Discover how a sci-fi insult turned social critique, capturing Gen Z’s frustration, fear, and defiance in the era of AI.
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23 Feb 2026
5 Min Read
Soon Sue Qii (Student Writer), Nellie Chan (Editor)
Discover how a sci-fi insult turned social critique, capturing Gen Z’s frustration, fear, and defiance in the era of AI.
‘No child of mine will date a clanker!’
If you’ve spent any time on the internet lately, you’ve likely seen some version of this sentiment—not necessarily word for word—but scattered across meme captions, comment threads, or short-form videos. In this scene, a distraught parent disowns their child for bringing home an AI boyfriend. Originally a sci-fi insult for robots, the term ‘clanker’ has since become a buzzword, used to mock, shame, or shun AI and robotic characters.
Some of these portrayals take that ridicule further, repeating patterns of exclusion familiar from history, specifically the discrimination faced by African Americans during the Jim Crow era, when many establishments were ‘whites only’. One skit illustrates this: TikTok creator Stanzi Potenza role-plays a Southern diner waitress who refuses service to ‘clankers’, declaring the diner ‘humans only’—a pointed parody of segregationist logic.
As the trend gained traction, so too did the discourse surrounding the term. Some were concerned about the online harassment and aggression it stirred. After all, the internet doesn’t just reflect attitudes; it reinforces them, especially among younger generations. Were these portrayals merely satire? Or were they quietly cultivating a vocabulary of vitriol? And perhaps most curiously: why was there ever a need for a disparaging term for technology meant to push humanity towards new heights in the first place?
While ‘clanker’ has only recently been circulating online, the term itself predates its popularity. It first appeared in the video game Star Wars: Republic Commando (2005), and later featured more prominently in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), where clone troopers used it to insult battle droids, a nod to the clanking of their metal parts. Other sci-fi franchises had similar slang—‘toaster’ in Battlestar Galactica, for example—but 'clanker' caught on, likely for its intuitive phrasing, easy pronunciation, and punch that landed even beyond the fandom. By 2025, it had been repurposed on social media to refer to real or imagined robots or AI in a derisive manner.
At first glance, calling a robot a ‘clanker’ might seem harmless. After all, machines have no feelings. Yet the term clearly carries a sting: it’s meant to demean. Linguistically, it fits the definition of a slur (an insult intended to offend). The target, however, is complicated. It’s less about the machines and more about the humans using the term, reflecting attitudes, anxieties, and social tensions projected onto the technology we’ve created and have even begun to fear. So if it’s not the machines, who—or what—is it really targeting?
The answer lies in the very real social and economic pressures that strain our relationship with technology. For younger generations, the spread of AI is inseparable from a fear of redundancy. AI can process information with speed, generate content at scale, and perform routine or repetitive tasks with near-perfect precision—capabilities humans can approximate but cannot match. Even in creative fields, experiments with AI-generated art, music, and writing are proliferating, blurring the line between human and machine ingenuity. For many, this elicits an unsettling question: if machines can do it better, what’s left for humans to do?
That fear materialises as displacement from the workforce. While AI may theoretically liberate humans to focus on higher-order work, the reality is often different in practice. Many employees find themselves in systems where employers prioritise cost and efficiency over nuance and judgment. The dissonance between assurances that AI cannot replicate the ‘human touch’ and the actual decisions of employers only fuels frustration. Controversial campaigns, such as Artisan’s 'Stop Hiring Humans,' signal that profitability outweighs professional expertise, leaving many feeling sidelined in their careers.
Beneath displacement rests a deeper concern: the erosion of perceived human value. How are humans to compete with entities that never eat, sleep, fall ill, or take time off? The crisis is existential: will we be relegated to minimum-wage, menial tasks while AI is elevated to creative, complex, and decision-making work once uniquely human? This shift carries real-world consequences: AI amplifies profit-driven priorities, commodifies labour, and reshapes societal structures in ways that measure success by output rather than human input. It forces a generation to reconsider the role and meaning of humans within a matrix increasingly coded by the capabilities of machines.
That reconsideration of human value doesn’t remain abstract. It turns inward, taking on a personal tone: a subtle disillusionment. AI’s growing presence is no longer met with awe or spectacle, but with fatigue and scepticism. Its outputs are mechanical, formulaic, and oddly hollow, yet they appear everywhere. What troubles many isn’t simply that machines can produce, but that their products are so readily normalised. The gap between expectation and experience leaves a lingering sense of anticlimax, as though the future has arrived stripped of its shine.
For Generation Z, that disillusionment sharpens into a sense of betrayal. We were raised not merely with technology, but within it—taught to trust it as a partner in progress. Devices promised connection. Platforms promised community. AI promised convenience and creative expansion. It was meant to support, not supplant; to assist, not compete. Now, it can feel as though the rug has been pulled from under us. The future technology once symbolised feels less inviting, less known, and ever less human.
From there, betrayal gives rise to anxiety. Not dramatic panic, but a low hum threading through our everyday decisions. Which skills can we still cultivate? Which careers remain secure? What does ‘being valuable’ even mean in this machine-calibrated environment? The worry isn’t limited to losing jobs; it’s about losing distinction—becoming secondary in the very systems we’ve built. It’s within this emotional terrain that resentment emerges, not as a rejection of technology itself, but as resistance to a future in which efficiency threatens dignity.
Thus, it’s within our insecurity—wrought by fatigue, frustration, and the pressure to prove our worth—that ‘clanker’ solidifies into an insult. Far from targeting machines, the term names what we feel about the systems around us: human effort is displaced, replaced, and measured against a standard we can never match. It carries the weight of frustration at those who profit from technology while deliberately masking the human cost, and the quiet indignation of a generation watching its value erode in real time. In this charged space, language draws, steadies, and strikes: ‘clanker’ becomes shorthand for our defiance against this relentless force. Ultimately, the insult lands exactly where it should: not anti-technology, but anti-exploitation.
Soon Sue Qii is currently pursuing a Foundation in Arts at Taylor’s College. She seeks to offer thoughtful commentary on topics contributing to discourse within her generation, while exploring the evolving landscape of contemporary journalism.
