is there an app for that?

By Rachel Haywire | Published: August 15, 2011
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a million ideas but complete lack of function
how many times have i been at this junction?
inventing creating without any parts
memetics divided in spreadsheets and charts
left brain where are you i know you exist
will you help me i need you i must make a list
my ideas have been pillaged by pirates of reason
i’m feeling a new sense of corporate treason
if I can invent a new theory each night
maybe one day i can learn left from right

is there an app for that?
i know you’re out there
helping me with the baseline
so i can deface mine
polishing fantasies onto a grid
is there an app for that?

(c) rachel haywire | 8/15/11

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Digital Anthropology: Is Web 2.0 an Idiocracy?

By Rachel Haywire | Published: June 30, 2011
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If you are like me you might come from a generation that was raised online before the boom of social networking sites. The Internet was once a secret room that only the freaks could experience. We were trolling before it was called trolling and we didn’t do it for mob sport but intellectual exercise. My first exposure to the Internet was through a free text-based service where you could view alt.newsgroups and send email through a program called Pine. There was no world wide Internet that I could see from miles away.

I remember the act of “scrolling” which was placing ASCII skulls and bongs in AOL chatrooms. A/S/L anyone? I remember deleting the information on AOL discs and putting new material on them. I got suspended in elementary school for “hacking” when I brought these discs into class. Of course it was only a matter of time before people saw outside of Plato’s Cave so when Truman decided to get out of AOL and saw the mountain called the Internet a company called Geocities began hosting websites. (also known as “Geoshitties”) At the same time a bunch geeks like myself were starting our own domains and creating our own content to express ourselves and meet new people. We had no real life friends which was common in early Internet culture. The digital world was like a bar for the socially inept and we were all the bartenders.

The Make Out Club was founded in 1999 and considered to be the first popular social networking site. It was the site that everyone who had their own domain made fun of. After this came LiveJournal which was practically a subculture in itself and the place where I launched my project Acidexia. Next there was Friendster which was the first time the Internet truly opened its doors to the general public. I remember enjoying Friendster because cyberculture was coming into human form. People were dressed up like cyborgs in their profile pictures and you could find them out at clubs dressed the same way.

A lot of people consider Myspace the downfall of the Internet and in many ways I am inclined to agree. Yet I remember when Myspace was cool and it was a great way to meet other musicians. I could always search for Industrial artists in my area. It was a great way to get feedback on my music and present Experiment Haywire to the general public. When Myspace died there was no longer a central community for musicians and to this day the closest thing we have is SoundCloud. Of course Myspace did open the flood gates for a lot of idiots. It’s hard to deny that through the creation of Myspace the general IQ of the Internet population dropped at least 40 points.

The Internet was becoming a fancy strip mall full of ugly icons and flashing lights. With the creation of Twitter (which I’m still not convinced wasn’t predicted by William Gibson in Pattern Recognition) the Internet was now a business in which memes were an economic transaction and hastags were the key to success. The Web 2.0 was beginning to form. There was also Facebook which overthrew Myspace and introduced us to apps. Facebook wasn’t too bad when it first started out but with the rapid growth of the Internet it became the Orwellian conspiracy we all feared. With the rise of the iPhone and Droid it was clear that Facebook was making itself a forced connection to the digital world. Flashbacks to AOL anyone?

There is hope that Google+ will kill Facebook once and for all. In fact it is almost like Google+ has become Obama and since Google+ is not Bush everybody is voting for it. Yet I don’t see anything Google+ing Twitter. Maybe this means that Twitter is here to stay for a while. It turned the Internet into a popular business tool which I now see as a good thing. Information-as-currency is a subject that has always fascinated me. I love going to conferences and contributing to discussion feeds. Maybe the Internet has not become an Idiocracy like it appears to have become on Facebook. As people who used the Internet in the early days we have now grown up and are utilizing our digital knowledge to help a new generation.

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10 Reasons to Stay Alive

By Rachel Haywire | Published: June 20, 2011
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1. If you kill yourself your enemies will win.
2. You are better than your current situation and you must live in order to prove this.
3. Your experiences of suffering have gained you wisdom that will last you your entire lifetime.
4. You have millions of ideas that you have not yet invented.
5. People like you are dying out and you don’t want to contribute to this.
6. You have a torch that you need to carry on.
7. No matter how brutal they are you can share your experiences through conversation and art.
8. You have no idea what could happen to you in the future.
9. You want to finish up your plan for world domination.
10. You deserve to enjoy yourself more than you have in your lifetime.

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Finding the Light as an Atheist

By Rachel Haywire | Published: June 16, 2011
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So you think that your life is over. Your entire existence has been a struggle and everything that you touch ends up falling apart. You find yourself in a place of darkness that you are unable to escape from. The only emotions you know are hatred and anger which you have learned to glamorize for the sake of art or survival. You do not believe in concepts such finding the light beacause you are too intelligent to believe in mystic jargon. What’s the point in being happy anyway? Isn’t happiness for the unenlightened? The many? The humans?

I have news for you. It is possible to be happy after having been through the worst of the worst. No matter how much trauma you have been through there is a light that you can find. No matter how far into the depths of human depravity you have plunged: no matter how much terror you have witnessed: no matter how many horrible people you have been around: it is possible for you to be happy without sacrificing your knowledge. All it takes is deprogramming yourself from the verbal and emotional abuse that has caused you to sink into this hole.

Step 1: Cut all of the people who make you feel bad about yourself out of your life. In extreme cases like mine this may mean both your spouse and your mother. Acquaintances are another factor. How many people are you in contact with who make you feel bad about yourself? Get rid of these people no matter how many mutual friends you have. They are not going to help you advance in any way. You may feel like you need these people to survive but it is better to be sinking alone than swimming with people who will end up drowning you. Let yourself sink alone and you will realize that you no longer want to sink. Now you have no choice but to learn how to swim.

Step 2: Accept that you may not be able to swim as well as someone like Amanda Palmer or the organizers of SXSW. Accept that your theme camp may not be the most exciting attraction on the playa. Admit that you may have a difficult hand or disposition and that life is not fair. Do not fall into a mystic trap and blame this on being enlightened, cursed, etc. Now swim as hard and as fast as you can. Do not look back. If you can get through this struggle you can get through anything. Some day Amanda Palmer may be coming to you for advice and some day you may have the most exciting theme camp at Burning Man. Things like this often change overnight with a simple news article or collaboration. Yet in the end you should not be comparing yourself to other people. What matters is what you are doing with the cards you have been dealt.

Step 3: Make the decision not to be a pity machine. Realize that nobody is going to feel bad for you if you live in a country like America. If you have a semi-large audience who is understanding of your struggle this may be difficult. For every 5 people who wish you well there are 15 people who wish you would get over yourself. I hate to put it that way but this is a lesson that I learned the hard way. Discussing your personal issues is never a good way to advance yourself. It may get you support from the people who truly care about you and it may even thin out the herd but it will not improve your life in the long run. It is a temporary solution to a much greater problem. Having a supportive network of friends is very important but taking action to improve your life is the only way to get out of your hole.

Step 4: Do things that make you happy. Think about what brings you joy and make a list of these things. Do not look for other people who are living in darkness so you can feel a sense of community. Look for people who are living happy lives and invite them to hang out. Form a new community. Read an uplifting book or listen to an uplifting song. (uplifting does not have to = vapid) Engage in a new hobby. Attend an event that will completely shift your perspective. Try something you have always been curious about. Let yourself go. This is your life and you are free to do whatever you want with it.

Step 5: Have a plan for success. Make sure that everything you do is related to this plan. Live and breathe success. Become an inspiration to other people. Do not think of yourself as a trainwreck. View yourself as someone who is getting back on track. Remember that for every 5 people in your way there are 15 people who will support your new direction. There are nice people everywhere and many of them are successful. Some have also found the light after dwelling in darkness. Some have been even worse off than you have. Consider yourself a successful person who has not yet reached your full potential. Consider this a time of healing and change.

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The Addiction to Online Socializing

By Rachel Haywire | Published: June 14, 2011
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A year ago I told myself I would quit spending so much time with online socializing and start blogging more. A few months ago my Facebook account was deleted and my private information was revealed to thousands of people. I have no idea why but for some sick reason I continued to socialize on Facebook. I’m not sure if it was my desire to show that I could live a functional life online in the midst of being a digital stalking target or if it was something more deep rooted and psychological.

Did I not have any friends in real life? Why was I relying on my social network as a support group? Was it the immediate gratification of receiving a response as opposed to the back-and-forth-texting? Whatever was going on I was obviously in some type of crisis. I had real life friends but they were spread throughout the country due to my constant traveling. They were isolated like me and plugged into the world of online socializing themselves. I felt like very few people wanted to see me in person because my digital output was easier to deal with than my physical output. Whatever was going on it was definitely not healthy and I was headed down a very lonely path. Did I have to give up socializing online to find myself again?

Absolutely. I deleted my Facebook account after a few episodes that involved my ex-husband relentlessly using my social network as a vehicle to get me back with him. I refused to sit around and watch him play these games with my community. This was the final straw in regards to deleting my Facebook and it took far too long for me to arrive here. It is often hard for me to see what is around me and I will need a drastic event to take notice of the truth. Most people in my position would have left the Internet ages ago with so much adversity. So what kept me socializing online? Why so much masochism?

I believe that it had to do with my impatience. I often had issues of burning importance and could not wait for a friend to text me back about them. Phone calls were a thing of the past. I did not have a family that I could turn to for support. In truth I did not have much of anything. I socialized online out of desperation. It was all that I felt I was capable of. Real life involved navigating a physical space that I was at constant war with. I didn’t need to worry about dropping objects online: about interrupting conversations: about breaking things: about navigating: about accidentally cutting someone in line: about not understanding my surroundings: about clearing a room. Socializing online was my defeat.

I am done being defeated. I need to accept that while living online may be easier than living in real life it is not a solution. It can become a point of no return. In deleting my Facebook account I decided to get back on my feet and give real life another try. I currently feel a bit unequipped but at least I am trying. There must be a way that I can develop a real group of friends: move past all the verbal abuse from my family: start attracting nicer people: feeling generally content. At this point I might even say that I have a better chance of making it in real life than I do on the Internet. A walk on the beach is much nicer than a digital conversation about one. Even if I trip and fall in the sand a few times.

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