extend towards those non-conforming of gender and orientation, and those from foreign countries, amongst a myriad of other minorities that can be caught in the crossfire of this joke if done by those not so admiring of these minorities. Nonetheless, in all its splendour and terror, the “clanker” meme is here to make its stay and remains a household name since its inception in the early 2000s, and nothing, not even the dark, toxic outskirts of where it comes from (i.e. the internet) will deter it from remaining in pole position.