GLOSSARYSF TROPE
Big Brother
IN PLAIN ENGLISH
In plain English
The all-seeing face of the ruling Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four, now everyday shorthand for invasive surveillance by governments or companies.
WORKS
See it in the wild.
ON THE SHOW
On the show.
- Ep 2 — Did science fiction invent our future? (18:14–19:49): Caitlin uses Big Brother as the prime example of sci-fi giving us language to discuss surveillance as an intrusion into our lives. Rob can't think of another sci-fi term that's as politically loaded or as widely recognized.
- Ep 3 — Science Fiction isn’t about the future (14:41–15:06): Rob says Orwell, shaped by World War II and the early Cold War, was "much more concerned with Big Brother, the surveillance state, fascism," and that's why he wrote 1984.