After reading the Disinformation article In Defense of the Hipster I decided that I would defend another subculture that may in fact be universally hated more than the utterly despised (especially by its own kind) hipster. Why does everybody hate the Clueless Fan? The new and enthusiastic kid on the block who asks every writer/musician/comic book artist/filmmaker to take a look at their work. The Groupie 2.0. The type of person who just happens to be a huge fan and supporter of the work that came before them. The Uberfan who is now ready to work with their idols yet completely misunderstands the way that their industry works.

What does one do with the Clueless Fan? Does one post their emails on their blogs so their fanbase can get a good laugh? Does this humiliate the Clueless Fan to the point of psychotic revenge-stalking? These are questions we may not want to ask ourselves but one must wonder how Clueless these New Players actually are in terms of various obsessions. One must assume that the Groupie 2.0 is well-versed in their knowledge and extremely passionate about their own work. In the end all that matters is the quality of their work (and this is true for all artists regardless of ranking) but does the naive attitude of the Clueless Fan prevent their work from being distributed?

One may suggest that all successful artists have been Clueless Fans at one point or another. It is a skeleton in the closet but we all know that our greatest idols have been Clueless Fans who most people looked down upon. I think it is important to remember this no matter where you are in the game. If you are a professional artist why not put your work alongside the work of one of your Clueless Fans and see how it compares. If you are a Clueless Fan why not do the same thing but with a professional artist. View/read/listen to the art for the sake of the art and forget about anything related to personality dynamics. Don’t ask yourself whose work is better but what you like about each presentation and how can each presentation can be improved. If you are the Clueless Fan email the professional artist with your opinions and if you are the professional artist email the Clueless Fans with yours.

In giving the Clueless Fan a chance to present their work and refusing to get caught up in social dynamics of “how the industry works” you are allowing art to take its natural course without letting your industry experience or social opinion effect your perception of Groupie 2.0. Of course there is a major chance that the Groupie 2.0 has no talent whatsoever but I’m asking to give Groupie 2.0 a chance since they are taking so much of their time to email you in the first place. So their emails are annoying. Did you never send anyone annoying emails? That pushy young upstart was you once.

The quality of our work is the most important thing in the end and the only artifact that remains is our output. As artists we view each other on even ground despite our social rankings. Anyone who puts our social rankings before our art is a person we should not be in contact with. The most Clueless Fan in the world could become the Greatest Artist of tomorrow.

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

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.

[Reprinting the manifesto on my website for those of you who missed it on Humanity+]

We are a new species. We are not superior. We are a different step in the evolution of thought.

Our Human ancestors relied on collectivism and a conscious submission to conformity as was necessary for survival. Culturally and pragmatically they were each other.

We are transhuman, and we are not like our Human ancestors. We have no proclivity to rely on a conscious submission to conformity, and we do not need it for survival. Where freedom of mind was a weakness to our ancestor, it is our strength. Evolution follows the ebb and flow of time. The Human mind was the framework, the foundation of the transhuman one, as the transhuman mind will be for the next when evolution decides it.

It is natural then for us to emerge now. Like all evolved resistance, we will be hated — at first. We will be ignored — at first. We will be ridiculed — at first. In the end, we will merely exist as a new direction in the evolution of thought. We are the one’s who can stand together unified through freedom of thought. Freedom — true freedom of thought — is not the ability to resist all infiltrators of the mind, but the ability to perceive and forsake all those one can manage. We are the one’s who can rely on one another without conscious submission. For that, conscious submission, is choking us, has choked us, and has provoked an acknowledged necessity for disassociation from Human society. Conscious submission, or collectivism, is what a transhuman actively rejects in pursuit of freedom of thought. In the face of conscious submission, we will reject, we will dispute, we will resist.

In the wake of conscious submission lies the Holocaust perpetrated by the Third Reich of Germany during the 1930′s and 40′s, a broad spectrum of witch trials, assassinations, cultural genocides such as that of the Native Americans, cultural stagnation, harassment, bullying, isolationist tendencies, notions of ethnic superiority, hatred, identity confusion — the list goes on.

A Transhuman Separatist’s mind is their sanctuary. Conscious submission seeks to turn our sanctuaries into prisons. We say that those who would silence us and turn our sanctuaries to prisons are the real prisoners. Those who wish us to remain hidden are our oppressors. We say we are suffocating in the weeds of conscious submission. We are leaving the garden of conscious submission in pursuit of our endeavors, for the health of the mind’s of all Transhuman Separatists who can bare living amongst this mentality no more.

Transhumanism is not about intellectual elitism. While transhumans may fit in the Human category: “intellectual,” our existence is due to certain traits intrinsic and acquired through experience. Not all intellectuals are transhuman. From birth, transhumans experience an innate alienation from the Human race. This feeling of unbelonging triggers severe depression, anxiety, confusion, self-loathing, etc, which can often be misunderstood and mislabeled by Human society. For a transhuman, human society is an excruciating place to exist, full of other beings afraid to question not merely the world around them, but existence itself. A transhuman is not afraid and is in fact driven to question existence, to open doors, to accept that there is no black and white, and most importantly to engage in introspection. A transhuman accepts nothing at face value, except for the consistency with which the universe changes without being bound to baseless, fabricated laws of Human conscious submission. Most importantly, transhumanism is concerned with combating all forms of oppression against gender, race, ethnicity, thought, age, and disability.

Transhuman society is a collection of individuals. These individuals may at times come together to form a consensus, one that is not derivative of human collectivism, in-as-much-as transhumans use no binary operating system.

We want a nation. We want sovereignty. Transhuman sovereignty. Time has revealed we cannot co-exist within a society based on conscious submission — we must move on. We must rise above the weeds and take back our breaths, so we suffocate no more. The interests of conscious submission are not our interests. The interests of conscious submission lie in Humanity. We are not Humanity. We are not Human.

What happened? For the past few years I’ve been nailing the death of the Internet into the coffin. I recently posted about The Death of Memetics and was all but ready to give up on creating any sort of digital revolution. The cancer had spread too fast and we were completely outnumbered. The new generation of cyber-thugs decided to shit on the city that we built for them. Anonymous was no longer about free information but getting depressed 12 year old goth girls to kill themselves. The mobbing of innocent people was not related to natural selection but sexual rejection. Bullycide everywhere.

Enter Julian Assange. Enter Wikileaks. Enter the beginning of Information War I. Suddenly Anonymous wakes up and suddenly we are rewriting the manifestos. The cancer is no longer relevant. We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive and we do not forget. We support the freedom of information. We are against digital mobbing.

Now we have found secret documents that our own government has kept us from viewing: secret documents that were used to kill innocent civilians: secret documents that gave validation to everything any so-called conspiracy theorist claimed. There are hundreds of mirror sites to Wikileaks. We cannot be stopped.

http://wikileaks.ch/mirrors.html

All of this is completely exhilarating for me. I now feel the pulse of the revolution that I thought had died. We are reclaiming our territory. The Internet is being used for to spread free information again. Memetics are reborn. We are experiencing a new digital culture and I must say that it doesn’t contain very many lolcats. I love the Internet.

Update: This article was just published by Disinformation. http://www.disinfo.com/2010/12/how-the-rise-of-the-information-war-gave-birth-to-a-new-digital-culture

It’s been a long time since I’ve written an actual blog entry so here goes. The last time I was an actual blogger was on LiveJournal when I was writing Acidexia and that pretty much stopped when I was 19 and began venturing into music. At 26 I now find that the world of blogging has completely changed. I’d like to share my observations with you guys: many of you who have stayed blogging: many of you who have quit: and those of you who are thinking about getting into blogging again.

10 Observations on Blogging in 2002 vs. 2010

1. Social media. Web 2.0. The end of hacker culture? Looks like some rich academic types read Pattern Recognition by William Gibson and decided to run with it as they marketed themselves as “cool hunters” to everybody on LinkedIn. In 2002 everybody was a producer. In 2010 everybody is a social media couch.

2. Word Press. Learn CSS. I have so many more widgets to install. I am constantly working on Word Press now. People may argue with me but I find it to be limiting. Maybe that’s just because I was an old html coder who was making customized websites on notepad when I was 14. We called these Everything/Nothing sites and we did it all from scratch.

3. Originality is no longer important. It’s all about posting articles that other people write now. Linking to pictures that other people post. The concept of retweeting has limited the potential for new memes to emerge. Old memes get stronger but with every retweet comes an original idea that somebody didn’t share with us.

4. We have to make these ridiculous lists. People don’t like reading paragraphs. These lists are super important.

5. Antisocial types see absolutely no use for twitter. Whenever someone tries to explain twitter to them it sounds like a bunch of inside jokes which means they are immediately turned away. Me and my friends are building Antisocial Media and we are using twitter to do so. We are setting a new trend. #hashtag

6. We used to look up interests such as “social engineering” and “transhumanism” and “discordia” on LiveJournal. That was how we made real life friends. All of us in the area who shared the same obscure interets would meet through LiveJournal and then we would meet in person. Now we meet people at SXSW.

7. Our ideas. Their corporate blogs. We might as well just face it. We were starting these internet trends in 2002. We called ourselves memetic terrorists. We were the children of the information war. Yet now what? Everybody is in on it. Even the biggest companies.

8. Never make your blogs too long. Post pictures and videos to keep people entertained and make sure to name drop as much as possible. People don’t want to hear about your thoughts. They want to hear about how they can become a more effective blogger. The majority of blogs I read are centered around the subject of “how to blog.”

9. There are more and more Antisocial Media bloggers who are beginning to gain recognition. The backlash has already begun. We refuse to let the internet turn into a strip mall of a web 2.0 marketing plan.

10. Things do look slicker and shinier. That’s not a bad thing as long as there is originality, creativity, and passion behind this new polished aesthetic. I always say that the best art deserves the best canvas.

-Rachel Haywire (who will soon get her personal signature widget installed)

longing

i’m waiting for the thought police to arrest me
after traveling past every stop sign
shouting “fire!” in the crowded theater
i’m waiting for them to fight me
i’m waiting to get on television
for every taboo that i shared with the world
till they begged and cried for release
breaking the silence in the public library
remaining on the train when the voice said to exit
please exit please exit
i showed the forbidden to the unsuspecting
broke them out of their stupors with militant force
without using a single weapon
so i’m waiting for the thought police to acknowledge me
just a wink of recognition
i need to know that they know i exist
that what i’m doing is somehow worth it
so i’m waiting for them to drag me into a prison
with the greatest thought criminals of all time
i want to be on their top ten most wanted list
a dangerous thinker on the loose
the poster will be more provocative
than the album covers i framed to frighten the masses
murder mystery mindfuck noir
this is my genre
and i’m waiting
for the thought police to arrest me
just one last time just one more time
so i can go to sleep happy
and wake up in peace

(c) Rachel Haywire | 8/8/10

popular

one day i’ll be popular
not popular like the queen bee of some social clique
but popular like her arch nemesis who overthrows the high school dance
infamous
beautiful outcasts from all over the world
will quote me and email me and form opinions on me
and discuss me for hours and hours
i’ll be to the underground what angelina jolie is to hollywood
too much to handle
too bright for the room
the icon you’re afraid of clicking on
and everybody will scream my name
especially when they beat their girlfriends

one day i’ll be popular
compared to junkies and prostitutes and martyrs
only with tattoos and piercings to make things a bit more current
my range of influence will cover anybody who’s ever been kicked out
kicked at
kicked on
the cutting edge couldn’t handle us
and that’s only a compliment if you’re having delusions of grandeur

but one day i’ll be popular
kids will write to me right before they kill themselves
people will drop my name to get spots at night clubs
whether it’s mindless praise or mindless slander it’s still pretty mindless
and their name is still on the flyer
people will unite against me and for me and to me
and with each other about me
people who have never met me will talk about all of our wild interactions

one day i’ll be popular
i’ll have thousands of friends but nobody to talk to
the rotating door will explode
stop caring so much about what other people think of you
it’s not the kind of fame i wanted
but the high school dance was so boring
and the queen bee of that social clique was so nasty

but one day – and maybe not today or even tomorrow – but one day
and i know it
i’ll be respected
people will stop talking about me
they’ll talk to me instead
introduce themselves without trying to impress or belittle me
and i’ll try not to tell them
about how i used to be popular

(c) Rachel Haywire | 6/28/10