Picture this: It’s 2044, and AI girlfriends aren’t just a pitch email fantasy anymore. They’re a reality that’s sparking some seriously problematic online content.

What started as a quirky trend of satirizing future human-robot interactions has quickly devolved into a breeding ground for thinly veiled racist humor. Content creators are using the term “clanker” - originally a sci-fi robot slur from Star Wars - to recreate disturbingly familiar scenarios of racial segregation.

When Memes Get Messy

Black creators like Harrison Stewart, who originally popularized the “clanker” trend, are now distancing themselves from the very content they helped create. Stewart’s TikTok skits about AI relationships went viral, but quickly turned toxic when commenters started using the term as a racist dog whistle aimed directly at him.

The Dark Side of Viral Humor

Some creators are brazenly mimicking historical racist scenarios, replacing Black people with robots. One TikToker even recreated a Jim Crow-era scene, replacing “Black” with “clanker” - a move that Northwestern University professor Moya Bailey calls out as a transparent excuse for racist “humor”.

Tech’s Ongoing Racism Problem

This isn’t just about TikTok trends. The AI industry itself continues to perpetuate systemic racism, from biased image generation to environmentally racist data center placements. The “clanker” trend is just another symptom of a much deeper technological inequity.

As Bailey succinctly puts it: jokes create in-groups and out-groups, and we need to be careful about who we’re really aligning with when we laugh.