Network - A Ruthless World

[Bransle]

"Anthony! Anthony! You have meddled with the forces of nature, mister Anthony!"



"And we will not have it, Anthony! YouTube is... it is a delicate balance. Twenty years ago, everyone could create a YouTube channel and succeed at it, no real option for any accountability nor encouragement for any quality. You people said "that was the beauty of YouTube", but you wouldn't recognize beauty even if it kissed you in the lips. Half the gaming commentary was made by bona-fide neonazis, every day a lynching mob. Look! The world in chaos! Piles of... nothingness and... violence spreading everywhere, mister Anthony. No. I won't have it. And I don't think you will have it either.

Look at YouTube now, Anthony. And look at it with new eyes: there's no videoessayists, there's no knights, there's no furries, there's no BreadTube - hell, and not even you think there's SJWs anymore. There's no zoomers nor millenials. There's no indian dirt eaters and there's no art fags - there's no norwood nor lumberjacker - No, no, mister Anthony, I am not offering you a glimpse into Utopia, but into Reality, the Reality in front of your very eyes! TopDrunkee is dead, Icycalm is dead, and Adolf Loos has been dead for more than a century. They call it "Paradise" Hotel because there's no people left in it, mister Anthony. The Amarna Forum was killed. Videogame culture is dead."



"What remains there, mister Anthony, is us. A couple of people result of the higher process of a higher machine, a higher procedural, beyond you and beyond me. But mister Anthony, what matters now is simply that I am here, and you are not. You are nowhere. And like you, there's a million of other people in the middle of nowhere, people who have never been and people who once were. I talk to you, mister Anthony, not because I am affraid, but because I see potential in you. I saw your Halo videos, and a lot of people, very high up on the Youtuber scale, have done the same - I guarantee, mister Anthony, that you are not invisible.

Can I call you Anthony?"

"..."

"Anthony, your self-narrativisation, we can call it that, through Halo is absolutely brilliant. Clearly the product of a privileged mind we cannot afford to be wasted. Anthony, we're willing to make the people forget - you won't even need to renounce your beliefs, just forget about them as well. The internet will pay no attention to your past, just in time, as long as you keep taking this seriously and leave things in our hands. We can work together, Anthony, we have to. I can introduce you in one of the charity streams - you don't have to join us in any of the "memes", you don't have to say Trans Rights (yet), but smile whenever I say it. In short, it will become second nature. You will not even notice it, but for a feeling of pride you will feel from time to time, yes, Anthony, pride. May as well believe it.

I believe your Halo videos will blow up soon, it will be the next big viral thing. I have chosen you, Anthony, and I know I will not regret my choice. Keep talking about your childhood. Talk about how the endless barrage of images coming out from the Iraq War intermingled with those of Halo. Talk about how this formed your present identity."

"But that wasn't my childhood."

"From now on, it will be."