Unplugged

In 2017, Jonathan Coulton dropped his double album Solid State. I immediately ordered a copy on vinyl. It turned out to be a concept album, but not in the sense of telling a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was more of a nonlinear set of dystopian sketches of a world that had become too connected, too online. In his epilogue to the album's companion graphic novel, Coulton summed up the mood of the time. "When I started work on Solid State, the only thing I could really think of that I wanted to say was something like, 'The internet sucks now'". 

Coulton's unique style up until Solid State had been mostly catchy, uptempo songs that featured quirky humor—a mad scientist develops a poignantly unrequited crush on his victim, an intentionally larger-than-life portrait of Kenesaw Mountain Landis ends with Shoeless Joe Jackson (of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox infamy) switching careers to become a pop star who "asked the musical question Is She Really Going Out With Him?", a banal family update letter tucked into a Christmas card describes the family's travails in being held prisoner on an asteroid by robots—but there was also no shortage of sad songs. Solid State was different. There were emerging themes of love and empathy, but a dark cloud hung over much of the album's content. JoCo just wasn't right. Well, hell. Who was?

Over the next four years or so, we'd see a president who giddily delighted in trolling his own citizens, a global pandemic, a violent assault on our country on 6 January, 2021, the eventual peaceful transfer of power, and a slow but steady reckoning for those who sought to disrupt that process.

The album sat on my shelf for years without hitting the turntable. It's not that it was a creatively bad album, it was just that it was too much. And surely we'd never have to revisit a place quite that dark. That turned out to be a naive assumption, and don't call me Shirley. The Internet Troll in Chief is on his way back to a second nonconsecutive term, and the Internet has found a renewed sense of passion and purpose for sucking.

It was only a couple months ago that I first became familiar with the term Dead Internet Theory. To summarize, the theory (hypothesis, really) states that somewhere between 30% and 50% of all Internet content is fake, either generated by bots, originated by Russian troll farms for purposes other than what the content appears to be, or copied and pasted from one of those sources. This is a hard assertion to prove or disprove empirically, but conceptually it sounds about right. It squares with a lot of experience.

I'm old enough to remember when we were taught in school to be wary of Russian propaganda. As a shortwave listener in the ‘80s, I recall laughing out loud at the absurd claims that were broadcast from Radio Moscow. Today the Russians have become more insidious and more stealthy in their attempts to sow discord among their adversaries, and we're not the better for it. While acknowledging that this country has some significant challenges ahead, this also might be a good time to realize that most of what's out there on the Internet isn't going to help. If we're all anxious and upset and pissed off at our fellow citizens, that's what the Russians want. I for one, don't intend to let the bastards win without a fight.

I'm taking a step back from social media. I invite my fellow Americans, and fellow citizens of the Free World, to consider, according to your own conscience, whether you might benefit by doing the same. I won't be completely gone. You'll still see my travel photos and my silly little amateur radio accomplishments and all the random semi-clever thoughts that feel postable, but I'll be spending considerably less time engaging with these Internet sites and my curation strategy will be a lot more aggressive. Any content that involves freaking out—or gloating—about the imminent collapse of liberal democracy won't register. I'll either scroll right by or mute and block. 

In the end, maybe online isn't how we were meant to interact. It certainly isn't how we evolved to interact. Maybe it's time to get back to low-tech interactions. Hanging out. Going to concerts and ball games. Reading books. Enjoying a day out with your buddies. Even reaching out into the static and the noise to make those contacts, one at a time, over the radio. We'll get through this, and we'll be better for it.