Steel and Mirrors – About Hate, Projection, and the Fear of the Other
A WIRED-Beitrag piece about the slur “Clanker” might seem like a small footnote from the world of social media.
But it reveals a pattern that runs much deeper — and is far more dangerous than it looks.
What begins as an ironic trend quickly turns into a form of digital tribalism.
First, the mockery targets machines.
Then it turns on people.
Hatred is adaptable.
It only ever looks for new bodies.
Social media amplifies these dynamics.
It turns fear into entertainment and outrage into reach.
Irony becomes the perfect cover under which old instincts survive:
the need to define ourselves through exclusion,
the pleasure of feeling superior,
the reflex to dehumanize what we don’t understand.
That’s what my new short film “Steel and Mirrors” is about —
a small therapy session between a robot and a human voice.
But in truth, both are talking about us.
About what happens when we begin
to recognize ourselves in the things we create.
Marvin — the android in my film — is not a symbol of threat.
He’s a mirror.
He reflects our fear, our arrogance,
and perhaps also our longing to be understood.
In him converge all the questions
we’ve grown afraid to ask —
because they sound a little too much like ourselves.