Orienting Toward Slop
Fuck blogging. I'm becoming a tiktoker. It takes ten gorillion hours to squeeze out a quality blogpost that will ultimately be read by twenty unemployable schizos. I am a God. I am owed your likes, your clicks. Just like how Zeus demands you burn lamb flesh to whet his appetite, I demand that you (you!) interact with my content such that an email lands in my inbox informing me that the surface area of my thought-space bubble has successfully expanded into new minds. I want to be able to look at my phone every thirty seconds, swipe for a refresh, and see fresh hearts, likes, retweets, restacks, and horny comments from 80 IQ wignats. Worship me.
I created my first tiktok today. It is about lepidodendron, an evil tree, thankfully now extinct, which loomed tall 300 million years ago. They sometimes are spotted in Berkeley, in the distance, presaging doom.
Being a genius, I learn new things very easily. My first tiktok has been a yuge success. I made it (as well as this post) on four hours of sleep. I summoned it all on my phone. Surely my labour will cash out (in a week? a month? a year from now?) in sex, status, and friendship. I'll be the Talk of the Town, heh... hehehehe. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Rupert Pupkin had to hallucinate the night away in front of his television, imagining himself doing stand-up on Letterman or whatever, being loved by all America. All I need to do is tap my greedy little thumbs on my phone, crank out some SLOP videos, post to tiktok, and witness myself propagating through the world, a memetic virus -- victorious.
I was studying for my finals in mathematics, but now I think: what's the point of finishing my degree? I am already almost in heaven. Slophaven, here I come.
I forewarn a beautiful future. In the next six months, generative AI will be good enough to create spectacular new media -- in another six months, complete films and shows. I shall SLOP now to TOP later. One day soon, I'll be able to feed the screenplay of Kubrick's Napoleon into a model and receive in return an artifact as resplendent as Barry Lyndon. I will create a perfect anime adaptation of Great Expectations. Try me.
I cry for our tomorrows. Wie weh, wie weh, wie wehe. I sing...
Catch a feel and feel in love,
Man and girl collect them both.
Him you grab and give a shove,
Her you whisper sweet your oath.
Put your hope in time's undoing --
Cauldron heart, something's abrewing.
What's in
This sin
Shall help me gain a loser's win.
Anyways. What to do about constructing human meaning in the face of overwhelming existential risk? I find comfort in Lear and the Fool. When read dispassionately, one could argue that those two were actually quite happy on the heath. Foolishness works in the face of cosmic pain.
LEAR
My wits begin to turn. --
Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?
I am cold myself. -- Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange
And can make vile things precious. Come, your
hovel. --
Poor Fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That’s sorry yet for thee.
FOOL [sings]
He that has and a little tiny wit,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.
LEAR
True, my good boy. -- Come, bring us to this hovel.
So sweet, so gentle. We too can be like this. You can just do things.