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The term "meatbag" is used by robots (including Bender, from Futurama, and HK-47 from the Knights of the Old Republic games) as a pejorative term for a human or other creature. Where did this term first appear in any media?

KutuluMike
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Sarkimedes
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    I hope it was HK-47. I love that murderous bastard. – Wad Cheber Jan 21 '16 at 22:24
  • are you willing to accept appearance in any media ie print, movie, cinema, play, radio etc ? – John McNamara Jan 21 '16 at 22:35
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    Well, in-universe, it has to be HK. Bender was "born" in 2996 CE, HK-47 was created c. 3960 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and the Battle of Yavin happened "A long time ago". – Wad Cheber Jan 21 '16 at 22:35
  • @JohnMcNamara Yes, I'll accept any media. I've edited the question to make that a bit clearer. – Sarkimedes Jan 21 '16 at 22:36
  • I've actually found early references of it used by humans and non-humans/non-robots. Perhaps vampires calling humans meatbags was an inspiration. –  Jan 21 '16 at 22:47
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    Oh, it's a trope, even –  Jan 21 '16 at 22:48
  • Meatpopsicle should be used by robots too IMHO :P – El Gucs Jan 22 '16 at 09:02
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    On a related note, Star Trek TNG had an episode where nanobots refer to humans as "Ugly bags of mostly water". This predates both Futurama and KotOR by a good bit, but it's not quite the same. – Darrel Hoffman Jan 22 '16 at 15:15
  • @DarrelHoffman Just what I was about to mention... – zwol Jan 22 '16 at 15:57
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    @DarrelHoffman: They're not nanobots, but rather a crystalline life form that, apparently, evolved naturally. – ruakh Jan 22 '16 at 18:25
  • @ruakh: Were they? I remember they were called "Nanites", so just figured that's what they were. I may have blocked most of that episode from my mind due to it being very heavily Wesley-oriented... – Darrel Hoffman Jan 22 '16 at 18:31
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    @DarrelHoffman: Ah. It sounds like you're mixing up two episodes. "Nanobots"/"Nanites" and "Wesley-oriented" would be the episode "Evolution"; but the "ugly bags of mostly water" line is from the episode "Home Soil". I admit, there are many similarities. :-) – ruakh Jan 22 '16 at 18:40
  • HK-47 has a special place in my heart. – Petersaber Jan 22 '16 at 19:11

4 Answers4

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The earliest robot I can find saying this is Bender, from Futurama.

In his debut scene, in the pilot episode of the show, he calls Fry a meatbag.

Here's the excerpt from the script for this episode which originally aired on March 28th, 1999.

ROBOT
Bite my shiny metal ass.
[Fry looks around at the robot's ass.]
FRY
It doesn't look so shiny to me.
ROBOT
Shinier than yours, meatbag!

The "ROBOT" is Bender, before his name is revealed.

This predates Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic by about four years, where the droid HK-47 famously uses the term.

There are certainly other times when it's been used in science fiction and fantasy and pop culture, though not necessarily by robots.

For instance, in the 1989 novel Dydeetown World by F. Paul Wilson, it's used by a character referring to a clone:

His upper lip curled. "Meatbag clone... Too stupid to know."

And it's used in the 1976 film Rocky:

GAZZO
(to Bodyguard)
... The Rock's a good kid.
BODYGUARD
(emotionless)
... A meatbag.

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    I'm pretty sure one of the Decepticons used the term in an early episode of Transformers (the G1 series back in the 80's). I don't have time to confirm right now, but if so, that would pre-date Bender by quite a bit. – Omegacron Jan 22 '16 at 23:01
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    @Omegacron (1984) #3 More than Meets the Eye, Part 2 –TFwiki; transcript: SIPHER: (Jazz) I can read my own language, meatbag. – Mazura Jan 23 '16 at 03:28
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    @Mazura If only that were real! –  Jan 23 '16 at 04:20
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    Oh my. That's a bunch of fan fiction. Definitely not in that episode. – Mazura Jan 23 '16 at 04:34
  • While Futurama is also the first instance I've found of a non-human referring to a human as a "meat bag", when I googled I found that an alien in the original "Men in Black" from 1997 referred to a human as a "meat sack", see 2:04 in this clip. – Hypnosifl Jan 29 '16 at 07:33
  • @Hypnosifl Isn't an alien a "non-human"? – DCShannon Mar 28 '16 at 18:25
  • @DCShannon - Yes, I was using "non-human" to include both robots and aliens. But in the example I mentioned, the alien said "meat sack", not "meat bag". And none of the other answers have mentioned any aliens using "meat bag" before Futurama either. – Hypnosifl Mar 28 '16 at 18:36
  • @Hypnosifl Gotcha, makes sense. – DCShannon Mar 28 '16 at 18:36
28

1974 in English, 1965 in Polish - By the robots of the Cyberiad

According to TV Tropes,

Robots in the Cyberiad usually call humans "palefaces", but occasional "meatbag" still appears here and there.

An wikipedia indicates that the Cyberiad was

first published in 1965, with an English translation appearing in 1974

Community
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    Have you been able to verify this? I was able to search a copy of the text online, available to me through my university, but it had to hits for meatbag, meat bag, nor meat. I was searching the English version, too: "The cyberiad : fables for the cybernetic age / Stanislaw Lem ; translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel ; illustrated by Daniel Mróz" –  Jan 22 '16 at 02:07
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    I was able to get the Kindle edition, too, and I tried finding "meat bag" or similar terms in the book, but it's not there. "Palefaces" is in it 47 times, but without an exact quote/page number, I'd have to say "meatbag" not used in Cyberiad at all. Nor is the word "meat". –  Jan 22 '16 at 02:20
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    Is it possible the term appears only in the Polish version? Presumably, the term wouldn't be English, but I think that should still count. My interpretation of the question would be about the concept of humans as meatbags rather than the specific English word "meatbag". – MichaelS Jan 22 '16 at 05:42
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    I do not recall any meatbag-like slur used in Polish version, although there was lengthy description of how human is indeed a bag of pipes and fluids (apparently 'bots saw it under skin). I will try to confirm it later today, but have in mind that this topic spans over several stories (including, but not limited to, "paleface" mini series) so it will take me some time. – PTwr Jan 22 '16 at 12:43
  • By the way, it would be 1964, not 1965: Fables for Robots contained Paleface story first. – PTwr Jan 22 '16 at 12:51
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    I have the ''Cyberiad'' as a Polish e-book and I can't find any translation of meat that I can think of. – Serpens Jan 22 '16 at 17:59
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    @Serpens I just went through all of it. I found no traces of "meat" or similar words. Humans are consistently called "palefaces". Although in "How Erg the Self-Inducting Slew a Paleface", which had most details about organics, there are several other terms (describing how wet, sticky and generally disgusting they are) mentioned they were not used again. "About Prince Ferricius and Princess Crystal" got other details (blood, bone etc), but no meat. There is in-universe reason: robot races had no contact with organics so they had no concept of meat ;p – PTwr Jan 22 '16 at 18:09
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    Note that translations are inaccurate or non-literal, it could be something similar to "meatbag", but not necesserily translated into exactly that. I'm Polish and our language and translating it to English can be really damn confusing sometimes – Petersaber Jan 22 '16 at 19:10
  • @Petersaber I used "homefront advantage", there is no meat there ;) (From what I saw of English translation, it is kinda bad) – PTwr Jan 22 '16 at 19:15
  • @PTwr I wanted to go and check but I can't, I lost my copy :( I had a really old copy... – Petersaber Jan 22 '16 at 19:48
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    @Petersaber mine looks like it went through war ;p – PTwr Jan 22 '16 at 23:23
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    I've found that TV Tropes, about once per page, will either get something egregiously wrong or just completely fabricate an example. That might be what's going on here. – Torisuda Jan 24 '16 at 08:42
21

I know of two earlier instances of non-biological intelligences taking this attitude toward biological intelligences:

  • Terry Bisson's short story "They're Made out of Meat", originally published in Omni in 1990, involves extraterrestrial life forms who are absolutely horrified by the notion of a race of thinking beings composed entirely of meat. (It's strongly implied that this is us.) The exact nature of the ETs is not clearly specified; they probably aren't robots in the strict sense.

  • The System Shock video game series (first installment 1994) features an artificial intelligence, SHODAN, whose opinion of humans is famously quotable:

    Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?

Neither of these uses the exact term "meatbag", but I think it is likely that the authors of both Futurama and Knights of the Old Republic were familiar with them; and, indeed, that the authors of System Shock had read the Terry Bisson story. It's hard to overstate how influential Omni was throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, especially to the sorts of people who would go on to write SF themselves.

Going back further, it's not the same attitude, but it's in the same line of speculation: Harlan Ellison's infamous I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, published 1967:

AM could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong. He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak, soft creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge.

zwol
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    @zwol- You can expect whatever you like, it doesn't make it true. The writers won't have read every piece of scifi ever written. – PointlessSpike Jan 22 '16 at 16:08
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    @PointlessSpike It was published in Omni in 1990. The people who read Omni in 1990 are exactly the sort of people who went on to become SF authors in the early 2000s. I think my inference is at least plausible. – zwol Jan 22 '16 at 17:00
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    I would be surprised if none of them had heard this story. I certainly have, and sharing it with my coworkers resulted in a lot of "oh, that's where that came from, yeah I've heard that, didn't know who the author was..." – DCShannon Jan 22 '16 at 22:42
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This example is later than many of the others posted above but earlier than Futurama so I wanted to add it to the list: in the 1988 video game Snatcher (a pretty cool Blade Runner rip-off, with a little stolen from The Terminator), one of the cyborg creatures refers to the main character (a human) as a "meatbag".

Alfredo Hernández
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Jeremy
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