Notes From the Internet Apocalypse (5 page)

Oddly enough, that law had never come up in my Nineteenth-Century American Literature class.

“No?” I said, gesturing to the literally dozens of fliers already on the wall.

The cop stiffened reflexively, ready to smack down the punk in his way, before he realized I wasn’t being a punk. It just wasn’t logical to assume there was some law given all the posters flooding the wall.

“Well,” he said eventually, “we don’t catch everyone.”

He let me off with a warning, but hearing the story later, my drummer was shocked I had been so compliant.

“Fuck, no way I give some cop my identification when I’m not doing anything.”

“Well, apparently, I was doing something, and he wasn’t a bully about it.”

“Yeah, but why give him your driver’s license before he even tells you what law you were breaking?”

“I don’t know. Because he asked for it?”

It would be a few more years before I understood why I was friends with so many rebels but still didn’t see things the same way. It had something to do with the difference between hating authority and hating the abuse of authority. And for the moment, these troops had not done anything to flip the switch that would blur the distinction between my drummer and me. I stepped forward.

“Where you headed to?” he asked.

“My apartment,” I lied.

“To…?”

“Masturbate? I haven’t really thought that far yet.”

“No, I mean, where. What address you heading
to
?”

Oz laughed in the way I hoped she would, and I wondered if I would have been as polite to that cop in college if I’d been under the scrutiny of a sexy neo-punk chick.

“I’m sorry, sir. My mistake,” I said. “Brooklyn.”

“That might be awhile, sir. You’re free to leave the park, but for the time being, no one’s leaving Manhattan. The subways and tunnels are closed. Now please move along.”

I stood on the other side and watched dogs sniff around Tobey and Oz. Fortunately, Tobey had smoked the last of his weed about thirty minutes earlier, and after a few more questions, they joined me. Whether Oz managed to get free without a strip search was due to the soldier’s professionalism or the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is difficult to say.

“So, how long you fags been conducting your investigation?” she asked as we started our journey.

I was a bit taken aback. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Is ’fag’ Aus slang for—”

“Dudes who fuck each other.”

“Wow. Hardly politically correct.”

Oz took a drag from her omnipresent cigarette before answering.

“I get naked for men on the Internet. How much political correctness were you expecting?”

Tobey laughed, but it made me a little sad. “What’s your real name, Oz?” I asked.

Tobey broke the silence that followed. “So before we throw ourselves into the lion’s den of 4Chan, I was wondering … should we check in with Tumblr?”

“I’ve heard that word, Tobes, but let me assure you, I have no idea what Tumblr is.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“But it’s for mid-thirties hipster douchebags like you.”

“Also for fifteen-year-old virgin emo chicks posting their bad poetry,” Oz added.

I looked at my two companions, waiting for each to disagree with the other’s description.

“Oz is right,” Tobey said.

Oz shrugged. “Yeah, I can’t really disagree with Tobey either.”

“Curious. You rarely see those two sharing the same shaded section of a Venn diagram. But even assuming Tumblrs are organized or forming zombie circles, why would you think they’d know anything?”

“Fuck, I don’t know,” Tobey said. “But I’m really having second thoughts about hanging with 4Chan.”

We continued on toward the Village, and even when the conversation died, that was okay. We enjoyed the sound of one another’s footsteps. The feeling of not being alone. Besides, we’d reached the point where people can’t become any closer without disclosing painfully personal details or bonding over a shared traumatic event, and I wasn’t ready to do that. Bring on 4Chan.

4Chan Unplugged

I observed something interesting: New Yorkers are much more helpful to provocatively dressed twenty-four-year-old Australian girls than they are to men over thirty dressed in crumpled sports jackets and reeking of Scotch. That might not be enough for a sociology paper, but it was a notable fact nonetheless. We met a fourteen-year-old boy who was using a skateboard and a staircase handrail concurrently for the sole purpose of destroying his testicles. According to him, the Bowery Poetry Club had been having a 4Chan members-only night every Thursday since the Internet crashed. That information was also confirmed by a fifty-two-year-old tattoo artist missing an eyebrow.

By a bit of luck or a one-in-seven chance, today was Thursday. We arrived at the Bowery Club around 8:00
P.M.
and were greeted by a doorman with a clipboard and a white plastic bag wrapped around his head with holes for his eyes and mouth. Even in real life, 4Chan was retaining anonymity.

“What can I do for you, noob?” he asked.

“We’d like to come in,” I replied.

He flipped the pages in his clipboard. “Well, let’s see … you don’t seem to be on the homosezwhat?”

“What?” I asked.

“EXACTLY!” he shouted, and high-fived another bag-headed man in the doorway.

I was going to reprimand him for the grade school prank, but he wouldn’t have heard me over Tobey’s laughter.

“So,” he said. “You sure you want to step inside? This is 4Chan. Not for the faint of heart. Especially to outsiders.”

“Do your worst, /b/tard,” Oz said, and stepped inside.

For a moment, I considered if it was her familiarity with the 4Chan lingo from the /b/ forum that got her through the door, but ultimately decided it had more to do with the fishnets. I dropped the cover for us and we followed. It was hard to believe we had gotten anywhere before she showed up.

“One sec,” the bag-head said. “Let me get your change.”

“Keep it,” I replied over my shoulder, and kept walking.

The club was a standard bar in front with a stage and performing space in back. Small tables scattered the floor, and about thirty people, all with bags or masks on their heads, socialized in small cliques. It was like
Eyes Wide Shut,
but without all the money, prestige, and hot sex. So yeah, I guess it was just people wearing masks, about half of which were Guy Fawkes.

We made our way toward a table while several /b/tards shouted, “Tits or GTFO.” While I pondered why someone would verbally abbreviate “get the fuck out” when that phrase is composed of four one-syllable words, a waitress came to take our order. She worked for the club, and wore no mask. Oz ordered a vodka tonic, I asked for Jameson on the rocks, and Tobey cleared his throat.

“I’ll have a Stella and your phone number,” he said.

“Yes to Stella. No to number. So, Stella, vodka tonic, and Jameson rocks? Party on. I’ll be right back”

“Seriously, Tobes?”

He was unapologetic. “This is a new world. We can be whoever we want to be. You’ve decided to be a film noir poseur; I’m gonna be a highly confident ladies’ man.”

“Wait a second,” Oz said. “I thought it was the Internet that let you be a new person?”

“Does it? If I went on a date with that girl, she’d check out my Facebook page, she’d see who my friends are, what kind of parties I do or don’t go to. What my favorite shows and movies are. She’d see my favorite quotation of all time is ‘Narp,’ from
Hot Fuzz
. She’d see it all. But now, there’s nothing to call me on my lies. We’re free of the inventory of ourselves. For all she knows, I’m a Los Angeles venture capitalist, accustomed to dating Filipino supermodels.”

“I know that would be my first guess,” I said.

The waitress returned with our drinks. They contained novelty plastic ice cubes with flies in them.

“Really?” I asked.

“Sorry,” she said. “They make me do that. It’s part of our rental agreement with 4Chan.”

We all shook our heads and sighed, and I hung my sports jacket over the back of my chair. Within moments a /b/tard swiped it and my hat. He jumped on the stage, wearing my clothes, giggling uncontrollably while screaming, “Look at me! Identity theft!”

I hadn’t been in a fist fight since I was fourteen, and by an amazing coincidence no one had stolen my jacket since then either. I knocked backed my Jameson and then stood on my chair.

“Attention all 4Chan douchebags!”

The room fell silent, some with surprise, others quieted by their instant calculations of how best to hurt and humiliate me. I did not pause longer than I needed to. This was the Internet. Unless I fell off the chair and made grape-stomping lady gurgling sounds, their attention wouldn’t last much longer.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “Yes, you. You were the agent provocateur of the Internet. The best and the brightest. True, some of you were functionally retarded and/or pedophiles, but think of all you’ve achieved. Internet meme after Internet meme. Legendary practical jokes and Anonymous’s hacking abilities. Attacks on Corporate America and Scientology. The beating you gave to HBGary. A force to be reckoned with. A defense against government abuse. And that’s not just me saying that. Didn’t Christopher Hitchens call the 4Chan community lunatic and juvenile, but also alarming and brilliant?”

“No,” someone shouted from the back. “We just said he did on our Wikipedia page.”

“Well, that’s still something,” I said. “Look, I can’t bear to see you reduced to this. Juvenile gags and practical jokes.”

Now I had them. I could even afford to take a dramatic pause, and I did. And even though someone made a fart noise under their armpit, they were all still listening.

“My name’s Gladstone. I’m looking for the Internet. Will you help me?”

The one who’d stolen my clothes jumped to the middle of the stage, mocking, “Ooh, look at me! I’m Gladstone and I’m looking for the Internet!”

Suddenly a loud full voice came from behind the stage curtain: “Silence, Sergeant Turd!” The curtain parted, revealing a man at stage right with a long velvet robe and a Guy Fawkes mask fancier than the others. All he had to do was hold out his arm, and the other 4Chan member quickly turned over my hat and coat. He was clearly /b/tard royalty.

“You raise a fair point, Gladstone. The Internet Apocalypse has been hard on 4Chan, depriving us of what we do best. But even now, we are not without our power and influence. And who are you to be so arrogant and stiff-necked before us? Personally, I thought those three
McSweeney’s
lists of yours were a little too on the nose.”

“You read those?”

“The Internet has put forth neither text nor image unseen by me.”

“Forgive me, sir,” I said. “I meant no disrespect. Can you help me? Are the rumors true?”

“Gladstone, I’d like you to come with me.”

I stared down at Tobey and Oz.

“Are you coming, Mr. Gladstone?”

“Just me?”

“Who else?” he said, and disappeared backstage.

“Follow him,” Oz said.

Tobey agreed. “Yeah, but watch your cornhole, bro.”

I followed the robed figure into what I guess amounted to the club’s green room. My eyes settled on the crumbs in the corner, moved by a quiet disappointment. I’m not sure why I was expecting a worldly study of leather-bound books, especially considering 4Chan just rented this place once a week. Nevertheless, the man sat on the unspeakably stained couch with such solemn dignity and offered me a folding chair so graciously it almost made up for the surroundings. I put my hat and jacket back on before sitting. I didn’t want to be the only one without a disguise.

“You have some questions for me, Gladstone?”

“Are these rumors about intercepted Internet communications and terrorist threats true?”

“We believe they are,” he said. “We have detected similar activity.”

“Doesn’t that mean you have Internet?”

“No, but we have the ability to detect a Wi-Fi signal and other markers. Doesn’t mean we can get online.”

“Doesn’t it? I’m sorry, I was an English major.…”

“Then stop asking computer science questions. What do you really want to know?”

He leaned over to the side of the couch and, to temper his severity, handed me one of several Buds chilling in a bucket of ice. Not the choice of the elite, but sometimes a perfectly chilled mediocre beer is the finest beverage there is.

“Tell me, Gladstone. Do you visit our site often?”

“I think I can honestly say I’ve never been to your site. All my information is secondhand. The memes you’ve popularized. Your association with Anonymous. Your hatred of Scientology. Your alleged electronic haven for pedophiles…”

I could see his eyes tighten even through the mask. “Lies. 4Chan is a democratic nation. Think about it, Gladstone. What’s the oldest trick for discrediting enemies? Kiddie porn. Sexual deviance. Those slanders are perpetuated by those who would marginalize us. But we are not the monsters the media has created.”

Suddenly, a noise came from the closet in the corner of the room. He raised a finger to his Guy Fawkes lips. “Could be a raid,” he whispered, and headed for the closet door. He slowly turned the handle and, in one sudden and disquieting motion, a naked fat man wearing a cheap Nixon mask fell wanking to the floor, hentai porn prints crumpled in his sticky hands.

“Glendoria4! How many times? This room is off-limits! Get out!”

The man stumbled to his feet, bowing and backing out of the room at the same time. “Sorry. So sorry, sir.”

The robed man shut the closet door, keeping his back to me for an extra moment. Even through the heavy drape of his velvet, I could tell he was taking a deep quick breath to gather himself, before doing a quick military turn and settling back into comfort.

“I apologize for that disturbance.”

“Not at all. I believe you were explaining how 4Chan isn’t just a bunch of sexual deviants.…”

“I may have misspoken. But 4Chan has an open door. You have to let everyone in if you want to create a home for expert hackers, government informants, CEOs with predilections for sodomizing squid. It doesn’t matter. We cast a wide net and some of the best and brightest call us home.”