Pim van Hekken

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I remember seeing WALL-E thirteen years ago as a small kid. I still think this is one of the best (animated) movies ever made. It is also becoming more relevant by the day. In WALL-E, mankind lives in spaceships circling the earth, where a little robot is cleaning the mess that was left behind all on its own. Plants and animals are extinct and the earth was in unlivable conditions for any life. Even though you could feel a sense of morality and hidden lessons behind the kid-friendly layer, three things about WALL-E seemed very unrealistic at the time: the technology, the state of the earth and the hyperconsumerism.

Oh, how much has changed in these years. Reading the other blogposts, hyperconsumerism and the growing ease of consumption are popular items. Startups like Gorillas are delivering your groceries. If you’re not willing to cook, Uber Eats delivers your dinner. Capitalist giants like Amazon deliver packages within a day and Social Media are loaded with hidden ads. It is scary how close reality is getting to WALL-E[1], where all passengers of the ships are in floating chairs all day, with everything available at the touch of a button. Technology that made this possible isn’t so unrealistic anymore[2].

This year, commercial space flights made headlines. Three of the richest men on earth are in the middle of a space race, developing livable spaceships with passengers that are not qualified but just paid the price[3]. Also, robots are being trained to be self-aware and to perform parkouring tasks[4] . If you have seen the Black Mirror episode Metalhead, things like this don’t get you excited anymore. They worry you. Where do we draw the line? These efforts all seem to align well with the reality of WALL-E and makes us question the intentions of these billionaires, among others. Are they escaping the problems? We are drowning in our own waste. Remember the burning tire graveyard in Kuwait[5]? Are we also going to need water adaptations of WALL-E to clean the ocean[6]?

Just like in WALL-E, we are making our own world unlivable, but for some reason, our main focus is still technology. Is technology actually the solution for restoring and maintaining the health of the earth or is it only suitable for containment of the problem? In the case of WALL-E, mankind seemed to be too late anyway.

[1] https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=coastlines

[2] https://www.sciencealert.com/9-similarities-between-today-s-society-and-the-one-that-filled-the-planet-with-garbage-in-wall-e

[3] https://science.thewire.in/spaceflight/the-billionaire-race-has-perverted-what-space-exploration-should-really-be-about/

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk

[5] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15778161/worlds-biggest-graveyard-fire-smoke-space/

[6] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

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A few months ago, a photo surfaced of Elon Musk wearing an eccentric leather outfit for a party. The photo was posted on Reddit, with the caption “It’s been 9 years since Elon Musk had this photo permanently removed from the internet forever”[1]. When looking for the source, you find that the tweet is actually deleted. However, as we all know, once you post something on the internet, you will never be able to delete it completely.

At first something like this seems innocent, until you realize that Elon Musk’s worst years were probably way before the existence of social media. He even posted the photo himself in 2012[2]. Musk is also in a privileged situation; he gets away with things that other people could easily get cancelled for: a dozen of illegal tweets, blocking union organizing, calling a rescue worker a pedophile, securities fraud and spreading COVID-19 disinformation[3].

In a few years, there will be a whole generation of managers, directors and officials with embarrassing and offensive Snapchats, Instagram photos and tweets. This will be a huge problem. Especially with cancel culture, our future leaders will constantly need to worry, not only about their social media presence in the present, but also about their social media history resurfacing. At the same time, a lot of businesses are already aware of the potential power a good social media branding has. There are even special consultancy agencies training senior management to ‘establish thought leadership’ and ‘articulate company vision’ on social media [4]. After all, the senior management members are the most prominent and recognizable employees of a company.

The New York Times interviewed [5] teenagers and discussed a few interesting aspects of cancel culture. First of all, cancel culture is unpredictable: Chris Brown is still hugely popular after being accused of abusing multiple women[6], but on the other hand false allegations play a huge part. Besides, the rise of Artificial Intelligence gives people the power to create extremely realistic fake videos. How do we prove we did not say something, while we there is a video of it? This technology is already considered dangerous; imagine what will be possible in ten years.

One teenager highlights the core problem that relates to our future leaders very well: “You can do something stupid when you’re fifteen, say one thing and ten years later that shapes how people perceive you” [5] . Almost everyone can think of a post or video they rather not see being spread around. Also, your social media presence goes far beyond just your accounts, which makes it impossible to control your presence and to some extent your reputation. Social media has the strength to throw not just individuals but entire organizations off balance. The question we need to ask ourselves is ‘how do we control cancel culture, so that in ten years we will not need a new prime minister every few months?’

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/onemxt/thanks_i_hate_elon/

[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/214636339474345984?s=20

[3] https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/elon-musk-had-many-scandals-200656981.html

[4] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/social-media-strategies-for-the-c-suite-and-senior-management-that-actually/565823/

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/style/cancel-culture.html

[6] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/chris-brown-told-world-who-he-was-rihanna-we-didn-ncna1272430