Pirates in the Bit Stream

What happened to the Digital Revolution? This is it. You’re living it. It isn’t what you expected? Did you really think you were going to be living in a Bladerunner landscape and fucking Gibson’s Molly while raging on bathtub pharmaceuticals that would make Merck, Inc. weep with envy? Sorry, pal. Unless you happen to be in the Red Army, cultural revolutions are more subtle than that.

They’re about shifts in brainwave patterns, not nuking the landscape. There’s a good reason for that: not everyone wants your revolution. Most people – certainly, most Americans – like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and McDonald’s and softcore porn on cable and their trimmed lawn and getting an MRI at the local HMO and playing poker with some geezer in Stockton on AOL. They’re living their Digital Revolution and loving it. How are you enjoying yours?

If the answer is "Not so much," I have an answer: Fuck you. What revolutionary act have you performed? What madness and chaos have you personally injected into the system? How, in 25 words or less, have you attempted to overturn everyday life? And don’t tell me about "scaring the straights" while posing outside some industrial club in your ankle-length black trenchcoats. Your look doesn’t matter. Your pose is empty without action. William Burroughs looked like a retired banker for most of his adult life and did more to fuck up western culture than you can ever dream of. But you have to start your personal revolution somewhere.

Here are some suggestions from a very smart guy: "Weird dancing in all-night computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they’re the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune – say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss...."

 

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