Author: Kilgoar

Categories
Hate

A million people refuse to pump gas on April 15th

…And the other 310 million people don’t even care, because boycotting gasoline for a single day is like trying not to take a shit for a day. You’ll just do it tomorrow.

“But, by boycotting gas on April 15th, we’re sending the big oil companies a message!”

Demand isn’t affected if you still use the same amount of gas as usual. Through what warped version of reality is that even considered a boycott? Sure, if any group of people refused to use gasoline for a day, that would reduce demand, because they’ve reduced their consumption habits. But simply changing the timing of your purchase is not a boycott at all.

The faux-boycott’s only logical source is the oil companies themselves. This April 15th “boycott” was set up as a publicity trick by oil companies. It is well known that when the weather turns nicer, demand for gas goes down. People can ride their bikes to work and enjoy it. On top of that, people who do drive are getting better mileage because they aren’t using heat or air conditioning. Right now, oil prices have reached a peak. The faux-boycott gives the people who are angriest about the high prices an outlet to vent their frustrations and feel self-righteous without hurting the oil companies. When the prices inevitably fall, the people who participated in the “boycott” will feel justified, as if it was actually their own actions that caused the fall in price.

The oil companies are rich enough to afford social engineers that keep the human herd content with their prices. This faux-boycott has been employed many times and will probably resurface many more. In fact, even Anonymous is trig enough to use it on Sony. Since attacking PSN causes Anonymous to lose all support, they’ve turned to the same strategy of the oil companies. Hilariously, their “boycott” of Sony will occur on April 16th, the day after the biggest gas “boycott” in history. Since no one really cares about Sony, only a few thousand people are participating in this secondary faux-boycott.

Categories
Hate

Anonymous, you are my very personal army

Two weeks ago, I published my own “dox” on pastebin. Every time I make a comment or post an article, someone links to these “dox.” It gets funnier every time. Someone out there must think the “dox” are so embarrassing and discrediting. Well, the joke’s on you, Anonymous. You’re doing exactly what I want you to. You’re my personal army.

The e-mail is real, and I want the whole world to see it. The OKCupid is real too, but I dressed it up just for you before I posted it. Gave it the embarrassing feel of a real “doxing.” Everyone fell for it, too.

Thing is, some hacker publishing just one of my e-mails doesn’t make any sense at all. Anons really must not care to be analytical about anything and this is proof. Anyone who looked at the “dox” with even the slightest amount of critical thought would have seen instantly that it could have been posted by only one person. That’s me!

I really don’t give a shit what you think about my personal life. I couldn’t care less. You have no context to judge, and your childish name-calling has never once bothered me. Once again, you’ve done exactly what I wanted. I made Anonymous rabidly publicize a personal letter because the girl I wrote it to was a complete bitch to me. Now the whole world knows my side of the story, and it is all thanks to you.

Congratulations, Anonymous! You are my very personal army! Send me pizzas, I’m hungry. Send me strippers, I’m lonely. Give me a prank call, I want to hear from you. Send me boxes, I know who could use them. Hack my computer to pieces and find out how great I am. Deface this very article, it is backed up where you can never touch it. DDoS the Chronicle for as long as you want and give us more publicity. These are all things I want!

Whoever holds the keys to hate holds the keys to Anonymous, for it is all Anon knows. I am trollface, watch me grin. When will you find a way to take the lulz from me? Never, for I am your king!

Categories
Entertainment

Symbols, propaganda, meme theory, and Nova

Jeff Alvarez collects himself and speaks. “I mobilized the group to protest your house by getting them to react to you. I called your writing misinformation and psychological warfare. I made them hate you. I flung personal insults at you and got a laugh out of them. I made them love me. The idea to protest your house spontaneously generated after that, with me as leader, although I did not lead.”

“The violence came from somewhere else though,” I explain, “because it seemed to infect all the mask wearing Anons simultaneously. The idea that Anonymous is so vulnerable to a purely violent meme is not surprising though. All this propaganda lately, it really has that tone of pure hatred.”

The countryside peels away into suburbia and apartment complexes begin to glom into what is called NoVa, slang for Northern Virginia. Me and Jeff really start to tease apart what a meme is and how it works. When a set of individuals have the same source for information and generally similar backgrounds, they build similair thought patterns. The consequence is that they often make the same conclusions at the same time. Sometimes it takes a little coercion and sometimes it doesn’t. Coercion comes in the form of symbols and propaganda. Symbols like the hammer and sickle, the empty suit, or the Guy Fawkes mask simplify ideas and speed their transmission. The Guy Fawkes mask is really more than a symbol though, it is an identifier. Wearing it makes a person a part of a group. It makes a person feel socially accepted, an emotion that is endlessly exploitable. Propaganda emotionally manipulates this weakness by associating the group identity with ideology, which are false promises of a better future. This process builds an artificial framework for thought patterns on a large scale. The framework is the base for the memes to self-generate from.

“It’s like the red hats, from the French Revolution!” Jeff exclaimed, “but they’ve got something more sinister inside of them, some kind of evil technology that made me so blindly accepting of new memes that I didn’t even realize I was trying to kill you.”

“Yeah, I haven’t worn one, but I’m guessing it normalizes thought patterns among those who wear them. It builds a mindset for which there is only one final conclusion. Violence. But to be fair, the French Revolution didn’t even need sinister technology to turn into a bloodbath.”

We both think in silence about our next move. I presume Jeff is thinking on the idea that struck us during Barrett Brown’s speech. We must infect Anonymous with our own meme. It seemed pretty cut and dry when it had dawned on us, but this conversation proved that it isn’t.

Still silently plotting, I decide to stay at an old friend’s apartment in Nova. Better not to rush straight to D.C. just yet.