ChatGPT's New Skills Resident Evil 4 Remake Galaxy A54 5G Hands-On TikTok CEO Testifies Huawei's New Folding Phone How to Use Google's AI Chatbot Airlines and Family Seating Weigh Yourself Accurately
Want CNET to notify you of price drops and the latest stories?
No, thank you
Accept

Ads for new TV hacker drama are as aggressive as expletive

Technically Incorrect: How else should you dramatize your new USA Network drama featuring a recalcitrant programmer? With F-Words galore.

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


mrrobotfwallst.jpg
Well, there you have it. It's a cheery show, I hear. USA Network

There are probably few people in America who have never, at some frustrating moment in their lives, uttered the F-word.

Fewer, though, have used it to impress people.

But if you're making a TV drama called "Mr. Robot" -- about a hacker who isn't quite at one with society's leanings -- you decide that expleting is more powerful than explaining.

So USA Network has just released some ads that enjoy a large four-letter word bracketed by an "F" and a "K." Over the years, the word has gained a certain normality. Even Britain's The Guardian newspaper cheerily prints it as if it's now being taught in elementary schools.

America, being a touch more puritanical, only first heard it when they invented HBO.

Still, the nation had some practice when clothing brand French Connection ran a campaign that used all of its initials: FCUK.

Still, these "Mr. Robot" ads don't actually show the whole word. It's a little like an expletive peep show.

As for the drama itself, the Hollywood Reporter tells me it's a thriller that follows Elliot, a programming bro who believes that society's mojo is a no-go. He's against "the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent who like to play God without permission."

I have no evidence he is specifically talking about Facebook and Google.

Elliot decides to join fellow humans who want to overthrow the corporate system and introduce rule-by-algorithm. (I may have that last part 100 percent incorrect.)

The trailer offers a young man who makes Edward Snowden look like an account executive at a translation services company. Elliot is a man who, well, thinks different and threatens people in a rather psychopathic manner.

I can imagine that several readers will be entertained by this show.