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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.

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Entertainment Hate

Lagswitched by Anonymous

Today, gamers everywhere were unable to get totally pwnd by flying lagswitchers who use auto-aim scripts to score headshots every time. Anonymous has taken the age old rivalry between hackers and gamers to the largest possible scale and blown it for both sides. In what is spun by Anon Propaganda Sources as an act meant to defend hacker freedom, Anonymous has revoked the internet for all Playstation 3 consoles. For some who are too afraid to jailbreak their console and too dumb to use a PC, PSN is the only way to access the internet. Gamers have been left with no other recourse but to failtroll AnonNews and AnonOps.

Don’t get me wrong. The problem that Anonymous faces is not the minor hypocrisy of denying PSN filtered internet to mindless joystick jerkers. Anon has become confused and DDoSed when they really meant to lagswitch and grief, along with other long proven methods for ruining games. Maybe PSHome is in need of some poolside Afro loving. But no, thanks to DDoS fixation, Anonymous has committed the vile hypocrisy of ruining griefing for their own kind. I encourage all Anons to flood PSN with real ruination and hate. Get some true lulz out of this horse before it dies. Sony is scum.

Sony’s team of flunky executives has decided they will get a good profit margin on their attorneys’ salaries by going after the genius of George Hotz. Because GeoHot’s academic pursuits have defeated all software piracy safeguards, he is to blame for all piracy and must pay for every game ever pirated. When Apple claimed that they own your iPhone forever, it just did not stand up in court. Big businesses have become so crooked that they no longer want to sell you a product that works on its own. They just want to rent you a product that rents you more products. George Hotz took it upon himself to expose this farce and now Sony wants him to pay up. Any reasoning person can conclude that Sony owes George Hotz millions of dollars for his research. Sony is responsible for making PSN so shitty that the LOIC is more fun than Call of Duty: Black Ops. Point and shoot. Point and shoot. Point and shoot. Point and shoot.

 

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Entertainment

Thousands dead in Washington D.C.

Jeff rips the bong and sips coffee with me. Jeff’s comrades refuse all hospitality. They’re typical American teens, conditioned to hate free things and fear mild drugs. They’re more interested in getting back to a place with cell service than understanding what just happened to them. Jeff and I don’t talk, but I understand that he is coming with me when his friends leave. By the time the coffee and weed are really kicking in, we’re doing 90 on Interstate 81 listening to the news radio cycle through the same old shit. Then something new.

” There are chilling unconfirmed rumors that right now a mass murder of public officials is being committed by Anonymous.  Allegedly armed with nothing but swords, Anonymous has taken control of the Capitol building, for now. The bodies of congressional staffers, lobbysits, congressmen, and congresswomen have been heavily mutilated and raped. Protesters in the streets are celebrating. Barrett Brown has announced he is about to make a speech.”

I talked to Barrett Brown last week on Skype. He used a false baritone that reflected his inflated self-importance. He tried to skirt the fact that he knew who I was. I forced him to recognize me by rudely eating a sandwich on cam instead of introducing myself. He had plenty of disdain for Anonymous but did not like how I wanted to compare them with a cult. Barrett claimed to be in connection with all the leaders of Anonymous.

Barrett’s incredibly sly about phrasing and never uses strong language to describe his supposed position of power. When he makes thinly-veiled claims about his connection to the “leadership” of Anonymous it is truly ironic. Barrett Brown colludes only with the sockpuppet masters of Anonymous.

The Anonymous I know is only capable of self-love and hatred. The hesitant love “Anonymous” has for Barrett Brown is quite obviously created artificially by sockpuppets. No one ever really liked that David Spade looking motherfucker anyway. He made up the heroin addiction for dramatic effect and smokes cigarettes through interviews as part of the act.  Barrett Brown, the amusingly bad spokesperson, manufactured by the government.

As I’m sharing this realization with Jeff, the radio goes quiet for a few seconds. The silence cuts to a live audio feed from outside the Capitol building. Barrett Brown’s speech is about to begin. I hear the mob chanting Barrett’s name over and over. As Barrett takes the podium, the mob is jubilant. Brown waits for the people to silence themselves and then waits a little while longer to increase the anticipation. The man who is speaking now seems to be related to the Barrett Brown I spoke with on Skype but only in name. He speaks comfortably and with obvious practice. His voice rises and falls. He makes promises. The people cheer wildly. Jeff turns off the radio and stutters a few times on thoughts that are coming out too quickly to be verbalized. I know what he is trying to say before he manages to spit out half of a sentence. I imagine that the same idea is simultaneously arriving in the brains of thousands. The viral aspect is thorny and tangible. There is still hope.