Everything Coming, Everything Close (Patreon)

Hello I am screaming toward you like a missile of agapē love.

updates, musings, reminders, oh my!

There's Book Club specific info and some more generalized State of the Union address + some recommendations so i suggest you read all of it

Kill The Internet Town Hall + Decorum:

KTI TOWN HALL is tody at 4:30pm EST.  For the uninitiated, Town Hall happens on Zoom. Unfortunately, these meets are not recorded, they happen in the air and then they go away. This is like events in real life, which are possible to miss when they aren’t immediately tacitly killed and embalmed by technology, like a photograph of a ghost.

Here’s the Zoom link!

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82397372536

See you soon.

Another link I want to re-plug is the KILL ALL NORMIES EXIT SURVEY! For those who made it to the finish line. Would love love LOVE to have your shining faces in the Book Report. 

https://forms.gle/cFgT3QfxNTevgFbx9

You still can make it to the finish line btw!!! The Book Club Threads REMAIN ACTIVE IN PERPETUITY.

Just two weeks ago oliver posted up in the Games: Agency As Art Part 1 thread. A month ago Chandler, BrEANs, annie liz and I were going HAM in the Lila Finale thread for absolutely no reason. Halley just started Kill All Normies a week ago!!! And they finished it AS I WAS WRITING THIS. We're still making the Book Report for Kill All Normies, we can STILL INCLUDE THEM!

PILGRIMAGES TO PREV BOOKS ARE ENCOURAGED!!!

I always notice those and I always read them. I like to also try to reward them with long form response, and I do that sometimes too. However, my attention and energy is starting to get pulled in enough directions that I can't always spend hours on multiple individual responses like I used to. So it rocks my socks when I see other community members also diving into the past and finding each other there. My hope is that these prev KTI Book Club Threads are like signposts for future travellers, a way to get reading and have people reading alongside you, people to relate to and resonate and disagree with. Like Death Stranding. Or Elden Ring.

These previous Book Club threads should be easier to find now, because

The Patreon Collections Have Been Polished:

Heartfelt thanks to Ellen for their care and diligence on that.

I would like to keep growing my Patreon as an intrinsically valuable resource as well as a crowdfunding mechanism for main channel videos. I am very grateful to Patreon as a platform, and am really pleased with the updates they've been incorporating lately. That's right, I LIKE the updates! 

One of these updates is the Collections feature, which I'm investing heavy into as the main way to navigate through all the different content on here. While you're subscribed, you'll get new releases directly to your email, but if you unsub and come back, or new people come, the Collections directory is where to check stuff out that you want to see without endless scrolling through things you may or may not want to see.

Ellen also cleaned up the tags, so you can use those too. And the search function. Listen Patreon functions pretty well actually.

Now I want to let you know that right here in this update post I started writing a full blown ONE THOUSAND WORD ESSAY about why exactly I fuck with Patreon and why I left substack and it became this manifesto about technocapitalism and the necessary gradient evaluation of different systems of service and subtle exploitation and advertiser models and pragmatic collective action to return to Web 1.0 for users and creators alike. At about the 1000 word mark, I realized this is not the place for a 1000+ word essay, and I moved it over to a pages doc. I'll release it soon through Substack and cjthex.com. I have been meaning to release some sort of Final Thing on Substack explaining why I'm leaving the platform.

ok,

You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier Is Our Next Book.

Acquire it! Through legal means and definitely not any other means that may or may not exist! We'll be reading it throughout March and April. 

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SCHEDULE:

Part One:

March 3rd - Preface + Chapter 1 [24 PAGES]

March 10th - Chapter 2 [20 PAGES]

March 17th - Chapter 3 [30 PAGES]

Part Two:

March 24th - Chapters 4 and 5 [21 PAGES]

April 1st - Chapters 6, 7, and 8 [21 PAGES]

Part Three:

April 7th - Chapters 9 and 10 [21 PAGES]

April 14th - Chapters 11 and 12 [25 PAGES]

Part Four:

April 21st - Chapters 12 and 13 [26 PAGES]

Part Five:

April 28th - Chapter 14 + Afterward (if your copy has one) [34 PAGES]

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Don't worry if you didn't catch that, I'll repost it soon.

In KTI Book Club we have done several books in the row now that are pretty narrowly social media focused. This one will be a kind of crystallization of that train of thought before we turn our attention elsewhere.

Lanier was one of the people who launched me on this journey in 2021. I initially found him one of several interesting voices talking about the internet and the soul, but I've come full circle into realizing he is absolutely essential and someone I seek to emulate and continue the work of. I've read 10 Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, and it is phenomenal, but I've partially read You Are Not A Gadget and I think it might be better. So I'm inviting you to come with me as I complete it. This guy gets it, he's the final boss, read this with me.

Then maybe we'll veer into fiction, or philosophy or religion or art. Killing the internet is about resisting online decadence, creating systems in service of Quality, and investing collective attention into embodied Beauty. That's a lot of ground to cover. And conceptual wiggle room. I think it's important to sit in one idea for a long time even if it feels redundant, and to say the same thing in many different ways so it sinks in, but I'll be happy to strike at a different subject matter with the next book selection.But this will be a good and thorough period at the end of that sentence. 

The reading schedule is pretty permissive, about 20-30 pages a week of highly readable highly relevant fire about the age you live in.

I highly encourage you to pick this one up if u resonate with the Things I have to say about social media and The Culture. The thirst, the beauty, the need. Even if you are late on book club threads, or fall out partway through, or *grits teeth* you skip a chapter, the way this book is written I think you could comfortably jump in anywhere and there will be several fantastic self contained sections. Obviously a full read is superior (long attention, commitment, experience the full art) but I really strongly feel more people should read more of Lanier's words and it's written in a barrage of slick mini sections so I would recommend people pick this one up even if you're only dipping your toe in. 

Speaking of recommendations,

3 Listening Recommendations From Me To You:

I generally avoid making content out of my personal media consumption unless I can craft it into a whole proper thing. But I want to start giving out some listen/watch/read lists to corroborate the things that I am saying, to provide ppl with interesting resources. So here's a few fantastic things I've encountered that talk about some of the things I am talking about on my press tour.

1. Why I'm Finally Leaving X and Probably  All Social Media - Douglas Rushkoff (45 min listen)

First, Douglas Rushkoff is a writer and podcaster that I've loosely followed for a while. He, like Jaron Lanier, was one of the voices that spoke the things I was cresting upon in that fateful Bo Burnham research era. I recently found this particulary episode of his podcast from when he left Twitter (i cant quite get enough of people's manifestos about leaving Twitter, Sam Harris's is great too).

I immediately texted this to about 15 loved ones and colleagues and now I am texting it to you.

2. 10 Reasons To Get Off Social Media - Jaron Lanier (1 hour 20 min watch/listen)

Secondly, Jaron Lanier did this musical performance / lecture for 10 Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now in 2018 and it is a wonderful example of his artful, humanistic argumentation.

3. High Anxiety with Jerrod Carmichael and Bo Burnham (48 min listen)

Third, this episode of the A24 Podcast (which is really cool if you don't know about it, crazy stacked with mindblowing pairs of artists, can't even start listing them its so plentiful and exciting, like everyone cool you've ever heard of in fresh matchups with other cool people).

This episode between Jerrod Carmichael and Bo Burnham touches what I'm trying to orbit. Cause Bo Burnham actually honestly is a fascinating and important voice on this subject.

Speaking of, uh, subjects,

What Is Coming:

I am obviously making the Pragmatism video that I am making, but the following video about Robert Pirsig and Quality is starting to actively bleed into my life. I have been in communication and collaboration with the Robert Pirsig Association, an international network of Robert Pirsig enthusiasts that have been collaborating online since the 90s, who are coming together again with increasing urgency to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is this year, 2024. 

Various live events and online initiatives seem to be hitting around April and May. I will probably be involved in several of these things, and thus there is no better time to be pouring myself into the Pirsig Quality video. Some of you may know I already visited Bozeman Montana a year ago with some dear friends to study and digitize the Montana State University Archives on Pirsig. This would be a pretty poetic time to bring that work full circle, returning for the 50th Anniversary celebration. Wendy Pirsig also has been reminding people that the Harvard Archive in Boston is a maybe even better resource to visit. So....  I mean in the name of thoroughness I feel slightly obliged to do that.

There are also some interesting opportunities pulling at my leg with regards to the Queer Christianity video that land around June. So how bout that. Isn't it nice when life just makes your schedule for you.

What this necessarily means is that I can't keep working on the Pragmatism video forever. There is more to get to. This needs to end. So I'm setting myself an endpoint. That endpoint is 5 weeks from today, March 22nd. I'll be renting out a movie theatre in Toronto to do a double feature premiere viewing (2 hours, break, 2 hours, something like that) and I guess if it's not perfect I'll just release it anyways and I'll die and my ghost will haunt you all forever.

I do truly think I'm ready. The importance of the Pirsig work makes this not an option. And I will be accountable for this by booking the theatre and selling about 150 seats to that premiere. I've been meaning to figure out relatively independent 3rd party ticketing in defiance of Ticketmaster anyways. Now's a good time!

I am aware Patrons have expressed a desire for some sort of communal watch of the final product. I have to admit I'm not exactly sure how to do something beautiful and interesting with a 4-5 hour video online as a live experience. It's kind of designed to be eaten at whatever pace one wants, is designed for you to abuse the 5 second rewind button, etc. But I'll keep thinking about how to make it a little more special. I do appreciate your commitment. People that have seen it say it's my best work and worth it and all that so you have that to hold onto. 

Here's a few screenshots to prove it's real:

The Kill The Internet IRL Toronto experience I'm aiming for late May. People seem excited and I've got other content creators involved, JrEG has been particularly inspiring and collaborative in this area. I truly feel like this video I spent a year on NEEDED a year to untangle, and the next videos will thank God happen faster, because they are not spikey and impossible. They are pure joy. They'll take a long time, but not a year, and I can't have this project weighing on me while I travel and do film shoots and try to experience the Quality and the God of it all.

I am fully aware I'm digging myself a grave I never have dug before in announcing a specific timeline. But I'm doing it on purpose, because there are so many fantastic things happening around me I see it is becoming less about me again. That's how things seem to go. It's about giving, and going, and doing, and growing. Then it's about conserving, and thinking, and deepening. Then it's giving, going doing, growing. I've been very internal for 2 years. Whether I personally feel perfectly ready or not, it's time to start stretching towards the world again.

New Conversations With and Social No Para eps will come out regularly starting tomorrow. I'm working on Merch. Thomas Flight interview will be out sometime. So why don't you do some work too and go get You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier. It's a good book.

I am screaming toward you like a missile of agapē love.

thanks for everything

x