The introduction of “Marty,” the supermarket robot that checks for spills and safety hazards, provides a window into the ways in which popular culture intersects with technological development. The six-foot-tall gray plastic-and-metal column moves through the aisles of the store accompanied by blinking blue lights and electronic bleeping sounds, but what most shoppers notice are Marty’s oversized googly eyes. More than 500 of the $35,000 robots were introduced in Giant, Stop & Shop, and Martin’s supermarkets in early 2019, and Marty was one of the factors behind an 11-day strike by supermarket workers in the Northeast. For many people, shoppers and workers alike, Marty is the first industrial robot they have encountered, and the cartoonish eyes immediately recode the machine as friendly, safe, and helpful. (One store took it a step farther and gave Marty a giant stick-on mustache, doubling down on the cartoonish imagery.) Rather than expressing concerns about technology’s impact on employee job security, global corporate expansion (Marty’s calls for “clean up on aisle 3” are routed through a call center in the Philippines), or the implications of artificial intelligence and omnipresent surveillance in the public sphere, shoppers often respond by anthropomorphizing the robot, often taking pictures, videos, or selfies with Marty. The reproduction of popular culture tropes concerning robots (R2D2, Wall-E) is explored through YouTube videos of Marty. Themes relating to resistance to technological development, emotional response, and anthropomorphism are identified.
About the presenterTerri Toles Patkin
Terri Toles Patkin is Professor of Communication at Eastern Connecticut State University.