As some readers know, the Mister Trippy blog was something I originally ran on MySpace. I was interested in exploring web 2.0 and that blog was one of the ways I did this. Eventually I deleted my MySpace profile, although a couple of cloned versions are still around. I also deleted my Bebo account because I found it boring. I’m still on Facebook although I don’t much like it… it seems like Twitter but for those who prefer to interface with computers rather than mobile phones. The key function on Facebook is the status, update it frequently and you’re a true Facebooker!
Recently there have been a couple of Facebook 24 hour blackouts organised to protest about the way FB treats those who use its service; i.e. suspending accounts without explanation etc. The most recent blackout in the middle of December 2008 appears to have been supported by several million FB users who refrained from logging on to their accounts over the designated period. When I deleted my MySpace accounts (I had m0re than a dozen) I encouraged others to do the same thing, but what mostly happened was people kept their MS accounts, with some also following me onto Facebook (some had been there before me too). It shouldn’t need saying these social networking sites don’t exist to serve us, but rather to gather data on us and deliver us up to advertisers. Therefore it is a bad idea to get too tied into any of them because there is no guarantee they’ll maintain the ‘service’ they offer. That’s one reason why I’ve now put this blog on here, aside from wanting to make my own site more Web 2.0. At the same time I prefer to bypass certain elements of Web 2.0, like click-thru advertising. For me, our own blogs on our own sites is the way forward to Web 2.1. I think it’s better for us to blog on our own sites rather than on the WordPress site because it keeps us decentralised; but if you haven’t got your own site, then go to WordPress.
The latest anti-Facebook sensation on FB is a “mass suicide” in the form of an organised mass account deletion. I like the basic idea, but the term mass suicide is a bad tactical error, it is too closely bound up with nutzoid cults to be worth using. Headlining it as a mass deletion might have meant less attention, but would have been an infinitesimally preferable syntactical choice. An even worse mistake was the decision to hype this ‘anti-event’ as “The Facebook Final Solution”. Realistically I don’t think it will garner a fraction of the support enjoyed by the 24 hour blackouts, and I’ll keep my account for now so I can continue to support the latter activity.
This how the organisers of the “Mass Suicide” describe their event: “FBMS – Facebook Mass Suicide. The Facebook Final Solution. Event Info Host: Internet. Type: Other – Ceremony. Network: Global. Time and Place Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009. Time: 12:00am – 11:55pm. Location: Everywhere. On February 4th every participant to this group will deactivate his own Facebook account by committing a ritual-synchronized mass suicide. In conjunction with the fifth Facebook anniversary the participants will choose suicide strategy declaring their independence from controlled and pervading social-emotional cliché. Join us!”
Today’s blog as I originally created it ended here. But I now feel the need to add a coda. Far more exciting than the above proposal is the way in which the precognition and ESP experiments I’ve been secretly engaged in are bearing fruit. They were secret because I hadn’t told Michael K I’d been trying to form a mesmeric link to his mind. I’ve been writing my blogs the day before I post them and then using mesmerics to project the content into K’s mind. The idea being that although he’s on the other side of the Atlantic right now, he’ll leave comments on the blogs I’ve just posted that actually apply to the blog I’ve just written but won’t post for around 24 hours. Now check this comment that K left on yesterday’s blog:
“I fell thru a wormwhole and ended up at the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream because a UK cyberfriend, who I actually like, invited me to join Facebook. I’ve also found one or two people I haven’t talked to in years on Facebook, and wish I’d never met them again.
“Never paid a cent to join. Never bought anything through the site. Never bought anything advertised on the site.
“Overall, I find it MUCH less interesting than MySpace, mostly because people only link up with folks they already know. Pointless. I tried to make friends withan attractive stranger who was a fan of the Renaissance painter Massaccio and she responded to me “Excuse me, do I know you?” I mean, FUCK OFF!
“Personally, it doesn’t bother me that much that a bunch of rich, goofball righty militarist futurists out to abolish reality and enslave the universe own this thing. Sounds like Chicken Little panic. If the CIA wants to know that I listen to the Fall, watch Plan 9 From Outer Space and root for the New York Giants, they can call and ask me. I don’t really care if they know.
“Nor does it really bother me that a bunch of even loonier hedge funds and venture capitalists want to throw money at these guys. Remember the Internet bubble?
“Overall, it’s pretty naff and seems populated by wingnuts who like to send each other cyber-cheesecakes and give each other cyber-noogies. But Tom Hodgkinson needs to get some perspective, remove the duct tape from his window frames and take a deep breath.”
What is really exciting about this precognitive post is that it is almost a word for word re-post of a comment K left on the Trippy blog a couple of years back when I was running it on MySpace. Then it was a response to my re-posting of an article by Tom Hodgkinson about how Facebook was used for Data Mining…. Like wow, before you know it Michael will have full recall of that incident with that basket of skinhead gear and the dead pea fowl in the Charing X Station that happened to me rather than him! And this won’t be because we are different schizophrenic manifestations of the same personality, but because we are genuinely psychic! Try the mesmeric link baby, it’s a groove sensation!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ – you know it makes (no) sense!