Something wicked this way codes: The rise of the tech villain in pop culture

When you think of a movie villain, what comes to your mind? Perhaps a long black cloak and slicked back hair with a cat perched on the side. However, modern movie villains are packing up the cloak, throwing on a sweatshirt, and picking up keyboard.

The tech villain is now showing on screens large and small.

On screen, the tech bro villain takes on many forms, but is often portrayed as a malignant narcissist, an insufferable know-it-all, with a God complex and the power and money to wield it. The archetype takes the shape of young CEOs, reclusive programmers, or shady hackers. The characters appear less like an evil step-parent, and more like a bro-y corporate leader with a knack for hyper surveillance.

They can be seen in films like Adam’s McKay’s Don’t Look Up, or Steven Soderbergh’s KIMI, as well Alex Garland's Ex Machina. Each demonstrate the range of how tech villains can show up on screen.

But beyond the screen is our reality that pop culture emulates. These conventions play up our understanding of global tech leaders, echoing behaviors, costumes, and speech patterns of leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, or Jeff Bezos. Smarmy, young, casual but friendly.

Bilge Ebiri, a film critic at Vulture and New York Magazine, says that familiarity makes these characters all the more compelling.

“You can imagine a whole history of how this person got to the position,” he said. “At some point they were this young idealistic type.”

Ebiri published his article “Every Movie Villain is (still) a Tech Bro” in Vulture last month.

The tech villain arrives in the wake of the Cold War villain, challenging modern frustration and fears of technology. And yet, it’s been done.

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis or Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner combined fear and technology long before the dot com bubble burst. However, they do not mirror the strength of resentment for technology today.

Ebiri says that while this villain type harkens back to previous films, it is currently popular because it resonates much deeper, tapping into the seemingly relentless grasp technology has on our lives.

When Blade Runner came out in 1982, Ebiri says he remembers having a computer when no one else around him did. It was still a novelty, but things have changed significantly since then.

“The technology has become more intimate and ever present,” Ebiri said.

It also does not hurt that this villain type no longer offends international audiences where Hollywood has grown a strong market.

“This trope really comes from an interest in power and control,” said Jas Keimig, an arts and culture reporter for The Stranger.

Keimig says performances like actor Oscar Isaac's in Ex Machina are successful in stoking our fears of the new technology we interact with daily. Isaac's performance also tucks in ideas of the people behind the creation.

"There's this underlying idea of the aggrieved nerd stereotype," Keimig said. "This type of self-anointed godliness."

The code is coming from inside the house

We live in a community shaped by some of the largest tech corporations in the world.

Throughout the streets of Seattle you might find stickers plastered on signs and bridges that echo this strained resentment depicted in film and television. The message: “Go Home Tech Bro.”

This is just one of the visual representations of anger and animosity toward the ways tech companies have influenced or changed the cities they operate in. That includes housing prices and the cost of living.

“I think we feel somewhat guilty or somewhat angry that we’ve let these companies control so much of our lives,” said Kurt Schlosser, a writer and editor for Geekwire. “And we take it out on the movie portrayals of the people who created them.”

And it’s not just resentment. There are real measures of harm done by local corporations that surpass fictional depictions of tech. Katherine Long, a reporter for Business Insider, covers Amazon and she has found real untended and negative consequences of tech culture and companies. She says depiction of tech leaders with "good intentions gone wrong" definitely hits close to home in her own reporting.

“We feel that these tech bros may have a sense that they are more powerful than God,” Long says about film tech villains. “They are building these things that are spiraling out of control.”

What do you think of the tech villain trope? Is it overdone? A safe choice? Or something more?

• "Many of these big tech corporations are not ethical on many levels, making it easy — and accurate — to portray them as a villain. Between the endless amounts of telemetry, selling their users data, advancing technologies that can be used to harm people, not paying what they should be in taxes, and lying to the public, one couldn't imagine a more perfect villain."

— Brandon, Olympia

• “Overdone and too easy. Doesn't show the humanity — after all, tech workers are humans! They can be good, bad, complicated mixed up people (and all of these all at once) just like all of us. Shows a lack of creativity by the producers, I think. What about all the ways that tech (and tech workers) improves our lives?”

— Christine in Tacoma

• "I love it. The tech villain trope allows us to personify our discomfort with the power of technology in our lives. Highlighting tech gone wrong can better inform public policy debates going forward."

— Scott in Bellingham

• "If you mean Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, mega villains, the movies don't even get how bad they are. But the guys I used to work with back when I was the only woman engineer on software teams in Windows, epitomized regular guys, down to the obsession with whatever video game they personally grew up with, speaking only of sports (sadly including fantasy sports) at lunch, the usual workplace sexism, wives who took care of everything at home, etc. Honestly, the villain trope is way more fun."

— Alice in Licton Springs

• "The villain trope is over done. Most people that work in tech are just regular people who want good-paying jobs and a way to build families and a future. They usually have the best intentions and are aware of social responsibilities. The issues do come down to challenging leadership vs losing your job. There is a huge disconnect between the goals of businesses and people who lead those businesses, vs the people that actually make that business run."

— Jason in Bellevue

• "My only thought — after working in startups for a few years, I could not watch Silicon Valley --— too real."

— Michaela in Seattle (Central District)

• "I grew up in this area and do believe Amazon has brought more challenges than positives to Seattle, but when I see this sticker I can't help but think how misdirected this frustration is. Amazon employs many on H1B visas who come from abroad and are as much victimized by this corporation as our community. Targeting anger at them has always felt frankly xenophobic to me."

— Malia in Seattle

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