Linking the Underground | 006
Pr0ph3t's Maps and Markers
Hello and welcome to the new faces I see drifting in! Congratulations on finding your way to my shop of digital castoffs and curios. What’s that? Yes, things have been a bit more…unpredictable around here lately. Hope you understand, I’ll be here as often as I can. Now, let’s use the time wisely. I’ve got a fine selection of everyday wonders, as well as a few I’m reserving for the most discerning eyes. Happy browsing, curious friends!
But let’s be fair. Take a link, drop a link. The comments are open. Fill the bazaar with your choicest and weirdest futuristic finds before I pack the stall up for a while. Good to see you again, friends.
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A Calming One: Digital Gardens
There is so much to love about this perspective on collecting, ordering, and displaying knowledge on the internet. Even the language we use changes the way we create and shape things with our tools. How might your time absorbing and producing information change if you stopped thinking about “feeds” and started creating a garden?
A Ministry One:
Do we really believe what Jesus means when he tells us that we will be his witnesses even to the ends of the earth? …if so, we must act is if Christ's command absolutely extends to the internet. He is Lord over all, and all includes the algorithms.
Broxton has emerged recently as a commanding new voice in the curious corner of the internet world that we inhabit. I simply cannot allow you to miss his counterintuitive explanations of the differences and similarities between physical and digital work. For those of you focused on church ministry, his Substack is going to become a mandatory follow.
A Developing One: Tiktok’s Enshittification
Please excuse Cory Doctorow’s language. A significant (and significantly lengthy) piece detailing the processes whereby many large-network services gradually degrade their own product in order to maximize financial potential. This is a developing trend that powers one of my most optimistic takes: the seemingly invincible hyperstructures we fear are often far closer to crumbling than we imagine.
A Complicated One: Preppers, techies, hippies, and yuppies…
I’m not sure I agree with the author and I know for a fact I have deep disagreements with many (not all) of the subjects profiled. But this extensive profile harnesses a stirring which many have felt. I cannot imagine this fearsome whiplash towards individualism, power and utter liberty will occur without intense chaos. We’re about to be reminded that there is no earthly kingdom which can provide perfect peace, I am afraid. Still…interesting times.
In the Headphones: Rhythmic Symphony, The Mechanism Fulfilled
Vintage early 00’s electronica with a scrappy, basement production ethos sanded almost all the way smooth. Melancholic drone sprinkled with skirling synthetic whines and the constant companionship of gently propulsive basslines. Deliciously emo in all of the ways you want. Put this into the disc player, adjust your cheap headphones just right, and lay back to take in the stars.
Something’s not right and you know it Why do you just accept your fate You could be free and you know it Why do you cling to your disease
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Thanks, friend! Thought I was the only one who had ever stumbled across and been fascinated by digital gardens. Glad to see I was wrong!