Going forward.

[numb3r_5ev3n]

LOL. This isn't in regards to my previous text post, but to my old website. I let Cyber Alfheim's hosting expire, including the wordpress blog. Because:

1. I haven't actually used the website for anything in years, most of the important blog posts are here, and I...have a blog that I am usually paying for? Right here? I don't have a "message" to impart to the masses. And when I did (my 2005 short-lived attempt to strip "The Message" of most of the Matrix references and play up the "Capitalism Is Violence" part of it - which, gratifyingly, Draven had a goddamn meltdown over and had suspended/bahleeted by the free hosting service I was using at the time) it vanished two weeks or so after I'd posted it.

2. "Cyber Alfheim" may have problematic connotations since fucking Nazis are back out of the woodwork, and now anything remotely Norse or Asatru-y that isn't trademarked by the MCU is potentially iffy. Yes, I am aware that we shouldn't let fucking Nazis just acquire whatever they want. This is how they take over cultural markers and infect people with their ideology. They licked something, so it's theirs now, and this is a real problem. More on this in a moment, but maybe it is time to rebrand myself.

More on 1. When Fandom Wank (via the OTF_Wank com) lampooned the Matrix Cult via the Seatle Slog article in 2007, one of the OTF_Wank commenters linked their take on it on their own blog, which is a blessing because at that point I was still new to the whole Marxism thing and it was something I needed. (I wasn't a fullblown Marxist yet: more of a "but once we break the neoliberal machine, we can salvage what *works* about Capitalism and do it *right* this time!" person) Draven showed back up on this person's post to whine at them about not getting "the message." But I was paying attention.

And I realized recently that one of my major attractions to The Matrix in general is this: it let me discuss things like the neoliberal capitalist exploitation of the vulnerable in terms that people could easily understand and be receptive to. Because the Matrix itself is a meme, memes are cultural shorthand, and really what Douchebros mean when they say "the left can't meme" is that most of our approaches involve a lot of explanation and exposition as to why things are as fucked up as they are, and a douchebro youtuber or 'channer can radicalize someone in the amount of time it takes us to even begin to explain what our terminology even means. But memes jump straight into the backbrain and embed themselves there. The Matrix was a meme that could be easily employed by Leftists, and often has been, to great effect.

But then, the Douchebros licked it and it's theirs now - something we should never have allowed to happen, and something that I am hoping the associated members of the Wachowski Starship will address in the upcoming sequel. Because once again, a science fiction trilogy about the exploitation of society by an unjust hierarchical power structure, which was created by two Transwomen, was somehow appropriated by the alt-Reich, and now we need to take it back.

Personal stuff:
- I went from having Fridays and Sundays off and working Saturdays at 6:00 in the am (which meant getting up at 4:30) to working the full week with the whole weekend as my days off. And now I can't sleep through 6:00am on a Saturday. :( I'll get used to it.

- I am having one of the worst flare-ups of sebhorreic dermatitis that I have had in years, and am going no poo again because I need to get my scalp's PH back on track. And now I can't remember why I went back to using shampoo in the first place.

Current Mood:

"Megamix Front 242 Jarre Kraftwerk Enya Delerium Art Of Noise Ivan Erasure Mo Do Eins Zwei Mix L" (Watch on YouTube)