Content creator Harrison Stewart stopped making videos featuring the anti-AI slur “clanker” after viewers used racial slurs against him and others employed the term to create skits perpetuating racist tropes.
Stewart, who is Black and goes by Chaise online, made clanker-themed TikToks in July depicting robots in future scenarios, reports WIRED. The 19-year-old content creator announced in August he would no longer publish videos on the subject after the joke became racist.
“When I go into my comment section and people are starting to call me ‘cligger’ and ‘clanka’ or ‘you’re a dirty clanker’ — not voicing those slurs at AI and electronics, but at me — I don’t find that entertaining or funny at all,” Stewart said.
The term clanker originated with author William Tenn in the late 1950s and was adopted by the Star Wars franchise as a derogatory term toward droids. The word has garnered over 2 million Google searches in the past three months as part of protests against artificial intelligence implementation.
Talking to humans
Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona wrote on X in July: “Sick of yelling ‘REPRESENTATIVE’ into the phone 10 times just to talk to a human being? My new bill makes sure you don’t have to talk to a clanker if you don’t want to.”
Some TikTok creators have produced skits depicting robots as second-class citizens using scenarios that reference racial segregation. Creator Samuel Jacob acknowledged the parallel was intentional.
“It’s pretty obvious what it’s based off of, in terms of the historical standpoint, like everything that was happening in the 1950s and such with the Jim Crow laws and stuff,” Jacob said. “I thought it was a funny idea of ‘history repeats itself sometimes,’ but at least it would be against robots.”
Moya Bailey, a professor at Northwestern University who specialises in the representation of race and gender in the media, said some creators are using the term as justification for racist jokes.
“I think the folks that go that route of racist humour honestly wanted an excuse — and it’s a pretty good one — to make some jokes that I think they just wanted to make and felt clever in making those connections,” Bailey said.
