Sean Äaberg
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THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 87
🕑 Added 2024-09-20 18:08:10 +0000 UTCWe watched the Antisocial Network on Netflix & it got me thinking. I have been online since the late 90s & used computers before that even though I don’t consider myself a computer person. I can just distinctly remember my classmates in highschool not being very tech savvy. One of the most important things I learned in art school was cutting class to teach myself photoshop. I could tell that computers were going to be crucial in the future, even if I wasn’t sure how & didn’t buy into the huge computer hype machines growing around me in the bay area. I started doing zines at the same time as I became aware of the very rudimentary world of BBSes (Bulletin board systems). These BBSes were hilarious, graphics were communicated with ASCI or text based art. My favorite BBS was TOTSE. The Temple of The Screaming Electron. Full of random antisocial opinions & how to make gunpowder & bombs & other stuff to get you on FBI watchlists. It is described now as a proto 4chan.I didn’t have a modem at home (thank God!) & would look at & print out pages from &TOTSE at my friend Andrew’s house. It had that wide open, romantic, renegade feeling of pirate radio that I loved & felt with zines. I liked feeling like I was chipping away at the big machine & gaining clout with the handful of other kids who cared about that sort of thing. These elements were all interrelated for me, there was no real political agenda, it was all about this general rebelliousness, finding other alienated kids, self-expression & later Punk. I was always in the extreme minority doing these things, even during the zine boom of the mid 90s, there were only a handful of zines being produced by kids at school & they would frequently publish one or two issues & disappear. The barrier to entry, despite being incredibly low (using a photocopier) was enough to hold back the ease of what internet pervasion would allow. There also just weren’t enough people doing it to have that viral effect that everyone is used to by now. By the time blogging & social networks started I had gotten most of my antisocial ya yas out. As the internet infested everyone’s lives I got more & more wary of it & its effects on people. The Antisocial Network focussed on the negative condensation on the net that contributed to the election of Trump but I feel that very similar mass-conformity & the concentration & ease of the “Positive” elements are just as negative. It’s that ease & concentration of things that really throws us for a loop. We haven’t had a chance to develop culture that sees our phones as invasive species, second hand smoke & state/corporate spies.
