A Brief History of Anonymous (or, its Lulz all the way down)
You want to know what Anonymous really is?
I would pull a citation, but you have to see the entire thing. This is the modern version of an epic poem. It is, in its entirety, a work devoted to the description of Anonymous.
As such, there is virtually nothing that can be lifted, quoted, gleaned, analyzed, without looking at the rest of it. Without realizing that it contradicts itself several times. Without noticing different contributors making fun of each other as they make fun of someone else. Without looking at all the links, shitty pop-ups the links generate, and without wondering in the back of your head if one of the embedded videos is installing a keylogger on your computer. Without realizing that it is all on Encyclopedia Dramatica, and all that that entails.
And then look at the talk page.
This is the key. You cannot have a discussion about what Anonymous is, without it turning into a flame war, a joke, a flame war joke, a joke of a flame war, and a reference to some other joke flame war. And if that reference isn’t funny enough, that will start a flame war.
Check out this section in particular. A legitimate flame war becomes a joke, then a more meta joke, and then a joke about comment threads, and then a discussion of signature gifs. And then everyone disperses, and goes back to the jokes.
The minute anyone says, “this is definitely what Anonymous is” is a chance for Anonymous to prove you wrong in the largest of ways. So instead, let me propose a hypothetical situation:
Imagine that there was a technology that was a sort of “word-layer” over the world, that was like the world, and about the world, and yet significantly different from the world that the rest of the world could still be called “real life” (or RL). And then, in this layer, people made jokes. Eventually, the jokes got so elaborate that they spilled over into RL, even though everyone often treated things as if they couldn’t. This became part of the joke. The joke grew, until there were many different parts of the joke, some of which acted like they were from RL and moved into the word-layer, and others acted like they were from the word-layer and moved to RL. Part of the joke became that you couldn’t tell what was a joke and what wasn’t, because part of the joke was to treat RL like it wasn’t a joke, even though it was. And the minute that anyone tried to show distinctly and clearly what the difference between RL and the word-layer was, between what the joke and seriousness was, it automatically became part of the joke.
And in the end, part of the joke was to destroy a country’s economy.
Or, take down a credit card web site, in RL, which is this world. What is so strange about Anonymous is that it both is a joke, and it isn’t. Maybe some people think it is serious, and some people think it is all about lulz, and some people think it is lame, and other people think it is important. But it ends up existing anyway. It is like a running mob, that suddenly spells out a catch phrase when viewed from space. Why not? It’s possible. And it’s happening now.
The amazing thing would be that an issue of international importance like Wikileaks actually cohered with Anonymous, except that it isn’t really amazing. This is just the way that the word-layer and RL will interact from now on. This is reality. Try and get a grip.
The media has their narratives, of hacktivism, and trolls, and spies, and laws. But the joke is that all of these are part of the same joke. Just because you try to isolate the narratives into “a story of justice”, “US national security”, “free-speech”, “the ever-search for lulz”, “opportunity for historic activism” or whatever, does not mean than anything on the earth happens in isolation of anything else. It is all part of the same beast. We see a DDoS attack against a credit card company, or a credit card company use the State Department to sway foreign officials, or a mouthy internet user make “official statements” on the internet, or a man arrested for operating a web site. What does anything have to do with the other? People are dead. Other people are rich. Some people’s day was ruined. Other people were embarrassed. Some people laughed. What is the end result? Human history. The world, every damn day. Welcome to the never-ending old sick twisted mostly unfunny joke that is life. The human mob, again and again and again. Until there are none of us left.
So what is Anonymous? Whatever you want. In my definition, the closest that a boring and trite platitude can get to summing up human existence while still missing it completely. Sorry. Add your own politics/doom/disappointment/enthusiasm/distrust/anger/fear/love. It’s jokes, all the way down.
The only problem with my definition is that it isn’t funny enough.
If you really believed in your argument you’d post this to Encyclopedia Dramatica, not here. I mean Jesus, even kuro5hin or reddit… but a blog? The least discursive, most monologic form of internet discourse since the hand-coded homepage with the Under Construction gif sailed from the Grey Havens? The web’s equivalent of the small town paper with a single lonely hack who only publishes letters he agrees with? Why even bother putting this on the internet? Just stand in your bathroom and shout it at the mirror.
The lulz stop here.
My mirror broke, so I got a blog.
Besides, my jokes are so much funnier when they’re on the Internet.
The lulz stop here would be a great campaign slogan btw.