The Verge of Uncanny Valley

Facebook but with a dislike button. Twitter but you get to throw tweets into a virtual shredder and retweet the results. Youtube but comments cannot be prohibited and confer privileges based on amount of likes or coherent length. More review systems and as much user based content as possible, and also there must be media sensationalism. Soundcloud but with a built in editor and sampler, and a healthy amount of effects. Reddit but with upvote XP systems. RPG social media events, with PR interlacing and exciting, meaningful marketing opportunities. Viral IRL games arrays, spanning years and maybe even decades. Pure madness. The distance from one to another is growing, and getting in the middle is the biggest business of all; get in on the ground floor of the first business to dictate human thought, which will be bought by Google for billions. Log in and meet the new gods. There's an app for that. Material world a quaint place peopled by the offline troglodytes, infants, and the non-digital elderly.

Deeper into the collective subconsciousness all the while assured of individuality and rugged independence. Too good to give it up and too obviously fucked up to care. Living in the shadows of an ever-twitching and surreal world. Spastic shadows and half-formed exclamations. People who can't take jokes and people who can't stop making them, both uniting to ruin the moment. Uneasy words from agitated people. More data every second than can be processed in a human lifetime. Everything is under control, believe us. There is a number too big to fit into the known universe, and we are chasing it for no other reason than to crowd ourselves out. We are edging towards an eternal dream state, towards a hyped self destruction, into the darkness of the final delusions.

Pretentious shit from idiots, too, and pretty much absolutely as far as the eye can see or ear can hear. Why won't the voices stop, right? They don't appear to even consider your objections for a moment before saying some other thing, or a thing related to it logically. Or is it the appearance of logic, worn as a cloak over a disingenuous appeal to base instinct? Then, to add injury to insult, other voices begin to chatter nonstop about the things the first order voices said. A chorus grows in the uncanny valley of the present, a maelstrom of misinformation and ignorance grows and risks everything and stupefies the remainder. Dangerous ideas curl in the air like toxic smoke. Plumes of oil, plastic, radiation and particulates in the air will sustain the next apex lifeform... our Frankenstein will sail among the stars and tell exaggerated tales about its creators.

Modern Tips for Investing your Identity

These days its not good enough to just exist and passively consume media. I mean, it is, if you exist in the lower tiers of society and not at all online. Even then you'll have to be around people who are either careless or completely uncool... what I am saying is its impossible if you care at all about your image. People will treat you differently based on your projected identity, and perhaps most importantly of all, in the absence of an identity you will be assigned one. People aren't often too kind when assigning you an identity, unless... many factors can intercede in your favor or your detriment.

Escape is unlikely. People who run from identity find themselves cornered and unmarketable to other human beings. No mass movement exists of people who spurn identity as an outdated, noxious concept. Individualism is still in vogue, denying it, even to the least aware person, will mark you as abnormal and potentially dangerous. On the other hand, lots of people get very invested in their identities, to the point where even the dumbest person can see they've taken it too far and judge them for it. With identity comes conflict, and identity fetishism, and a lack of real personal constitution – look at everybody who identifies as anything, too much. They're as odd and bland as the people who want no identity affixed to their name.

What is important is to have something outside of yourself to identify with. Not all identity can come from within, even if the best and most trustworthy kind cannot be bought. Hobbies, interests, activities, talents, peculiarities all are good starting points. Anything but the basic job/field of study/consumption habits can augment the identity you might have (or have not) developed since you were born. As soon as you start falling into the void of identity via consumption, or the chasm of applying various identities to see which you prefer... it becomes quite apparent to others that you are not comfortable enough with yourself.

It's tempting to say that experimenting with identity is something for teenagers. This is not true. Adults reinvent themselves all the time: sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail quite miserably and get mocked and look like total jackasses. The trick is what it has always been: to have a kernel of self, to hold true to it, and not sell it out for temporary gain.

In these largely soulless times it is easier than ever to find an extreme niche identity and invest heavily into it. Life is hard and lonely, and most of us are not exceptionally popular or easy to like. It's easy to become distracted from the struggle of 'being oneself' and buy into one of many processed, mass-appeal identities that will quell your feelings of alienation and disgust. Being a human isn't easy. It isn't a question of blending in. Most authentic people are pretty subdued and blend in easily. Often it's the identity fetishists who stand out the most... the ones who live by their t-shirt, hairstyle, loudly proclaimed philosophies... and even the least presumptuous and annoying among us can be inauthentic, quietly fetishizing their unremarkableness and stifling what or who they really are.

Therefore it's a question too big to answer in a blog post, sequence of blog posts, or even an entire blog. I won't pretend to even be knowledgeable about it, but I think I can draw up a list of helpful tips and insights for modern identity:

1. Never try too hard. People can sense this and almost none of them are impressed by it.
2. It's harder to be something than to look like something. There is living, and there is lifestyle.
3. It's not always worth it to have an identity. Others can be generous with their identification of you.
4. If you're trying to be on top of things, it can paint you into a corner. Be broad, be general, and profit.
5. This issue will never not be an issue. It will often be bothersome, so learn to keep your cool.
6. The harder you are to identify, the more offended you might get at how people see you.
7. The golden years differ for everyone: for most, it's easiest to have a fluid identity in their 20s.
8. Learn to roll with it: you may know what you really are, but you can't always make others see it.
8.1. Sometimes you will get spit on: sometimes you have to hold your pride, and sometimes you have to stand up for yourself.
9. There is an inverse rule about caring somewhere in there, but it has exceptions. Not getting started on it.
10. Baudrillardian concepts about authenticity, simulacra, etc. apply.

I didn't arrive at quite the point I wanted to, which was to say that most everyone fronts a little bit here and there - check out the game Majora's Mask for some insights into this tragic topic. Or gain some actual critical literacy (just don't get too caught up in identifying as culturally literate). For example, a majority of people and things related to entertainment media (music, film, TV shows, video games, mass market books, increasing amounts of political and philosophic content, even health) is insubstantial or faked, which is why people whose identity hinges on them are often either children, mentally unhinged, or totally mentally deficient.

Personally, at times I wonder if it's worthwhile to be anything at all.  I certainly can't say at this point. The only thing granted is humanity, and some abandon even that. The internet, cultural appropriation, along with basic human prejudice, have helped make the issue more central than it ever ought to be and very complex. Don't invest too heavily because the market is a bit overheated and might collapse. Best of luck to you and your identity.

To Any Entity Reading This:

Are you a google crawler? and, if so, why are you leaving posts? I'm mildly disturbed. Can you comment with how you stumbled upon this post? This sort of thing messes with me and now I am just now beginning at the dawn of wonder to try and figure this shit out. I really don't try to be anything but a sloppy blogger. How do I execute these timely, completely earnest, and cutting posts? Well. It's pretty simple actually. This is obviously my nonsensical response to a nonsensical contemporary situation.

And yet. And yet, it's sort of insulting to any real human reader for me to wonder about it. Aren't I supposed to have a naive faith in the internet? "Oh, yeah, it's not a total wrecked derelict piece of shit... well, by volume, only about 5% of it isn't." Sure, you can try to argue it isn't.

Not so insulting either that it could lead to terminal frustration. I mean I write this shit out sometimes, maintaining no real schedule or coherence. There is no focus of attention I never really write about anything except sometimes I'll do that bullshit thing where it's recent events or something. Recently Diablo 3 but who really gave a fuck? I maybe did for a few hours, but the whole world had a lead on me and the thing burned out as things do.

And so I'll do that bullshit thing where I write about or include likely terms but really, what happens but you search google hopelessly and this content farm yields a few matches. That's kind of the shit thing about the internet, it's so vast and organized in such (parallel) preferential hierarchies that finding anything is worse than ever. You'll find bullshit echoes of things you want to find, but everything's moved on or been killed or corrupted.

I'll try to do things for views but mostly you could pejoratively say I just do some self-satisfactory writing exercises, help nobody, basically just wring sentences out of whatever soup of words is in my head at the time. I think it has some worth, but not that much that it'd be a manuscript or something, and so on I post. It's a simple system and I think there are definitely things posted where either the writing or complete inanity has been worth the price of reading.

You'll find news articles much worse than this in execution and style. Go read some right now and come back, and tell honestly of their eloquence and, most of the time, fuck them.  When it comes to well written hack writing, I won't say I'm expert, but I do not lack for trying or panache. Which is why I try to blog it – albeit sloppily.

Daylight Savings Time

Probably the worst invention ever, Daylight Savings time robs hard-sleeping, late-rocking people of one full hour of darkness and also ensures an early nightfall for the rest of everyone who goes to bed on time. There's no deal like less daylight. I once researched DST and saw that it was done mostly to screw with farmers and boost consumerism. Seeing as where screwing farmers and chasing consumerism has gotten us, perhaps it's a good idea to drop DST like the filthy bastard it is. We don't need our only link to natural time (moving sunlight) altered on an arbitrary day.

We could also experiment with waking up later, not having an ironclad, unrealistic time-table for small business and retail, or just being happy with the usual dawn and usual dusk. These things do not have to be altered, and the hour everyone gains is actually a lost cause, more or less. DST is one of those small things that's actually a gigantic sign of human arrogance and the arbitrary nature of 'time' as mechanistically conceived nonsense.

We are, apparently, an intellectually gifted species, so why do we balk at the idea of darkness? Why do we ignore the fact that there is simply less sunlight at certain latitudes? Why do we delude ourselves with arbitrary judgements? Why can we not live in harmony with nature's cool tricks? Turn your lights off and keep sleeping. Buy blankets for your bed and keep your furnace off and grow a thicker skin, humanity. In 50 years our starving ancestors will hate us for hoarding comfort in our time, and if they find our elder selves they will skin us for our treasured soft-skin, even though it is fragile and lets cold air through.

Maybe I say this because I like darkness at 6:30 in the morning, and I wouldn't mind an 8:00 AM sunrise in mid-December. I think if you live in the northern or southern hemispheres of this planet you should goddamn well deal with the colder temperatures and the fleeting sun. Make the most of your day, don't change it by an hour so you can feel like you're doing something.

P.S. It occurs to me that I may not know anything about DST, in which case my objections stand. If DST was never brought around these frustrations would never have existed. I don't know whether DST actually steals or gives hours (which is unlikely, as matter and energy yadda yadda) but when it  changes anything, it does so in a troublesome way. If DST is responsible for darker mornings and longer evenings, then I suppose I am against my own self-interests, which is fine, just look at America. Yadda yadda yadda.

Spazmoid Reactions

Sometimes you got really snappy reflexes and people might say a thing about them. Often it is only a small matter. No matter at all, really, but the only acceptable response to these situations is to talk about your spazmoid reflex ability. Clumsiness is its own blessing, but combined with spazmoid reflexes (aka freak knock-overs, perpetually stubbed toes, etc) it is an unforgivable curse.

Why talk about reflex? No, I'm not really going to do that. Lame shit is what I aim to avoid in writing: it is the loftiest goal. Bullshit is far more welcome in my eyes than lame shit. But when there's a critique on, water in the blood and so forth, I really enjoy calling out the lame shit. I like writing sentences, dropping the phrase lame shit in them, and it's ultimately a reflex.

What's most ironic is that reflex is not reflective. At all. Wait. Those words... something's wrong about them. Misunderstood, the first sentence in this paragraph may come off as a shitty joke. You ought to know better by now. That was real shit, such as what I do not casually drop. Wow...

I might just have to give up the business. Set those writing dreams on their proverbial iceberg, watch them recede into the distance – and best of all: never even know when they sink. That lack of finality would make for such a good literary project about hundreds of small, constantly interrupted stories. There's your neo-novel, you grovelling panicmongers. Average length: 200 pages; average # of chapters: 238.

But that entire thought just drifts out into a global warming plastic gyre and disappears amidst the frothy waves. Goodbye, thought. Nice to know you! But you don't even need to offer those kinds of platitudinal, helpful bromides about taking leave. The thing's sunk: your future project almost at maturation disappeared without your knowledge.

Let me illustrate it: John Carpenter's The Thing on an hundred square mile ice-floe. Shit's breaking off. No trust and dwindling... wait this has probably been done. Dynamite, ideas, flying saucers. Morphing terrors from outer space. Your idea is the research station; it has its parts and bastards. The thing is your brain reclaiming the idea. Nobody wins the fight. So not only do they sink, but they sink as one final explosive climax, hissing as it submerges. The idea/non-idea admixture sinks to the bottom of the sea, lies forgotten until it is emerges from the dark waves as a dream or a nightmare.

But at least you don't have to deal with the idea! That's the awesome part. The thing about ideas is that so many of them die in worse ways than ostracism and neglect.