Basic Trope: The government and/or organization of high authority uses sophisticated surveillance technology to spy on its citizens while looking for dissidents — and everyone is aware of it, but never know when they are being watched.
- Straight: Everyone in the country of Madethisupolis is being monitored by the government, who are listening to everyday conversations through their cell phones, which they can’t turn off and have a five-month charge.
- Exaggerated:
- Every single person on the planet is being monitored by the New World Order in this manner.
- Going Even further, The Goverment is even watching The Viewer
- Downplayed:
- Due to limits involving human rights laws, the government is only allowed to “spy” on one particular person on a given day.
- The people of Madethisupolis are constantly monitored in public, though when they're in their own private homes, they cannot be monitored.
- Justified:
- Dystopia Justifies The Means
- There is a terrorist threat against the country, but nobody knows who the terrorist is or what he (or she) looks like — so gaining access to the nationwide Sinister Surveillance is the fastest way to find out who’s responsible.
- The people of the government are extremely paranoid and/or control freaks.
- Due to the Forever War (or Forever Cold War) with Madethatupolis, the government must be always on the lookout for the members of the vast spy network the enemy surely has. Their sleeper agents could be anybody.
- The high crime rate made the increasingly fearful law abiding citizens of Madethisupolis all too keen to vote in governments promising increased suveillance in the name of crime prevention and public order, all the while not noticing how their civil liberties being eroded.
- Inverted: As part of a revolutionary new political system, the people of Madethisupolis can watch what the government officials are doing at any given time by broadcasting meetings directly to their television screens. In other words, you watch Big Brother.
- Subverted: The government of Madethisupolis is only really capable of watching the main streets and government buildings with their surveillance system...
- Double-Subverted: ...or at least that's the lie they tell to cover up the existence of microscopic surveillance drones able to be deployed anywhere.
- Parodied:
- Madethisupolis' citizens' refrigerators have cameras in them.
- Madethisupolis' citizens are themselves sentient security cameras.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes the entire surveillance system is down for months at a time for maintenance — therefore nobody is watching sometimes. Not that anyone can tell, though…
- Averted: Despite possessing other Dystopia-like qualities, the government is not regularly spying upon the people.
- Enforced: Madethisupolis is a Shout-Out to Oceania, so Sinister Surveillance is a must.
- Lampshaded: “We’re being watched by our government…we never know who’s being watched — or when.”
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz uses an advanced surveillance system to spy on his citizens and keep everyone in line.
- Exploited: Women in bathrooms are watched by horny government officials.
- Defied: La Résistance manages to find ways to circumvent the nationwide security system.
- Discussed: “Shh…the walls have eyes.” “Right. And the doors. And the ceiling. And on the floors. All of them have the eyes of our fü—er, fabulous leader, Emperor Evulz the Great!”
- Conversed: “Dude, this is totally like Nineteen Eighty-Four!” “No, I’m pretty sure we didn’t have that technology in the year 1984.”
- Deconstructed:
- Government officials eventually tire of watching mundane activities around the clock — and never have enough time to have a life themselves. This, coupled with a dearth of any meaningful anti-government activity for ten whole years, causes “Big Brother” to declare the surveillance system not only unnecessary, but also detrimental to the well-being of the citizens he cares for, and it is uninstalled.
- The surveillance network is so large that it takes DAYS to shift through all of it, and La Résistance is so good at making plans sound like mundane conversation that any plots against the government can't be confirmed until it's too late...
- Being a member of the network is boring. Boring. The people in charge spend most time sleeping and playing card games instead. Everyone is free to talk about anything, simply because they know that, since most of the people sifting through the footage won't be because it's too goddamn boring, they're likely to miss any plots against the government.
- The surveillance system is meant to prevent terrorism, but according to official government statistics, hasn't caught a single terrorist but thousands of incidents of petty theft and people making jokes about the government.
- In the reverse of Deconstructed #3, being a member of the surveillance network is too interesting. The government of Madethisupolis is not dystopian enough to outlaw fun, or regiment every second of every citizen's life - and this creates so many activities worthy of handing out popcorn that finding any plots by La Résistance becomes a distant tenth or eleventh priority. (And if fun activities were to be outlawed, the system would be instantly overwhelmed by the need to report all of them.)
- Reconstructed:
- ...until a terrorist bombs the seat of government, and such surveillance becomes necessary again to prevent another attack.
- ...until an extra-moronic Resistance member gives everything away, destroying La Résistance in one fell swoop.
- When the government realises the network members are slacking off, they take countermeasures such as employing more people who only view the footage part-time so they don't have time to grow bored. And also install guards to watch the watchers, just in case.
- The government uses AI to sift through the thousands of hours of security footage to throw out all of the obviously-not-a-threat and pick out only the clips of probable threats, because computers can work much faster than humans, don't get bored, and never needs to sleep. If the AI is advanced enough, human reviewers won't be needed at all; even if it's not (yet) at that level of sophistication it can still screen out the boring stuff, leaving just the parts that are likely to reveal some kind of threat for human reviewers to look over.
- Implied: A government official touts dramatic drops in crime and time lost in finding the criminals who do appear, and when asked how they came about, she points to her own eyes.
- Played for Laughs: Masked members of La Résistance start deliberately doing disgusting but not necessary illegal things where they believe the cameras were put up along the lines of old Shock Sites, thus distracting the footage reviewers from reporting actual crimes that show up.
The Big Brother Is Watching page is watching you…
