I say that internet trolling has gotten BETTER since my day of IMDb message boards and AOL chat rooms. It was easier then. People were far more gullible.
Kids today are craftier, resourceful.
They rarely tip their hand.
A good example is the “fuck.atheism” accounts on Instagram. Of course, I’m assuming that they are trolls (allegedly ran by some jailbird named “Brandon Walsh”). For the sake of my sanity, I have to believe that they are.
Take a look:
This is “fuck.atheism.5”. This is number 5 of 6 accounts with this name and avatar.
“Obviously that’s a troll,” you might say.
I wouldn’t be so sure:
“So the guy’s committed to the bit. Kudos to him,” you say.
Yeah, I suppose. But…Jesus, who the fuck is this for?
Look, in my day, I probably could have pulled something close to this out of my ass. But if this is a bit, where’s the parody? Is it the blatant science denialism? I would have never of wasted that much time for a joke!
See what I mean?
This is either skill or overzealousness. And it pisses me off that I can’t tell which it is.
“Who cares?”
Well for posterity’s sake, I think things like this should be recorded and analyzed. We are either looking at modern art or batshit insanity. Or maybe it’s both.
Someone has to explain to future generations what we were doing with the internet. And that’s what this website’s all about.
That’s an interesting question, self. I think it was because I was trying to quit dipping so I was PISSED 24/7. Not at anything in particular, ya know? I just just wanted to be another lunatic yelling into the void of the internet. That’s the motivation behind all of my writing: I hate you, I think you’re stupid, and the world would be a much better place if everyone thought exactly like me. Some of that anger has tapered off though. Mostly because I went back to dipping.
Have you always been an angry person?
Actually, once upon a time, I was able to let most things roll of my back. But then I got got caught up in a pseudo-cult where I was emotionally abused daily, so I’ve got a lot of untreated PTSD.
Why do you think the world is dumb?
I didn’t say the world is dumb. Stop spinning my words. I said that it was stupid and pathetic. And that’s completely due to the fact that I’m not in control of it.
What would do if you were?
You know, I’ve thought long and hard about that. And speaking of long and hard, I’d probably make the metric system universal because 10.16 cm sounds a lot bigger than 4 inches.
What would you do about climate change?
I don’t see what the problem is. Florida’s gonna be underwater in a few years, so I say let it happen.
Who was your biggest hero growing up?
George Clinton
What would you do if you had $10 Billion?
Put it all on the Milwaukee Brewers winning the World Series. Also, probably light a few bills on fire.
What’s your proudest accomplishment?
Most people would say “graduating from college”, or “birth of a child”, or “becoming financially stable” or blah blah blah. Nah. For me, it was in high school when some girls made a ranking of the hottest guys in school and I ranked. It’s been all downhill from there.
What advice would you give the next generation?
Do all the drugs. Except meth. Have some respect for yourself for fuck’s sake.
When are you gonna finish writing According to Simon?
Having some story problems. Turns out that I’m not a historian. Plus there’s not a lot of opportunities for fart and piss jokes. So give it some time.
Hate to toot my own horn but 2051: A Space Monstrosity turned out much better than I thought it would. I also wrote a lot more than I intended.
It’s not perfect. Far from it. And I blatantly ripped off lines from various Star Trek productions, almost verbatim, because I’m a shameless hack.
But I’m getting closer to being able to tell stories the way I want to: where I create a plot on the fly by establishing a rhythm and hitting the story beats. If you do a few setups and meet the payoffs in any ridiculous way you can, BAM…you have yourself a story.
Maybe not a GOOD story, but a story nonetheless.
My method is akin to Bill Walsh’s “West Coast Offense” in football: where players lack in athletic ability (or, in my case, artistic genius), you can make up for in precision and timing.
This runs entirely contrary to the way my high school teacher tried to teach me. It was his belief that that the secret to writing was in rewriting.
The problem I found with this practice is that my interest always waned and the magic was gone. Editing and proofreading is necessary of course, but frankly it’s boring and if I spend too much time on it, I end up hating everything about the piece itself.
It is my belief that art works best when it exists in the moment….when the artist can, however briefly, be completely honest with themselves.
So I’ve written a lot to get the practice in. And most of the stories are in fragmented pieces. Therefore I created a separate page to compile all these short stories.
…that is, once when I figure out how to get the page up on the website. Right now it looks like shit. I dunno 🤷♂️
What I mean by this is that both religion and politics operate backwards by taking a worldview and making the facts fit within it and creating an internal logical system that’s contradicts reality.
With religion declining, politics is filling in this spiritual void.
So when I attack Glenn Greenwald, I am doing so because I fail to see the distinction between him and a religious zealot that’s operating under the veil of “truth seeker”. Some his facts may be correct, but we should question the conclusions he draws from them.
Additionally, I mostly shit on leftists because a few years ago, I was a Marxist. So that’s who I’m familiar with. But I maintain that we should be critical all journalists of all views and opinions.
I think this is important to keep in mind as the Ukraine crisis unfolds.
It has been absolute Christmas for me the last few days. My blog’s existence has been vindicated by the conflict in Ukraine and the state of journalism reporting on it.
The internet really has ruined everything…especially the Twitterification of political discourse.
Case in point is Glenn Greenwald, sometimes referred to as the “GOAT” of journalism, who is now having an total fucking meltdown on Twitter.
Monitoring this situation, it has occurred to me that people can’t handle that multiple things can be true at once.
No, Greenwald is not a “Putin agent”. Yes, “propaganda” is bad, especially when it’s used to drum up war. And yes…Russia, led by an autocrat, invaded a sovereign country and no matter how terrible propaganda and American foreign policy has been, it doesn’t change the fact that….Russia, led by an autocrat, invaded a sovereign country.
I’m always hesitant to say that the “media lies to you”. It’s more complicated than that. What they’re actually doing is spin doctoring, omitting facts, and failing to interrogate all available information and opinions (but I guess in a certain sense, that is lying).
That’s why it’s up to YOU, fellow reader, to be honest enough with yourself to interrogate all available facts. That’s all we’ve got for the time being.
Because there is no trustworthy journalist or media figure. They’re all cynical actors until proven otherwise…especially the ones that have prior ideological convictions (what they are specifically for Greenwald, idk. But they’re easy to infer: has close associations with Noam Chomsky, his husband is a Socialist politician in Brazil, etc) and simultaneously criticize Big Tech yet profit off of it (via Substack, Twitter, etc)
But if you’re a Greenwald defender, relax: “iM jUSt aSkiNg QuEsTIons”
I’m gonna leave a link to these two articles here. Maybe they’re old. Maybe they’re outdated. Maybe they’re inaccurate. You be the judge.
You can blame Putin for my absence. I’ve been distracted by Twitterverse’s brain rot due to America not being (directly) implicated in an international crisis.
I mean, what’s the world coming to? I thought America was supposed to be responsible for ALL the global fuck ups.
Smh
Anyway, recent events have reminded me that you should never trust someone that gets paid to express political opinions. Spoiler Alert: they’re full of shit and need to be ostracized from civil society.
So anyways, WWIII could happen. Check back with you later.
My news feed has been buzzing the last 24 hours. More so than usual. No, it has nothing to do with the Russians possibly invading Ukraine. It’s the announcement of a fourth “Kelvin Timeline” Star Trek film.
Unlike most Star Trek fans, I am content with saying that Star Trek died with the last episode of Enterprise. And we all owe Rick Berman an apology (even though he sounds like a legit asshole).
So I don’t give a shit about this new film (written by a bunch of writers whose work I also don’t give a shit about). 🚨 Spoiler Alert 🚨: it’s gonna suck.
How do I know?
Let me tell you about two men named JJ Abrams and Alex Kurtzman.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be too harsh. They did revive Trek. Because of them, there are four…about to be five…Star Trek shows airing. Audiences change. As ridiculous as it sounds now, TOS fans were reluctant to accept TNG.
Now I’m a TNG fan that’s reluctant to accept Kurtzman Trek.
The thing that TOS and TNG had in common though is one VERY important thing: Gene Roddenberry. And Roddenberry was succeeded by Rick Berman, who was hellbent on carrying out his predecessor’s vision.
No such chain of succession with this new Trek.
JJ Abrams did do one thing right though: the first 10 minutes of Star Trek 09. And that kinda highlights my biggest gripe with this current set of producers: they are Kliff Kingsbury of Star Trek.
All three movies, plus Picard, plus Discovery, start off fairly strong in their opening acts (or first few episodes) and then inexplicably derail into a total train wreck.
Moreover, this new “cinematic” feel to Star Trek just doesn’t…feel right. Trek works best on a shoestring budget, phenomenal writing, and the perfect casting. Case in point: Wrath of Khan. It is probably the Trek film with the smallest budget, but it’s also considered the best.
There’s a Shakespearean, theater-like quality to the Roddenberry/Berman-era Trek that, I think, many fans find appealing (even if we didn’t appreciate it at the time).
Of course, those days of television and movies are over (in part, due to JJ Abrams’ impact on the industry) and that’s okay. Things change.
The Internet Ruined Everything 