Anonymity

LOL, what swashbucklers! what beatniks! what modern day incarnations of the button pushers of days past, oh Kesey, oh Ginsberg, oh Cassidy! But without a baud, for lack of a byte, what could have been if only there had been a great cultural router, freeing the great firewall of oppression, broadcasting the YOUTH POWER if only there were an AM Radio QOS policy in those warm analog vacuum tubes of those pre-internet halcyon days!

Is this cancer, is this bitrot? Is this the all singing, all dancing, mathematically leveling devastation of our youth we’ve all been promised? Or is this battletoads?

Perhaps, yes …

Or perhaps …

Posted by Anonymous
 

Alexandra Tsotsis writes what amounts to an apology for the Anonymous movement, intentionally or not, and in doing so misses the entire point of Anonymous. She mentions, of course, that these *chans amount to the armpit of the Internet, but then follows to showcase these members of Anonymous as emblematic of the movement as a whole. These people aren’t the heart and soul of Anonymous. They have found the philosophical and social ramifications of such a movement enticing and desire to use the title of Anonymous for a “good” defined only after the fact.

The *chans exist for their own purposes. They desire only to humor themselves, in whatever way that is accomplished. Many times that involves attacking others, sometimes that involves actual creativity, and sometimes it leads to those memes that leak out and etch themselves into public consciousness. But none of that was ever intentional.

Anonymous doesn’t care about the world. Anonymous only cares about itself. Even Project Chanology only came about because someone got annoyed at Scientology and decided that it would be fun to screw with them.

Don’t package me in with these tossers. Don’t ever think that we’re trying to do good in the world, just in our misguided, vigilante way. We’re just looking for a good laugh.

Posted by Critiq, Portland
 

Nice work, this. If people feel after reading it that they can’t quite get a handle on what Anonymous is — that’s the point!

Posted by Max Champion, Gotham
 

LOL. Ras, Solar and Daywatch … hee. Bless you for this charming and sweetly naive look at Anonymous.

Posted by Anon
 

Interesting article, but it only takes a peek into the rabbit hole and wonders where it leads.

Posted by David Miscaivage Is an Angry Dwarf,  Autobot City
 

A large part of the Anonymous modus operandi is making sure the collective takes precedence over the thoughts of any individual member …” Hmmm, that sounds like a, what’s the word … cult?

Posted by Miles Gloriosus, L.A.
 

Yeah, Anonymous is pretty much a cult, except without a leader, which makes it pretty much the opposite of a cult.

Thank you for playing. The game, that is.

Posted by Misou

 

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