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Anevilcorporation is acorporation that ignoressocial responsibility,morality,ethics, and sometimeslaws in order to make profit for its shareholders.[1]
The notion is "deeply embedded in the landscape of contemporary culture—populating films, novels, videogames, and more." The science fiction genre served as the initial background to portray corporations in thisdystopian light.[1]
Evil corporations can be seen to represent the danger of combiningcapitalism with largerhubris.[2]
Some notable uses of the trope include the Tyrell and Wallace corporations inBlade Runner, Arasaka Corporation inCyberpunk, Weyland-Yutani inAlien,Vault-Tec inFallout,InGen inJurassic Park,Resources Development Administration (RDA) inAvatar, Umbrella Corporation inResident Evil, E-Corp inMr. Robot, Lumon Industries inSeverance, Vought International inThe Boys,Omni Consumer Products (OCP) inRoboCop,Cyberdyne Systems inTerminator , VoxTek inHazbin Hotel, etc.
Some real-world corporations have been accused of being evil. To guard against such accusations,Google used the official motto "Don't be evil" until the formation ofAlphabet Inc. Rob Enderle argued that this motto was never truly followed, andcritics of Google have accused the company of "evil" acts such as secretdata collection, violating customers' privacy, and political bias.[1][3] The motto was eventually moved to the very end of itscode of conduct.[4]The New Yorker wrote that "many food activists considerMonsanto (which later merged withBayer) to bethe definitively evil corporation".[5]
The Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility wrote, "For many consumers,Walmart serves as the evil corporation prototype, but record numbers shop at the stores for low prices."[6]
In Japan, a committee of journalists and rights activists issues an annual "corporate raspberry award" known as Most Evil Corporation of the Year Award (also called the Black Company Award) toa company "with a culture of overwork, discrimination and harassment".[7]
After theshooting of Brian Thompson in December 2024, manyAmericans used social media to express their outrage againsthealth insurance companies and theAmerican healthcare system overall, often using terms associated with the trope to describe these corporations.[8][9][10][11]
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