Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)

Big Brother is a character and symbol in George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party, Ingsoc, wields total power for its own sake over the inhabitants. His image appears everywhere on posters within Oceanian society as a metaphor for the Party's complete control of the population. Orwell was deeply concerned with the rise of totalitarianism in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany and wrote his novel as a warning about the potential of a totalitarian leader destroying objective truth.

The ubiquitous slogan "Big Brother is watching you" serves as a constant reminder that Party members in Oceania are not entitled to privacy. They are subject to constant surveillance to ensure their ideological purity. This is primarily through omnipresent telescreens, two-way video devices used for broadcasting propaganda and for spying on individuals by the Thought Police. As the figurehead of the Party, Big Brother is omnipotent and the subject of a cult of personality, illustrated in the daily, ritualistic Two Minutes Hate, a mass demonstration of hatred for the enemy of the state, Emmanuel Goldstein and adoration for the leader, Big Brother.

"Big Brother" has become a synecdoche for abuse of power and mass surveillance, particularly with respect to civil liberties and loss of privacy. The character has been influential on popular music, including songs by Stevie Wonder and David Bowie. As a metaphor for surveillance, Big Brother also inspired the worldwide reality television show, Big Brother. He was described as one of the ten greatest villains in literature by Stephen King.