thank you all for sticking with the cult, even through my sporadic (in)activity this year. i’m eagerly awaiting a moment when i feel equipped to continue weekly satcult posting. but in the meantime, you should follow me at trash utopia, where i will still cover the internet and digital culture, but from a more critical perspective. i have written critically about the internet for satcult before, but its format makes it difficult to discuss topics in-depth. this is my solution.

trash utopia will launch tomorrow (1/5). posting will not be on a regular schedule, but like satcult, it will remain free to read and subscribe. here’s a taste of trash utopia:

“the Yesterweb movement might be dead, but the indie web scene is thriving. i think it’s up to us to build our own better, smaller, more personal, more anarchistic infrastructures for the internet instead of mourning the era of social media optimism or idealizing any one moment in the history of the web. the solution to your digital ennui isn’t hopping from one Twitter clone to the next. it’s utilizing existing tools, old and new, to divest.

that doesn’t mean i’m not interested in writing about big platforms or corporate tech. i’m well aware that these entities are shaping humanity’s future to align with their grotesque visions of control. but i refuse to write as if our online experiences and consciousnesses are doomed to the mercy of founders and CEOs, or like we’re powerless to create our own spaces. billionaires and tech dictators have their trajectories and timelines. at least for now, we can have our own, too.”

thank you again for reading, and you can subscribe to trash utopia by clicking below:

trash utopia

it’s important to me that satellite cult remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

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overcast

it’s a Sunday afternoon and you’ve got a book open on your lap or a Game Boy in your hands with The Weather Channel humming on low volume in the corner of the living room. your eyes flash to the forecast every once in a while, just to check and see if the rain’s any closer to stopping. it rattles off the rooftop above you, and the cool autumn air drifts in through the open window. when it clears up, you’re supposed to meet your friend for a walk in the park. if it doesn’t stop, you’ll probably channel surf until it’s time to make dinner.

SimCity3000​.​wave

when you get down to it, SimCity 3000 is the definition of utopian virtual. in 1999, it was the second best-selling computer game, only being beaten out by another building simulator: Rollercoaster Tycoon. building simulators as they are lend themselves perfectly to utopian virtual——the utopia built is the utopia of the player’s, though not necessarily utopia for the subjects of the simulation, with every aspect of the world being controlled by the player as deity, similar to the corporate overlords in utopian virtual landscapes, with their sleek aesthetics and modern conveniences, all at the expensive of your privacy and autonomy. and the aesthetics of SimCity 3000 are especially fitting for an album that feels like a relic of that deceptive utopia, found amid the ruins and rubble of a world that once was, existing only as a few files on the hard drive of an old beige IBM PC.

city_cybernetics​.​observations

this excellent marriage of cyberpunk and afrofuturism utilizes the stylings of drum and bass and vaportrap to build a soundscape complete with overheard conversations and barely there radio broadcasts, all culminating in something that feels both harrowing and optimistic, like a hero approaching a terrifying trial, unsure if they’re destined to return triumphant.

terrified of the real fucking

this album won’t be released until October 3rd, but the two tracks currently available to listen drew me in with their push and pull——there is so much violence in both of them, but also moments of (forgive the cliché) calm before the storm. if tension and release are foundational concepts in music, rash3ns has an expert grasp. the second of the two tracks, “war isn’t over,” even lulls the listener into a deceptive state of peace before evisceration. the DJ, according to Bandcamp, is Ukrainian, but it’s unclear if the war in this case is the literal one or a metaphor. either way, it’s really. good. shit.

SHOPLIFTER (EP)

made in 2022 but released just this week, this icy and choppy jungle release is a jungle lovers jungle album, accosting the listener (in the best way possible) and drawing from the most classic iterations of the genre in the 90s while sharing an aesthetic sensibility with more recent developments in electronic music like sextrance and depressive breakcore.

a masterlist

meanwhile on tumblr dot com, user syn4k (with an addition in the reblogs by foon) has provided a list of resources for generating text and graphics ideal for Neocities and other indie web platforms. a few of these generators were new to me, like the 3D gif maker, but a few have actually been featured here before!

void dive

バ m o s s _ by feels

on the precipice of mainstream resurgence

vaporwave is back on the cultural map. it’s been creeping up for a few years, as the aesthetics of Y2K nostalgia have merged with with it alongside a small seapunk revival, but now? people outside the scene are buzzing about vapor and writing (kind of bad?) articles in magazines even your mom has heard of.

in this Jacobin article from last month, vaporwave isn’t named, but the author spends most of his word count discussing fashwave, connecting the symbolism of VHS aesthetics and Greek statues to restorative nostalgia for the Reagan administration, writing in conversation with Svetlana Boym’s book, The Future of Nostalgia. i found this piece somewhat odd——the author makes no meaningful differentiation between vaporwave and fashwave, connecting the aesthetics of vaporwave directly to fascism and far-right extremism, and ignores the context of vaporwave’s origins, which are ultimately ani-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, and diy.

the relationship between the larger vaporwave scene and fashwave is analogous to the relationship between the punk scene and neo-Nazi punks; in general fashwave utilizes the same signifiers but exists in opposition to the values of the wider community. i completely agree with the author about why young internet fascists are drawn to vaporwave, but the Jacobin article seems to imply that the aesthetics of vaporwave are inherently the aesthetics of online fascism, instead of correctly identifying that fascists have appropriated the aesthetics of vaporwave.

the author of the Jacobin article has a public-facing Bandcamp page with a collection of music including vaporwave icons like 猫 シ Corp. and waterfront dining, so it’s puzzling why he doesn’t make the differences clearer——i guess we can’t know for sure what happened during the editorial process (maybe those details were cut), but the result is an examination of the relationship between vaporwave and online fascism that tells only half the story.

on a different note, this week Wired ran a piece about the relationship between weatherwave (aka climatewave) and climate change anxiety. it reads like the author just discovered vaporwave yesterday, or at least that assumption was made about his audience——did you know vaporwave artists sample music without permission? shocking!

he interviews Jennifer Ladino, author of Reclaiming Nostalgia: Longing for Nature in American Literature, and while she observes that the images and music in weatherwave videos build tension by being at odds with one another, she concludes that probably weatherwave videos are an escape from the anxiety of climate change rather than a call to action. overall i found the connections made between the music and climate change loose, but certainly present——the piece could have gone much deeper.

it seems to me that if vaporwave continues bubbling back to the surface, we’ll see more writing that either takes advantage of political situations for clicks or simply skims the surface despite the fact that the genre is 15 years old at this point.

one thing is certain: those of us who stuck around all this time, for the love of vapor, have seen it pay off in ways a resurgence of mainstream interest will never be able to capture.

this week, i’ll leave you with the revelation that your cat doesn’t want to be pet——it wants a massage:

thanks for being my acolytes. catch you at the next ritual.

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it’s important to me that satellite cult remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

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6AE

summer might be ending, but you can see it out with a bang thanks to the latest from YUNG BAE. just some perfectly hot n cool poolside future funk to get you in the mood to dance.

Ｃ​ａ​ｌ​ｌ​ｃ​ｅ​ｎ​ｔ​ｅ​ｒ

i’ve been really fixated on officewave lately. it started because i wrote a few poems about remembering what i used to imagine my dad’s work day was like when i was just a lil one in the mid-90s, and then i watched 1997’s Clockwatchers, a movie in which Muzak fill office air, prompting Parker Posey to quip that “some dodo bird” said it increases worker efficiency, to which Toni Collette replies, “Scary, isn’t it?” anyway, this split release by Kratzwerk and Florida Rains satisfies the part of me that yearns for a water cooler, a pager, and the mundanity of an in-person nine to five.

Ice Age

maybe two years ago i went on the record stating that it was only a matter of time before seapunk came back, and while this album by dystopian exoplanet isn’t seapunk1 proper, it sits at the intersection of oceangrunge (seapunk’s darker sibling, witch house’s more fluid cousin) and classic eccojams, producing something hazy and floating, with the impending doom of climate crisis looming in the distance.

www​.​anguillelisse​.​neocities​.​org

as the title suggests, the tracks on this release by 100anguillelisse® not only capture the spirit of the indie net, but satirize the surface net and corporate tech. titles like “How to scam on linkedin (2019)” and classic rap album skits give the album a tongue in cheek edge, and the blend of nightcore revival, dubstep, and hexd mark this release as something both aggressively of its time and deeply connected to a recent past.

reconnect

is it slushwave? is it eccojams? whatever it is, computers for sale has gifted us with some classic vapor.

cybergrunge.net

honestly, shocking that i have yet to profile cybergrunge.net. those of you who came to the cult via your love of internet music are likely familiar, but for everyone else, cybergrunge is an old-web style site where internet musicians can upload their work, chat, and seek out resources courtesy of founder Ellie and second webmistress Vicki. the site’s ethos is diy and leftist, and music is presented to users at random from the homepage. you should check out their infoshop and (obviously) the tunes.

Tackling Football : A Woman's Guide to Watching the Game (1986)

i’m just going to leave this bizarre 80s VHS rip here:

void dive

Composition 298 by klaus

Plot of a Movie

check out this poem in Bruiser by Mary Klein about movies and how we watch them:

thanks for being my acolytes. catch you at the next ritual.

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it’s important to me that satellite cult remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult. you can find more satellite cult on Instagram, Neocities, and the (BRAND NEW) cult Discord server.

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The Gas Station MegaCompilation

if you’re a signalwave fan, you were likely watching in July when, on the third day of online signalwave convention signalcon 2024, the YouTube stream froze for eight hours on the VHS-strained image of a gas station. the cover of this compilation pays homage to the moment, which has also become a meme among fans and artists, and the compilation itself includes some of the best current work from the signalwave Discord community. you can listen on BandCamp if you’d like, but for the full experience, i’d recommend watching the video.

STRAIGHT TO VHS

if you’re a cult veteran you know that i’m a slut for the most classic styles of vapor. i’m still holding out hope for a new late night lo-fi boom, and this album by FIJI島の水 (while sampling some iconic tracks in the genre), gives me hope.

TRANSIENT FLEETING MEMOIRS

wanna come over and hang out in my cybervoid tn? in the slush of genres that blur nxc, dariacore, and sextrance i really appreciate the producers like beansclub who lean hard into nightcore, not simply the sound but the tone and aesthetics that conjure images of mall goths at anime conventions on elevated heavenly planes. it’s the push and pull of melancholy and catharsis for me, kids.

睡​​​眠​​​逃​​​脱

subdued is not often a word i used to describe the music i feature–maybe in this case a better adjective is restrained. these tracks by nuzzlesu are sludgy and slushy with doom metal melodies, like a sextrance Electric Wizard at the point of digital ascension.

Westshore Plaza Mall

and rounding out this week’s listens is the hum of people echoing from the walls and floor tiles under a skylight, punctured by fountain spray and shaded by potted greenery. that’s right. here’s some mallsoft by Florida Rains, out on the New Jersey-based micro label CALDOR CORP., dedicated to Westshore Plaza Mall in Tampa.

testing, testing

testing, testing, an incredibly short 8-bit delight by exhausted boy studios, sees you play as a character trying to troubleshoot a computer that won’t turn on.

void dive

DIGITAL SUNSET OR THE OVERLAPPING PLANES OF YOUR REALITY AND MY DESIRE by ErnestoAsch

spend a lotta time

this is one of two poems published recently in DISCOUNT GUILLOTINE by L Scully:

you should absolutely read both on the website.

this week, i’ll leave you with a 1995 video guide to using your new(!!!) Macintosh computer:

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to Satellite Cult.

Subscribe now

i’m surprised and honored that even through Satellite Cult’s hiatus, new readers have found this little newsletter. as of today, i have 200 subscribers, which feels like an enormous milestone for a publication that feels niche and small.

after pausing publishing for months without any explanation, i feel like i owe you one now:

the highs and lows of this past year have provided enough fodder to fuel the memoir i’ll probably write when i turn 80 (assuming i haven’t been swallowed alive before then by a sentient industrial meat grinder). August 29th marks the one year anniversary of the gender-affirming surgery that forever changed my experience of living and put SatCult on a first temporary hiatus. immediately following surgery, a mass layoff cost me my day job and spun me into a four-month long job search, which thankfully ended in January after well over 100 applications. while unemployed (and in the earlier months of my new employment) i updated SatCult on and off, to the best of my ability, but found around March that i needed a break. i used that newfound time to read the books that had been sitting on my shelf, catch up on games i meant to play, and reconnect with my craft over the course of two poetry workshops taught by a friend (i highly recommend taking a poetry class with Carson). i’ve missed SatCult, but the time i took away from it has been important for me.

that’s it. that’s the story. SatCult has occupied a lot of space in my mind since July, which i anticipate means i will be ready to start again soon. in my future vision for SatCult, i plan to keep a similar structure: an introduction, the NOISE section, the VISUALS SECTION, but perhaps with a stronger emphasis on commentary and an inclusion of a WORDS section featuring the best of web-based small presses. it’s true after all that i am a writer and poet, and i once thought that maybe my calling was to run a small press or an underground arts magazine online. i cannot promise that SatCult will always be weekly in the future (maybe every other week, or once a month?), but i would like it to remain weekly, as much as it is realistic.

thank you so much to everyone who stuck around, and thank you to my new readers for giving SatCult a chance.

in the interim, here are some of my recent recs from around the web:

dashcon oral history

it’s no surprise that as a former Tumblr teen, i like Strange Aeons, and Teya has truly outdone herself this time by producing a Dashcon oral history documentary.

one poem

speaking of taking poetry classes with Carson Jordan, you should read this poem she published recently in BRUISER:

off with their head

i’m calling it: the hot new press of the moment is DISCOUNT GUILLOTINE, which launched officially last week.

alterscape

riding the line between French house and future funk with a sweet and joyful utopian virtual edge, this album by ATOM FORCE is reminiscent of a Mario Kart soundtrack and feels like cruising1 on the (low-poly) beach.

untitled by scribblemad

until next time,

your cult leader, Oli

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. if you’re viewing this on the website, forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

welcome home

this jazzy late night lo-fi by different screens draws from commercials, TV bumpers, and the soundtracks of network news, evoking 6pm in 80s households across America. originally released in 2021 on another net label, welcome home is ready to ease you into an weeknight after you come home from work and hang your jacket on the coat hook.

Kano Water

Kawsaki describes Kano Water as a “sample planet.” the purpose is to allow producers to mine the world of each track for little vaporwave and future funk gems to use in their own mixes and beats while sidestepping DMCA takedowns, and that in itself is fun——a sonic scavenger hunt of sorts——but the album is a great listen as a standalone work, mashing vaporwave, hip-hop, drum and bass, and breakcore.

Trapdoor

music from another room typically has a warm, nostalgic feel to it, but Trapdoor, a project of indomitable human spirit with the Brazilian music collective Selo Debilito, brings a more liminal and unsettling quality to the same concept, blending slushwave and synthwave into one misty, ambient soundscape.

𝐩​𝐞​𝐨​𝐩​𝐥​𝐞 𝐰​𝐡​𝐨 𝐥​𝐢​𝐬​𝐭​𝐞​𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐬​𝐞​𝐱​𝐭​𝐫​𝐚​𝐧​𝐜​𝐞 𝐝​𝐨​𝐧​𝐭 𝐡​𝐚​𝐯​𝐞 𝐬​𝐞​𝐱​.

dismiss you're self (aka ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡) has a new mix out on net label what explosions do to the body that initially feels fascinatingly reminiscent of the rising action in melodic black metal songs. there is something a little darker here (or perhaps more somber) before it brightens up, eventually transitioning into something that feels like it’s fighting to keep the world afloat.

under.​net compilation vol​.​1

under.net, a collective made up of artists who exist across the hypertrance—nightcore—sextrance—dariacore continuum, has released its first compilation. including tracks by beansclub, phosphorrgirl, Aero-Ji, and more, the whole experience is intense, raw, optimistic, and anxious all at once.

there’s also an excellent visual mix to accompany it.

tumblr user {}

Tumblr (and WordPress) caused some panic this week after its parent company, Automattic, announced it would begin selling user data to OpenAI and Midjourney. Automattic’s CEO Matt Mullenweg not only frequently speaks about Tumblr users as if they’re sheep he can heard into whatever pasture he chooses, but also recently had a Twitter meltdown while addressing user concerns about transphobic content moderation.

this whole thing has got me reflecting on how the platform users have affectionately called a “hellsite” for over a decade has one of the most specific and dedicated communities on the web. even as the site has declined in quality, with more (and weirder) ads, features no one asked for, and stricter censorship policies, many of us have been there since the early hipster days, survived through the fandom and SJW-eras, and stuck it out even after the porn ban. why? because even as you trudge through layer after layer of shit, it truly is a space unlike any other online.

anyway. here are some fun Tumblr finds from this week.

Tumblr user 53v3nfrn5 has collected and posted stationary from the Animal Crossing games in case you want to send your friends silly little notes from your silly little desktop:

Tumblr user forgottenflickr, as the name suggests, archives old photos from (presumably) abandoned Flickr accounts, and posted these recently:

enrichment for your enclosure

this week also brought some wild news for aggressively online queer leftists. ContraPoints uploaded a new video to YouTube——her first since April 2023. it’s three hours long, and about Twilight.

speaking of Tumblr, this week Tumblr user bjiru (on a second account dedicated to ASCII art) introduced a video he originally uploaded to YouTube back in November, which details the history of emoticons:

VOID DIVE

sendero I by nuv1914

We Are Here Now (e tem Guaraná) by sabatobox

interior with window by merchant_coppola

this week, i’ll leave you with a forgotten video:

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp if you’re viewing this on the website.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

Access Memory / Gumpsh

an ambient drone and noise single from Better Safe Never, Access Memory / Gumpsh draws from vaporwave and the aesthetics of liminality, leaving you in an empty backroom alone but sparkling.

WAHHHRIO WORLD

i never knew i needed an eclectic vaporwave-inspired album of Wario World plunderphonics, but here it is, and it’s industrial and energizing, transforming this into this.

リ​バ​ー​タ​ウ​ン ク​ロ​ッ​シ​ン​グ

this is mallsoft with a personal touch. a tribute to Magdalene’s childhood mall,リ​バ​ー​タ​ウ​ン ク​ロ​ッ​シ​ン​グ is a Saturday in the main concourse of mid-size suburban shopping center, its crowded food court, a slice of shitty pizza, a childhood spent hiding in the clothing racks while your mom shopped.

WAISETSU BREAKS

hyp3rg0r3 is back with their first release of the year on Vapor Scape Records, and it’s a happy mashcore sensation that plunders from anime outros and delivers if you’re craving sweet, sweet breaks.

In Acid Veritas

this braindance EP feels like the industrial cousin of dungeon synth, evoking dystopian cyberpunk deserts far outside the neon and chrome cityscapes so commonly explored in the genre.

山​地​冒​險

originally released in 2013, 山​地​冒​險 was not uploaded to Bandcamp by its creator, but by 夢のリポジトリ, an account currently sharing “classic rare Vaporwave releases” with the rest of us. this album is all slushy, epic herowave, calling back to low budget 80s fantasy special effects.

game boy manuals

this collection of Game Boy manuals on the Internet Archive will make you wish you still had your copy of Link’s Awakening.1 unfortunately, some of the scans are pretty low quality (see below), but something about the number of pixels adds to the charm, like you’re seeing the images on some playthrough forum or Geocities fan page in 2003.

terramaker

TerraMaker is a puzzle game by securas, available to play in-browser on itch.io. made for the DDJAM - EDIÇÃO DE CARNAVAL game jam, TerraMaker has you, the player, build a maze to help a little pixel friend out of a dungeon with an excellent soundtrack in the background.

void dive

contemporary_mobile by myuji

Pixel 20_02_24 by nymphz

loo.gif by mrgn.hgby.flwrs

i’ll leave you with this early 90s video compilation from MTV Europe:

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp if you’re viewing this on the website.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

complain to the creators

this slushy, ambient two track single by the niagara river brings a liminality to mallsoft——this isn’t a nostalgic take on the mall of the 80s, nor is it a contemporary dead mall walkthrough re: Dan Bell. at the risk of pushing a joke too far, it really is the backrooms, but not frightening. it is wistful and lonely but at peace.

Valentines Inc​.​Vol 1

out on Seoul-based net label JEJU DIGITAL, this album by George Roméo is the ambient, jazzy late night lo-fi soundtrack to a low-budget 80s softcore romance.

Aquatic Galleria

Celadon Plaza presents Aquatic Galleria, a collaborative mallsoft album from platinum towers, ホテル shampoo, and midnight première. incorporating elements of late night lo-fi, chillwave, and slushwave, this release feels like a hazy stroll through the women’s department at a Kaufmann's.

CHOONS FROM HONDALAND

disjointed, dark, and searching, this album by Garden XL incorporates breakcore, drill, hexd, surge, and grind core into one anxious and otherworldly sound collage.

ｍ​ｕ​ｓ​ｉ​ｃ​　​ｆ​ｏ​ｒ​　​ｔ​ｈ​ｅ​　​ｒ​ｏ​ｏ​ｍ

a slushwave-adjacent concept album about being trapped alone in a room (or rather, the Room), the release from c r y s t a l 日本 executes a haunting and timeless ambience that perfectly balances conflicting feelings of hope and hopelessness, fear and resignation.

video game art archive

the Video Game Art Archive might look like nothing more than a custom Tumblr blog, but it’s a treasure trove. it collects scans of video game art in high resolution, including games that are unexpected or obscure, and entries go back literally a decade (to February 2014), so there’s a lot to dig through.

sort the court!

the premise of Graeme Borland’s game Sort the Court!, playable in browser on itch.io, is simple: as the ruler of a kingdom, you answer yes or no to questions from your subjects. there is a lot of silliness.

void dive

Speed of Love by Aloeidae

Sinner Saints: Pride by lubott

Hollows by professor_oblivion

i’ll leave you with the trailer for this 1994 karate movie, brought to you by the same studio that gave us the forever baffling Karate Rap:

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp if you’re viewing this on the website.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

everyone knows that

likely at this point you’ve heard about the song that’s got the lost media community spinning in circles (the new most mysterious song on the internet), and there’s something about interpreting it through the lens of broken transmission and eccojams that blasts you with anemoia.【ｆｏｇｅｙ　ｐｕｐ　ｒｅｃｏｒｄｓ】delivers something so simple, a little tongue in cheek, but still affecting in under two minutes.

Web Souls 9000

the album by uninstall message (stylized as unins000.msg) is a eulogy for a sentient soul trapped inside a machine running Windows 98, only capable of communicating with the outside world via AIM.

vcr recordings

there is debate about the difference between signalwave and broken transmission——the general consensus seems to be that broken transmission is darker and lonelier, and this album by 直子coed exemplifies the distinction. vcr recordings is a cozy, city pop heavy piece of signalwave that evokes images of cuddling on the couch with a loved one, watching your favorite show. the album’s cover image is from the 1995 OVA School Ghost Stories, but for a period of time it was believed to be a screenshot from the lost anime Saki Sanobashi/Go For a Punch, which is almost certainly a hoax. the use of the image adds something perfectly atmospheric to the listening experience.

one

this playful trans cybergrind by Brooklyn-based HEARTWORMING offsets its heaviness with meme audio ranging from the Kim Possible communicator sound to the Fairy Tale “wow!”

There's a Chip in my Brain

incorporating elements of jungle and hard trance, 4CCEL4 places you in a Johnny Mnemonic type universe (did you know? that movie is set in 2021) where the concept of data feels slick and dangerous, but also a little silly. it recalls a line from the 1981 short story the film was adapted from: “i’m a very technical boy.”

defunct societies

web communities are dominated by a handful of platforms run by corporate giants. but if you look back, you might notice that plenty of smaller platforms have come and gone. here are a few, courtesy of the Wayback Machine:

elfwood.com was founded in 1996 as a DIY, community operated venture until it went commercial in 2007. a destination for sci-fi and fantasy fans, particularly artists and writers, the site closed in 2016.

shadowland.org was born between 1994 and 1995, starting out as David Hyatt’s webpages related to the RPG Shadowrun, and developed into a thriving online RPG experience with a dedicated community.

The Rogue Market was an odd game in which players could trade fictional stocks, but instead of buying shares in corporations, they bought shares in celebrities. the value of the stock would change based on real life events, rumors, and the popularity of each famous figure. defunct now, it was live from 1996 through the early 2000s, and it even had a competitor, which was founded in 1996 and is still active today.

queer internet libraries

usually when i cover online queer libraries like Trans Reads, they’re scrappy, DIY collections of PDFs. but in this case, the Queer Liberation Library is a library in the most classic sense——you can apply for a library card and take out books on Libby. in a political climate where candidates for public office are literally burning queer books with flamethrowers for Twitter engagement, it’s more important than ever to preserve access to queer literature.

void dive

widescream by myuji

Arcana by somfay

Delicate Dance by Joe Howl

i’ll leave you with this commercial for fake plants, which has nine views on YouTube as of right now:

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp if you’re viewing this on the website.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

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Grocery Store Sunset

reminiscent of vapor from the 2012-2016 era, a clear second wave defined by the emergence of late night lo-fi, mallsoft, and slushwave that coincided with the explosion of vaporwave aesthetics across digital pop culture, Tupperwave’s Grocery Store Sunset blends grocerywave, late night lo-fi, and broken transmission, rendering a concoction that evokes multiple layers of nostalgia. i’m not in love with the title of track six, but for an album this good, i’m willing to overlook it.

２​日​６​時

blending broken transmission with barber beats, ECOLOGIST空 (an alias, i believe, of PERMANENT//ZEIMP) plucks you from your own reality and places you gently on a city sidewalk late at night, compelling you to stop and watch the weather report on a television in the window of an electronics store. it’s not climatewave exactly, but it piques such a related and specific feeling that i’m going to call it that.

VOMITERIA VOL 1

my favorite kind of computer gaze is sludgey and sinister, incorporating elements of hardvapour and industrial drum and bass——the kind that sounds like what would happen if an IBM PC 340 tried to record a doom metal album. on VOMITERIA VOL 1, Defiled Circuit delivers.

benediction

this ambient hexd drum and bass by yam lynn, out on net label unlucky wind, brings a somewhat muted, depressive take on a specific sound i’ve covered a lot here recently——that epic, grandiose, ascending-to-the-heavens take on breakcore inspired by JRPGs. i say depressive, but maybe that’s not quite right. melancholic? bittersweet? whatever it is, it makes me yearn for a memory i never had in a place i’ve never been to. it makes me understand where Catherine Rain was coming from, but only a little.

LIVE FROM BROOKLYN 【␡ ʟ​​​ɪ​​​ᴠ​​​ᴇ ᴍ​​​ɪ​​​x】

enigmatic dj and satcult fave ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ uploaded a nearly hour-long live mix from a set played in Brooklyn in 2022. i wasn’t there, but I should have been.

proto-vapor

someone on r/vaporwave came across a YouTube channel belonging to the musician and artist Ian Kornfeld, who is based between Buenos Aires and Berlin. his work consists largely of 80s-inspired electronic music, sound collage, and post-internet visuals before the term post-internet came into popular use. he belonged to a Argentinian audio-visual collective called Pornois, which (according to Last.fm, at least) was active between 1998 and 2004. the earliest upload to his channel dates back to 2006, but the video description indicates that the video itself (or perhaps just the song) was released in 2004. that upload isn’t particularly vaporwavey, but certainly adjacent; it’s all neon and synth, though still very reminiscent of electro and indie juggernauts from the 2000’s——think somewhere between Ratatat and Chromeo, and the video has a similar indie sensibility to it.

but only a year later, we see a stark escalation in the style of uploads. “Pornois - Power of Lewis” was uploaded in 2007, but the video description indicates that it was made in 2001. and while it isn’t exactly vaporwave (a word that would not exist for approximately another decade), its visual elements, in combination with an audio track composed mostly of a heavily edited and distorted version of Huey Lewis’ “The Power of Love,” evoke nothing short of the same feelings.

his most recent upload is a glitchy trailer for a performance art piece, seemingly addressing the rise of far-right nationalism in Argentina and across the globe, from just two months ago, and the space between is full of vapor and post-internet goodness.

last seen online

if you haven’t heard, in Last Seen Online, a “psychological horror escape room” from qwook on itch.io (playable in browser), you pick up an old computer at garage sale and get drawn into its web of horrors as you snoop through the files.

i have yet to play to the end and can’t speak for the whole game, but the aesthetic alone has been enough to drive me forward (the puzzles are good, too.)

void dive

Rafah Crossing [mg.06] by marginalia

CamOb by Francoisegamma

conjunction by myuji

i’ll leave you today with Willie Nelson’s early 90s Taco Bell commercial, which feels both oddly of its time and of the net:

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

Dated New Aesthetic

starting off strong with the latest from Windows96, this album lives up to its name by twisting the producer’s signature VHS-inspired synthwave with hints of drum and bass and breakcore. even the cover features a character reminiscent of 3D entries in the Final Fantasy library, drawing the present out of retrofuturism.

く​た​ば​れ​Ｎ​ｏ​Ｓ​ｉ​ｇ​ｎ​ａ​ｌ​！

this album from ＥＣＣＯＨＡＺＥ, an alias of Polish producer 魂hardware魂, pays strong homage to classic eccojam tracks in the vein of “地理” and “ECCOと悪寒ダイビング,” infusing the most classic style of vaporwave with a slushy psychedelia. its repetitive, escalating layers and long tracks are perfect for closing your eyes and gazing at the stars you’ve invented in your head.

Heaven​/​EXE

the DreamCast and PS1 have inspired legions of breakcore and drum and bass producers who make their names on the internet, and Heaven/EXE by Dusqk, also aligns itself with another staple of this movement: the epic, ascendant sounds of crepuscular rays, technofantastic landscapes, and angelic beings rendered in anime. in fact, this album was made in part using the same samplers and synths utilized on the soundtrack of the classic science fantasy JRPG Phantasy Star Online over 20 years ago. a lot of unoriginal music permeates this space, but Heaven/EXE distinguishes itself.

Phosphorrcord Datafile Vol. 1

a compilation album composed of tracks made by members of phosphorrgirl’s Discord server, Phosphorrcord Datafile Vol. 1 offers an array of techno, sextrance, and surge, pulsing with cathartic anxiety. did i mention? the sales go towards buying eSIMs for people in Gaza. don’t wait to hit the buy button.

divine​:​analogue

out on Chilean net label Medio Oriente, the latest from c678924 is an exploration of digital ecology, painting 3D clouds and lightscapes across an astral JRPG metaplane populated by crystals and creatures with armored wings. while previous c678924 releases interweave violence and aggression with the dreamy, this album leans heavily into technofantasy utopia.

ALIENWATERS​联​机​2007

this EP by MAC減衰 has a creeping quality to it. not creepy, but rather it gives the impression of sneaking around corners and ducking behind doors, flattening yourself against a wall in the shadows and narrowly avoiding detection. hardvapour with a vaportrap edge, MAC減衰 interestingly enough also tagged it seapunk—perhaps indicative that a long-overdue resurgence is finally on its way.

vapor locality

we all know i love a little Internet Archive journey, and i especially like checking out old fanzines, as pre-internet fan cultures laid the groundwork for how many communities would form on the web. this week, i came across the first issue of Collectors World, a fanzine for comic and sci-fi collectors from 1978. imagine my surprise when i realized the zine was published in the town where i largely grew up, and that the mailing address listed on the second page belonged to a home whose exterior i recognized. it’s very possible that the zine’s editor, someone named Tom Crawford, has long vacated the building, but there is something haunting about imagining a person sitting in his living room, flipping through a comic collection, working on a zine that i would come to read years later, all within a ten minute drive from the place where i lived as a child.

i began ruminating on locality and nostalgia, and its relationship with the retro-futuristic creative and aesthetic movements that saturate the web. vaporwave, sextrace, breakcore, and other genres i cover heavily all feature aspects of the far away. there is a conversation to be had about cultural appropriation and vaporwave (rather, the conversation has been ongoing for 15 years—you can check out this Reddit thread if you’re interested in an overview), and i do sometimes wonder why there hasn’t been more of a push towards locality. we do see glimmers of it in mallsoft offshoots like gorcerywave, or sometimes in climatewave music built around localized weather broadcasts. perhaps it has to do with vaporwave’s roots in exposing the artificialities inherent to capitalism and consumerism. there is something more emblematic about a big corporation or a yuppie in a suit than a television commercial for a local hardware store.

that said, i started looking into retro, nostalgic, local-to-me media in the vapor spirit, and came across a YouTube channel called Rochester TV Archive, which uploads (mostly) Rochester, New York-area television broadcasts from the 80s and onward, including commercial blocks, local news, sports, award shows, and long off-air programs. whoever is behind the channel has a clear passion for broadcasting and communications, and has provided an incredible time capsule that speaks not only to American culture at various given times, but also local sensibilities.

while considering climatewave, i couldn’t help but turn to this newscast about the ice storm that cut power to my family’s home 2003. i was in the third grade, and i remember bundling up in a sleeping bag on the floor of the finished part of our basement, presumably because we had a gas fireplace there. eventually, when the roads were okay, we waited out the rest of the blackout from my grandmother’s apartment after her power came back.

i had to stop myself before i got sucked into the nostalgia vortex as i began scanning each video for iconic Rochester commercials: The Stereo Shop, House of Guitars, Seabreeze, the worst pizza ever made, even the Canadian SeaWorld clone Marineland,1 which advertised heavily in upstate New York. and of course, i would never forget this one.

maybe it’s time for me to start my plunderphonics career—i could become a pioneering voice in the newly minted wegmanswave scene.

choose your own Hyrule

also found on the Internet Archive: this choose your own adventure Legend of Zelda manga from 1986, published in a magazine for second graders. it’s in Japanese, and there isn’t a scanalation as far as i can tell, but the uploader did provide a page-for-page translation on their Blogspot.

void dive

in the spirit of recalibrating satcult, i would like to ask: how do you feel about the void dive? most weeks, when i look at click-through rates, not many readers seem to be interacting with the artworks.

instead of including visual art this week, i want to use this space to ask you what you think. do you like the inclusion? would you prefer a different format? leave a comment if you feel so inclined.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN

from the Milwaukee-based collective V0xP0pul1, this ecco-heavy slushwave captures and cultivates a liminality that feels reflective of the ever-uphill struggle against hopelessness.

Neo Metro City

future funk staple VANTAGE hasn’t released a full-length album since 2018, mostly peppering the last few years with EPs, singles, remixes, and city pop collaborations. for those of you who’ve been waiting, Neo Metro City won’t disappoint. elevating his French-house influenced future funk and featuring appearances from the likes of Macross 82-99, this release is an expansion of his first album, Metro City.

midnight surfing

inspired by defunct web browsers and dial-up internet, this self-titled Y2K era cyberpunk vaporwave by midnight surfing (a side project of victory over death) brings a darker spin to the themes often explored in late night lofi and broken transmission—it’s about what happens after dark, but it doesn’t cast a net of numbness in solitude. instead, it brings the after hours alive, evoking hacker tropes of the time and late night gaming sessions. it’s about logging on at 9pm and only stepping away from the computer once the rising sun interrupts your trance, jarring you into asking where the time went.

w e l c o m e h o m e モ​ダ​ン​ホ​ー​ム​ア​ソ​シ​エ​イ​ツ [EP]

utopian virtual has waned in popularity since its inception—a shame since it’s one of the earliest iterations of vaporwave. you would think that a genre rooted in exposing the artificiality of corporate utopia would find some footing during a time so overcome with the evils of capitalist greed. my hope is that perhaps, multi-genre musicians within the vaporwave scene can revitalize it a little. here, Citrus Corp. combines utopian virtual with barber beats and ambient eccojams to build something that sounds like the future of this music.

[​𝖱​̶​𝖤​̶​𝖣​̶​∀​̶​𝖢​̶​𝖳​̶​𝖤​̶​𝖣​̶​]​𝒐​𝒏​𝒍​𝒊​𝒏​𝒆 𝐕​​​𝐑​​​𝐂​​​𝐡​​​𝐚​​​𝐭 ᴍ​ɪ​ɴ​ɪ ᴍ​ɪ​x (08​.​​​12​​​.​​​23)

if you’ve been here before, you might know that i really enjoy ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡, an enigmatic producer based in Santa Cruz, according to their Bandcamp page. they explicitly have no social media, at least none connected to their music persona, and they release hexd hard trance that frames online experiences as ethereal and angelic, with representations of divinity present in every stroke of HTML and CSS, in the very screws that keep the boards inside your computer strapped down. in the world of ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡, the web is a deity, and to interact with it is an overwhelming spiritual experience akin to witnessing a holy miracle.

␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ ␡ has gifted us with three releases this month: one a long mix, one a mini mix, and the third a collection of experiments, flips, and drafts created over the past year.

the death of breadtube

for the uninitiated, breadtube describes a collection of leftist video essayists and streamers who mostly broadcast their content through YouTube and Twitch. the question of who makes up breadtube is loosely defined—it describes a side of the internet more than an organized group. breadtube once reigned strong, and its existence contributed to a massive shift in the culture of YouTube as a platform. it’s so notable, it even has its own Wikipedia page. there is so much to be said about breadtube that in this edition of the newsletter, i can barely give you breadtube 101. but i’ll save the BA in Breadtube from the University of the Web for another day.

this week, Keffals uploaded a nine hour long stream to YouTube titled The End of BreadTube. while it sounds like a commentary video, it’s mostly just a rehashing of interpersonal breadtube drama. ironically, it does demonstrate why breadtube is dead. believe it or not, there was a time before infighting between leftist creators and audiences was ruining the space, and when leftist creators actually talked about, well, the left. let’s talk about it.

from approximately 2015 to 2017, YouTube was in its edgelord era. LeafyIsHere, iDubbbz, and FilthyFrank1 sat among the biggest names on the platform during a time when offensive humor and anti-sjw sentiment dominated web culture. this was the peak of weeaboo cringe compilations and an environment where a 12-year-old girl raised on 4chan and espousing extreme far-right takes could amass nearly a million followers. you might remember a lot of cultural conversation about YouTube’s role in right-wing radicalization from around that time—the alt-right pipeline theory was developed during and largely because of this era of YouTube, with the platform’s algorithm supporting a system where users watching iDubbbz, through YouTube’s recommendations, could soon find themselves watching Nick Fuentes without knowing how they got there. this moment was also marked by interpersonal drama between “edgy” creators and encouraged by drama creators like Keemstar.

creators now associated with breadtube largely began uploading and streaming as a result of this phenomenon, many of whom used a specific strategy to hijack the algorithm. by discussing topics right-wing creators focused on, they ensured their videos would also appear in recommendations alongside them, and their popularity, alongside external pressure, forced many of the policy changes that resulted in Leafy’s ban from the platform as well as the suspension of prominent far-right pundits.

ContraPoints, Lindsay Ellis, Philosophy Tube, and hbomerguy quickly became associated with breadtube, and the designation often extends to streamers like Vaush and Hasan Piker. breadtube is a category largely invented by the audiences of these creators, and many have disavowed the label. of course, these weren’t the first left-leaning content creators to build audiences—Kat Blaque has been on YouTube since at least 2005, and the Gamergate campaign that preceded the edgey era of YouTube began (debatably) as targeted harassment against media critic Anita Sarkeesian, who started uploading videos to YouTube in 2009. and i would be remiss if i neglected to include the influence of The Young Turks, which found a home online as early as 2005, but blew up around 2008, when Ana Kasparian joined as a co-host. even many of the “new” leftist creators aren’t that new—Lindsay Ellis created with Channel Awesome as the Nostalgia Chick, for example, and ContraPoints originally started uploading to YouTube in 2008 during the atheist and skeptic era, before she launched the ContraPoints channel in 2016.

leftist content creators, ContraPoints particularly, began attracting attention for videos with creative and aesthetic sensibilities as much as for videos featuring leftist analysis and criticism. thus, breadtube was born.

the first wave of breadtube is dead. it’s undeniable. a combination of conflicts between creators and audiences, scandals that in hindsight were rooted in the draconian enforcement of impossible standards of ideological purity, and personal circumstances, many of these creators have abandoned YouTube entirely. hbomberguy, Kat Blaque, and Philosophy Tube are some of the only originals who still upload regularly. Lindsay Ellis shifted entirely to uploading on the subscription-only platform Nebula, and ContraPoints mostly only does Patreon these days, not to mention the smaller creators who cropped up around the scene and stopped uploading when the space seemed to die. even breadtube adjacent creators like Jenny Nicholson and Sarah Z upload infrequently and have mostly abandoned YouTube for other platforms.

the cancellation of Lindsay Ellis was specifically dramatic and far-reaching; breadtube never felt the same afterwards, perhaps because creators realized how vulnerable they were to the whims of their audiences. there is a new crop of thoughtful video essayists emerging, people like Lily Alexandre and Mia Mulder, for example, and the influence of debate bro streamers has started to wain, so maybe there is some hope. but even so, content that can be described as breadtube has either veered academic, stale, and so inaccessible that you already need a solid foundation in theory to understand, or so basic and safe that it echos the tone of pop feminism in the 2010s. and somehow, everyone is still arguing. the Keffals video outlines a piece of drama that involves at least ten different actors.2 after watching half the stream, i still don’t know what anyone was angry about. ultimately, leftist video creators and streamers aren’t in it for the ideas anymore. it’s about engagement and notoriety. i can’t force myself to choke down another ethanisonline video. i just can’t.

void dive

Encoded Vows by professor_oblivion

OCOC_-OC_-OCO-OCOCO_CO by DJKERO

Backup by roccano

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

CHRISTMASTIME NINTENDOLAND

starting off with a seasonal pick, this album by 4:44 will conjure memories, whether yours or not, of plugging in a brand new Nintendo 64 for the first time on Christmas morning 1996 and sliding that Super Mario 64 cartridge into the slot for the first time—no blowing necessary.

KILL PROCESS

Life Patterns delivers a pensive and empathetic exploration of how mental health affects creativity through a hybrid of icy drum and bass and vaporwave.

フ​ィ​ジ​ー

it’s been a minute since i saw anyone use the image of Fiji Water in reference to vaporwave—many of the oldheads saw the adoption symbolic of the genre’s shift from its roots to pure ideology-compromising aesthetic. but this haunting, ambient mallsoft and signalwave-inspired EP by 起きないで seems to speak to that very rift, utilizing the imagery to produce a sense of nostalgia for vaporwave’s Tumblr-era peak.

Stack Overflow

ɛ̃finivapejuice builds on one part Blade Runner, one part Hackers, and another part Ghost in the Shell, crafting a cyberpunk breakcore escape rooted in the mechanics of computing.

休​憩​な​ど

ambient harsh noise is an oxymoron, but here we are. drawing from breakcore and noise rock, with a laincore aesthetic, this album by Nostep, out on net label March of 2005, is wrought with anxiety and twisting catharsis.

divine​:​analogue

i’m a few weeks late to the party, but i’m glad i finally showed up. this PS1 meets solarpunk take on sextrance by one of the genre’s staple producers, c678924, out on Chile-based net label Medio Oriente, feels just as hard as it does ethereal.

FUN!

ready for some fun? this future funk album by Malaysian producer C3REAL NG, also known as RR-X, is rooted squarely in city pop, R&B, and the future funk that came before it, bringing a fresh perspective to the most classic iteration of the genre. but perhaps i’m biased because the album plunders from and deconstructs one of my favorite city pop tracks.

niche web communities

this is an unusual disclaimer for something i feature here, but i do not recommend visiting the site i am about to discuss due to the 40 content warnings it warrants and its lack of moderation (there is a chatbox filled with very blunt hate speech, which might be genuine or might just be bad edgelord jokes—either way you might want to steer clear).

i came across yishu131.neocities.org while refreshing and exploring the random option on the Neocities browse page. what intrigued me was not the purpose of the site, which is just edgelord content, if we’re being real—it’s nothing different than what you might find on /b/. but after digging a little, i found a links page featuring a list of image board and text board URLs, some familiar like /x/ and /b/, but others apparently niche though active. if you’re online in any degree, you probably know there are a million chan sites, those that mimic the format of 4chan, which in turn was inspired by 2channel and Futaba Channel, but the proliferation of them can be astounding, even when only partially laid out.

i’m covering it here because it serves to remind us just how far down the surface net actually goes. people always love to harp on the mystery of the deep web, but there is a myriad of active communities right out in the open, kept underground by the power of culture.

these days, people love to blow up IRL spaces, with TikTok users decrying the evils of gatekeeping while they guarantee that your favorite restaurant, bar, or hangout spot rockets from comfortably active to the most exclusive establishment in all of New York, or even worse, a community space gets infiltrated by hostile outsiders who don’t care about the culture of world they’ve shoved themselves into—maybe i am sensitive to this point because i have watched so many queer spaces get diluted by straight and cisgender people, but sometimes a little gatekeeping is a good thing, in my opinion. influencers love to turn cool physical locations into trash, but the web is proof that corners you can only access by being in the right place at the right time still exist.

similarly, but on a completely opposite end of the internet spectrum, i discovered Leobucks (more often written as bucks or ‘Bucks, due to its proliferation) because a DeviantArt page dedicated to the project got pooled into an otherwise unrelated list of search engine results. it’s a closed species universe (a concept within the furry fandom1) with extensive lore, and where bucks, the collectible creatures, can be bred, adopted, and sold. bucks have subspecies and character classes, and community members can either buy bucks that have been bred in-universe, or they can buy make your own (myo) packages. there is an index here of every buck in existence that is updated regularly.

the concept of a closed species is new to me since i don’t spend time in the furry fandom, but learning about it was fascinating. bucks can be bought, sold, and traded, with some going for as low as $20 and others hitting the $200 mark, and other deals including combinations of cash and trades exist—there is that classic Tumblr post about how furry artists make more than doctors, after all.

these are essentially digital collectibles, and when I think of digital collectibles, my brain immediately goes to NFTs. but bucks are not blockchain-based, and perhaps blockchain would never be suited for this type of collectible, as the number of potential bucks within the closed species is theoretically infinite. using websites like Toyhouse or even just the Bucks Bunker website, community members can store and transfer their characters. the system of creating bucks is complex and involved, and requires approval to be official in the community.

the Discord server is home to maybe around 200 users, making bucks pretty small and insular, but like the niche chans, it’s designed that way.

engorged

available to play in browser on itch.io, Engorged is a delightfully grotesque game by Far Away Times, aka John Thyer. an entry for this year’s Slime Wave Game Jam by Vextro, you play as a slime whose only objective is to grow by devouring everything around you.

void dive

windowlicker by elbi

Hyper COMmune by Mazin

Composition 01 by klaus

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

𝘝​𝘪​𝘳​𝘵​𝘶​𝘢​𝘭 𝘓​𝘶​𝘹​𝘶​𝘳​𝘺 𝘊​𝘢​𝘴​𝘵​𝘢​𝘸​𝘢​𝘺​™

this week, we’re diving in with 𝘝​𝘪​𝘳​𝘵​𝘶​𝘢​𝘭 𝘓​𝘶​𝘹​𝘶​𝘳​𝘺 𝘊​𝘢​𝘴​𝘵​𝘢​𝘸​𝘢​𝘺​™ by Argentinian artist KEYZ, whose ambient take on utopian virtual will have you feeling like you’re on hold with the resort front desk during a luxury stay circa 1994. use their business center if you need to stay connected to the office, or escape the demands of corporate life while unwinding on the sand. don’t worry. when you get back, you’ll still make that deal. your bonus awaits.

Learn The Internet

are computer skills still taught in schools, or do curriculum writers just assume kids know how to use a desktop? when i worked at the Genius Bar and took appointments with teens, it often shocked me how little they understood about using a computer, but it makes sense if no one is teaching them—the assumption seems to be that if you know how to use a smart phone or a tablet, a computer is no problem, but i sometimes found myself teaching 16-year-olds how to type on a keyboard.

i even maybe grew up a little more computer literate than many of my peers—my dad worked in IT, and we had a desktop by at least 1995,1 though i think earlier—but overall, you really hit the sweet spot when it came to technology education if you were born in the early 90s, and it wasn’t just at school. you could go to a public library and take out a how to internet VHS, or buy a program on floppy disk or CD-ROM to teach you. there is something aesthetically specific about that era, not just the tail end of the influence of Memphis, but the transition towards fonts, styles, and patterns influenced by the look of the net and emerging music spaces like grunge and the rave scene.

on this 27-track album, FOTOshoppeツ guides the listener on a learning journey set in the early era of the web, evoking a slurry of recollections that may or may not even be yours, reminding you of the simplicity and nuance of a different time, tapping in to what vaporwave was before a focus on aesthetics caused the scene to change. it is inherently a genre of memory, and Learn The Internet is memory incarnate.

ΔQV​Δ​M​Δ​LL

i’ve been hitting dead mall videos hard lately,2 and this self-title album by ΔQV​Δ​M​Δ​LL, out on the mallsoft exclusive net label deadmalls, captures a different type of spacial experience than most mallsoft releases—if you’ve been paying attention to the development of the liminalcore aesthetic online over the last several years, you probably see the connections between dead malls, the backrooms, and empty indoor pools and waterparks. there is something maybe even a little post-seapunk about it, or at least adjacent to the Secret Aquarium level in Super Mario 64, which has multiple threads about it on r/LiminalSpace. liminal spaces fascinate us because they make us feel simultaneously uneasy and at peace, and when the effect of memory is also added, it ramps up the sensation.

pre​​​-​​​love

TV2 has released a couple albums under the carpet dust alias with the collective Evening Disclosure, the last one being 2020’s junk. carpet dust is a signalwave project, though TV2 has invented a microgenre within the microgenre to describe the music’s tone: daylight lo-fi. it is conceptually the same as late night lo-fi, but instead of embodying the melancholy of solitude while watching infomercials at 3am alone, daylight lo-fi has a cousin in mallsoft and other retailwave movements; this aloneness is the aloneness of browsing the racks at a thrift store in the middle of the day because you have nothing else to do, or sitting on a park bench by yourself with a coffee that you’re waiting on to cool down. it’s the feeling of being entirely on your own but also surrounded by people in public. i can’t tell if i think it is an expression of loneliness or contentment in the solitary—in many ways these types of moments wash over you without any feeling at all except the feeling of presence. but maybe, that’s the point.

Lake Hiraeth

borrowing from vaportrap and even a little drum and bass, Ghostmemory’s latest, out on business casual, is a slushwave-inspired take on future funk, slower and more fluid than choppy, sparkly and sludgy all at once. ultimately, the album builds a sense of utopian virtual ambiance—it’s Lisa Frank dolphins leaping out of the too-blue water and soaring in a perfect arc over the Frutiger-Mart at the virtual plaza as perfect low-poly waves lap against the sand in the distance.

video essays

the talk of the net right now is the hbomberguy video (you know the one), and the related takedown of James Somerton by Todd in the Shadows. and while i see nothing wrong with addressing blatant plagiarism and the spread of misinformation in online creative spaces, i’ve also become so bored with breadtube—everyone is more interested in community meta and drama commentary these days. i really tried to get through the hbomberguy video, i swear.3 the fact of the matter is that it put me to sleep.

here are some recent uploads that have nothing to do with the hbomberguy video in case you need a palette cleanser, too:

STRANGE ÆONS released a sequel to her BitofEarth video, and even if, like me, you already know the saga of cult leader and menace to the internet Andrew Blake, both installments are well-worth a watch:

this video by Lily Alexandre is a touching and at times personal exploration of transition and expectation that also introduced me to the excellent webcomic what happens next by Max Graves:

and if you’re feeling like something a little lighter, Lextorias breaks down the dilution of the tsundere trope in anime and how it reflects a shift away from narrative fiction and towards vibes alone:

void dive

Crossing Zone by lezzzgo

FraxiaZX75464 by mandybrigwell

Dust to Dust by Somfay

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please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

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Memphis EP

when we think vaporwave, we think the 80s and early 90s, but when you get down to it, disco’s always had its fingerprints all over genre. Crystal 95 has only been publishing music since earlier this year, and i can’t help thinking of MIDNIGHT LOVE, the classic VECTOR GRAPHICS album when listening to Memphis. hitting the space between vapor funk and total future funk, reflective of popular vaporscapes circa 2013, this disco-inspired release isn’t afraid to show its roots, and as the visual and sonic aesthetics of the 70s have been swinging back around for at least a couple of years, i’d expect to see this style become more prominent again as well.

ロ​ス​ト​チ​ャ​ン​ネ​ル​：​幽​☆​遊​☆​白​書

if you like ambient noise and experimental broken transmission, you might like this release by L O S T C H A N N E L T R A N S M I S S I O N S. containing two soundscapes, each clocking in at about 22 minutes, the music plunders dialogue from YuYu Hakusho and interprets the narrative of Yusuke Urameshi’s spiritual journey. to appreciate ロ​ス​ト​チ​ャ​ン​ネ​ル​：​幽​☆​遊​☆​白​書, you need to be a very active listener (and maybe a YuYu Hakusho fan), but if you’re willing to put in the work, it’s very worth it.

Themes For a Dying Mall

i missed the September 30th release of this album by Digital Bullet, but i’m glad to double back and listen. when most people consider mallsoft, their minds conjure a sound that is vaguely ambient, floating delicately in the background of the listener’s consciousness, maybe incorporating Muzak or what we’ve collectively come to call grocery store music. it’s rarely associated with high-energy vaporsynth or future funk, but on Themes For a Dying Mall, that’s exactly what we get.

i always think about malls this time of year; the celebrations of consumerism that spans the period between Black Friday and the new year triggers my sense of nostalgia like nothing else. remember being bundled up in a jacket and boots, stumbling after your adult family members from store to store and checking off items on the gift-giving list? dodging all the people packed in the hallways, hearing the chatter and footsteps of hundreds of mall-goers echoing off the floors and walls and ceilings? maybe if you were lucky, someone would buy you a soft pretzel or something.

all the activity on this album that actually feels fitting when it comes to dead malls, because there is a great deal of activity around them, too. malls just needed to nearly disappear for people to start paying attention again.

The sunset turns into stars

icy cool breakcore with some sextrance influence slipped in for good measure, this slick album by KittyK4tz is simultaneously ridden with anxiety in a way that feels cathartic. like a lot of internet breakcore, it plunders sonically from anime, but the choppiness of the samples is fresh and welcome.

Https​:​/​/​www​.​souljahsoulz​.​net​.​.​.​.

collaborating on this album with the likes of Goreshit, TOKYOPILL, and purity://filter, Souljahsoulz presents a breakcore voyage deeply rooted in the aesthetics and culture of the chronically online. ambient in some places, straight up gabber in others, this album hits hard and soft, and it’s a journey for anyone who spent their middle school years on image boards and old YouTube.

CORRUPTED ANGEL FILES

this bright cybercore jungle by j1nabae will help you ascend to glitch heaven. hard at times, but still angelic, these tracks are floaty and with just enough substance.

old YouTube, lost

when we think old Youtube, we tend to think viral one hit wonders: Miss Teen USA 2007, David After Dentist, Grape Lady Falls, and a whole catalogue of similar content. on the flip side, there were videos that traveled from New Grounds, B3ta, or Albino Black Sheep to Youtube like Badgers and The Ultimate Showdown. what we don’t often think about? the first wave of YouTubers.

considering that these creators largely built the formats that laid the foundation for how people use video platforms today, it’s odd that they’re so deeply removed from the cultural consciousness now. Some of these early creators, like Daxflame, are largely beloved and still have followings to this day, while others, like Shane Dawson, hold massive platforms, but aren’t well liked in the community.

recently, i was reminiscing about a great and largely forgotten failure of early YouTube, which featured some of the platform’s most prominent creators of the time. TheStation was a collaborative channel between LisaNova, Shay Carl,1 KassemG, Dave Days, Shane Dawson, thebdonski, WhatADayDerek, Philip DeFranco, and hiimrawn. in September 2009, Mashable reported TheStation was the second most watched channel on Youtube for the month, right behind the juggernaut that was Fred and before the ever-enduring SMOSH. but TheStation burned out faster than a toxic situationship between two Bushwick DJs. this is what happened to it from the outside:

• TheStation was founded by LisaNova and Danny Zappin in 2009, and the collaborators produced sketches together while still maintaining their own YouTube channels—these sketches were hit or miss, in my opinion.2

• Shane Dawson left TheStation shortly after its inception, and the news was a big deal in the YouTube community.

• TheStation halted uploading, but returned later in 2009, or perhaps early 2010.

• also in 2009 LisaNova, KassemG, Shay Carl, hiimrawn, thebdonski, Danny Zappin, and Philip DeFranco founded Maker Studios, which became one of the most influential multi-channel YouTube networks on the platform.

• TheStation became a product of Maker Studios. most members of the original lineup stopped appearing on-camera entirely around 2011, and even before had taken diminished on screen roles. the channel was used to launch multiple on-going series, starting with the sketch show Nacho Punch, which featured some original TheStation creators, like KassemG and hiimrawn, in its videos.

• Maker Studios was sold to Disney in 2014 for about $500 million. it became Disney Digital Network, which is now defunct.3

• other channels, like BlackBoxTV and Take180, emerged from TheStation’s ashes.

it’s difficult uncovering more information about TheStation these days. the channel wasn’t particularly well-documented, as internet media wasn’t taken seriously by mainstream outlets in 2009. searching “what happened to TheStation?” mostly yields unrelated results. this is one of the few pieces of media coverage i could find about the channel’s inception, and it links back to this article, which can only be accessed via the Wayback Machine.

the YouTube channel still exists, but it hasn’t been active in six years. it’s been wiped clean of almost all content uploaded by the original creators, save for the channel teaser4 and a few sketches, though TheStation2, which was used to upload vlogs and behind the scenes footage, seems entirely untouched. there are definitely some reuploads floating around online, but plenty more of the missing videos are presently lost media.5

several of the YouTubers from TheStation’s original lineup have similarly sanitized their digital footprints—i could have sworn LisaNova’s channel used to have double the uploads it does now, and hiimrawn has deleted his channel entirely, alongside most of his social accounts, it seems. but that could also have something to do with the other thing that was happening alongside the rise and fall of TheStation: Internet personalities were getting noticed by the traditional media industry. LisaNova, for example, has largely abandoned her online life—even then, she had a stint on Mad TV to focus on prior to TheStation, and her crossover success, though short-lived, was notable enough to get her profiled in The New York Times.6

back then, the goals of a YouTuber were much different. now, people want to build followings online, and traditional media celebrity is slowly but surely becoming less desirable. you can make a good living online. but in the earlier days of the platform, (many) popular YouTubers wanted to break into television and movies. i remember Shane Dawson saying it all the time: i want my own tv show.

so what happened to all the deleted videos? i can only speculate. it could be the creators just wanted to leave that period behind. a lot of the sketches included elements that were definitely offensive then, but wouldn’t fly at all now, and those who had aspirations beyond YouTube maybe thought twice about leaving them up for anyone to see. maybe there were even some contractual issues that required them to take videos down.

there is another possibility: that perhaps, the videos haven’t been deleted, but are unlisted or private. the unlisted feature was introduced in 2010, after all, and all unlisted videos uploaded before 2017 were automatically made private by YouTube, unless the uploader has since manually changed the privacy settings. these videos could live just under all of our noses, and no one would know.

if you’re an online creator, you owe some of your success to early YouTubers like these, for better or worse. regardless of the quality and content of their uploads, the videos have historic significance in the grand scheme of the web. these were the first people to prove that you could build a career online.

in recent years, YouTubers who transitioned to traditional media haven’t faired very well. Lilly Singh’s NBC late night show flopped, Colleen Ballinger’s Netflix comedy was panned by critics for being unfunny and offensive—even as far back as 2015, when Vine was at its peak, YouTubers were struggling to make it IRL. Grace Helbig, considered a darling of the platform for years, was given a television show that lasted only 8 episodes before cancellation, and a year later Hannah Hart’s Food Network series met a similar fate.

somewhere along the line, maybe just before Vine stars started migrating to YouTube in 2017, people decided that chasing tv and movies wasn’t worth it: online media had developed its own tone, style, and even a distinct visual language by that point. and now, as streaming services are desperately trying to reinvent cable, and as movie studios are pumping out remake after remake, hoping nostalgia bait will be enough to drag people to the box office, we understand that online media was the future all along.

VOID DIVE

lens flare by silvasantuz

Love you dad by ashish

Commute by Quantum Communications

welcome to the 50th edition of satellite cult! i began working on this newsletter in October 2022 as a way to force myself not only to write, but to interact with the art and media that i love. what started as a necessary personal escape from apathy and doomerism has grown into a hub for underground web music, art, and culture. i know my readership is smaller in comparison to publications on the Substack leaderboards, but around this time last year, my subscriber base was composed of 13 friends and acquaintances. not only has the number of satcult readers increased exponentially, but now, most of you are people i’ve never met—i’m incredibly grateful for your presence and support.

satcult future

the time i’ve spent thinking about this newsletter’s future is comparable to the time i’ve spent thinking about 80s anime OVA openings and internet cults (a lot). i’ve tossed around the idea of expanding beyond the weekly dispatch into the realms of written commentary, interviews, digital culture journalism, guest contributors, YouTube, Twitch, or a podcast, though i’ve also questioned my ability to deliver on these projects as a one person operation who needs to work a regular job and has friends, a partner, and other hobbies and interests.

no matter what satcult’s next step ends up being, i feel like it needs a refresh. over the next few months, you might see me experiment a little, and when i do, i want your feedback. if you comment on posts or contact me here, i’ll listen. but in the meantime, i promise: satcult prime isn’t going anywhere.

satcult revisited

in this edition, i'm revisiting NOISE and VISUALS from some of this newsletter’s earliest installments. looking back, it took a while for satcult to find its voice, and while those initial efforts now feel a little rough around the edges, i’m still proud of them. to account for the longer content of this edition, there won’t be a VOID DIVE this week, but you can always take a look at the void plaza gallery until next time. welcome to this week’s satellite cult dispatch. i’m so glad you’re here.

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

self_titled​(​full_hz)

(originally featured in satcult 1.1)

when i first featured this album by 3xit w0und, it had a different title: hole.zip. it’s since been deleted, renamed (remastered?), and re-uploaded as self_titled(full_hz). this breakcore, digicore, cloud rap inspired mix still evokes too-late nights with no light but the soft glow of your computer screen and that exciting, tingling uncertainty of a rabbit hole that only goes deeper and deeper, where you never know what’s behind the next link.

678924

(originally featured in satcult 2.2)

in satcult 2.2, i discussed this album by c678924 within the larger context of the development of sextrance music. if you’ve been around here for a while, you’re likely cued in about sextrance. crunchy, pounding hexd hard trance with some vaporwave influences, it’s big on plunderphonics and builds itself on the aesthetics of the early aughts internet, nostalgic video games, memes, and animecore. this album struck me initially because of its cover, depicting a blurred edit of Osaka from the Azumanga Daioh PS1 game with a simple message: “fvck sxwxrslvt.” i went in then expecting something extraordinary, and i wasn’t disappointed.

now, the album feels more familiar after repeated listens, and since legions of DJs and producers in the underground scene have begun to imitate the sounds pioneered by the likes of c678924, purity://filter, vertigoaway, and the GZ999 crowd, but simultaneously this album strikes me as more meticulously crafted and more experimental each time i engage.

嘘​つ​き​Fantasia

(originally featured in satcult 3.3)

future funk has a complex relationship to the web music scene. in many ways, it’s the least rooted in the net out of all these genres—yes, it’s subgenre of vaporwave, but it also incorporates the likes of traditionally danceable music like French house, nu disco, j-pop, and city pop. at its least interesting, future funk leans in almost entirely to these more palatable genres, without anything distinct to differentiate it aside from slapping a bishōjo girl on an album cover. Eknoh neon pink’s 嘘つきFantasia tips a little in the opposite direction, still paying clear homage to dance music, but utilizing a production style that feels squarely vapor. the chopping is frequent and rhythmically excellent, ensuring you’re entranced but still keeping you alert and ready for whatever comes next.

ｌ​ｏ​ｎ​ｅ​ｌ​ｉ​ｎ​ｅ​ｓ​ｓ ｄ​ｅ​ａ​ｔ​ｈ

(originally featured in satcult 3.3)

easily one of the most iconic plunderphonics albums of 2022, my jaw hit the floor when i learned that non-binary love was a teenager. i shouldn’t be shocked—the web music scene is full of people who are 10 to 15 years younger than me and had nothing to do except make music on their computers for the entirely of COVID lockdown, but something about the emotions this release coaxes out of me feels so much more mature.

listening to ｌ​ｏ​ｎ​ｅ​ｌ​ｉ​ｎ​ｅ​ｓ​ｓ ｄ​ｅ​ａ​ｔ​ｈ for the first time felt as revelatory as the first time i listened to Floral Shoppe. the whole album blends eccojams, barber beats, future funk, and breakcore, and utilizes the most subtle bitcrushing, just enough that we can call it hexd. everything is haunting and melancholic, buried the the sounds of anime and the web. the first track, “私を分かってますか？☹,” is its best known, using Bôa’s “Duvet,” the title song of Serial Experiments Lain, as a foundation. it is distant, and only a little dreamlike—mostly, it’s disassociation incarnate.

Moonlight Arcade Delight

(originally featured in satcult 5.5)

i typically only feature web music, which is a separate entity from music distributed through the web. but after noticing the revival of a 90s alternative-inspired local indie scene, and on the heels of Louise Post dropping previously unreleased demos on Bandcamp, i devoted satcult 5.5 to exploring a renewed interest in the sounds of that era. while y2k revival is on its way out now, (jarringly) in favor of the 2010s, a year ago the online aesthetic space was still saturated with it. when i came across this album by Jess Roveda, it felt like a breath of fresh air.

building upon the likes of Hole and Liz Phair, Roveda recorded this record in her bedroom. in recent years, we’ve developed the label bedroom pop, but those musicians rarely feel partially DIY to me. they’re too polished, perhaps, like they’re striving for perfection instead of expression in some cases. don’t get me wrong—there is a lot of bedroom pop i like. but it doesn’t have the same kick as something like Moonlight Arcade Delight.

trends in art are reactionary and therefore cyclical. EDM has reined supreme for years at this point; it’s only a matter of time before the pendulum swings back towards bands, and i think it may already be happening.

Evil pacman stole my fucking warpedwater damaged maractus card

(originally featured in satcult 7.7)

what can i say about Evil pacman stole my fucking warpedwater damaged maractus card? meme music is a gift, and this concept EP with a hyper-specific narrative is hexd, synth, plunderphonics, and drone all rolled into one.

meme music and shitpost music likely have their roots in for the lolz internet communities—sometimes i think of it as 4chancore, or adjacent to neetcore. while i understand it isn’t for everyone, there is something about the layers of sheer absurdity and awareness that i appreciate in the underground’s tendency to take tone less seriously than musicians working in other spaces. the idea that rather than making a joke with your music, your music is the joke can coexist with genuine exploration and experimentation, which feels optimistic to me.

GENESIS GRAPHICS

(originally featured in satcult 12.12)

when people declared vaporwave dead 10 years ago, it was because the genre had been diluted by aesthetic photosets on Tumblr and Instagram accounts riddled with ads for Solo Jazz patterned t-shirts. it was also after the microgenre had splintered into even smaller microgenres. a lot of them. everything felt messy, and the original and nuanced spirt of vaporwave had long since evaporated. the first wave of musicians had mostly moved on, some following different creative paths and some ceasing to make music altogether. eccojams felt like a relic of the past, even as pop music of the time embraced some of the classic hallmarks of vaporwave.

the genre of course still lived, but it sounded different. as most things do, it evolved. ironically, a genre built partially on the complex and sometimes contradictory emotions evoked by nostalgia itself prompted nostalgia for the old days of vapor.

enter: CD.

this classic vapor masterpiece has a touch of utopian virtual and a touch of eccojams to it. it feels epic from beginning to end, blasts the listener with a sense of wonder that a piece of vaporwave music has not provoked from me in a very long time. this is still the real deal. this is GENESIS GRAPHICS.

archive dive

it’s not always at the forefront of my mind, but i’ve spent most of my life at the fringes of anime and manga fandom, a direct result of a childhood and adolescence on the web. old fansites, forums, and even Usenet groups are my web history grails, and back in satcult 4.4, i discussed the history of anime and manga fandom in the west and how it relates to the net. but of course, online isn’t the only place where these communities thrived; IRL conventions, clubs, and meetups have remained essential, and historically these organizations, or their members, produced fanzines, which can be seen as precursors to the fansites that used to dot the web. two weeks ago, in satcult 48.48, i explored some old anime and manga fansites, but this week, thanks to the Internet Archive, i’m taking a look at some anime and manga fanzines from the late 80s and early 90s.

The Rose was the newsletter of Anime Hasshin, a Rhode Island-based anime club that was once one of the largest national clubs in the US, according to this and this. the zine included reviews, episode synopses, news, and fan illustrations. this issue was published in 1990.

Anime Illustrated, published by West Coast Anime, features news and reviews, but also fan fiction and fan comics.

the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization is one of the longest running and currently active clubs in the US devoted to manga and anime, and has a storied history—at one point it had affiliated chapters across the country, but internal politics reduced it to a single chapter in LA. it’s also notable because former members of the club branched out in the 70s and 80s to become founders of the furry fandom, for better or worse. here is an edition of C/FO’s bulletin zine from 1987.

thank you for joining me. until next time.

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs. forgive the way Substack formats some embedded media from Bandcamp.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

cRASH 1

Vektroid is perhaps one of the best known and most important figures in the landscape of post-internet music, and while casual vaporwave listeners still recognize her primarily from the groundbreaking and genre-defining 2009 Macintosh Plus album FLORAL SHOPPE, her work is much more expansive and, drilling into the current decade, has become increasingly experimental, building upon broken transmission and incorporating glitch and noise. on cRASH 1, she comes to ride wave after wave of perfect technical chaos and accuracy in this atonal musique concrete masterpiece.

astrid star's insect​.​christmas 1

this industrial post-vaporwave EP by insect.christmas is sludgy, crunchy, and hexd, drawing from eccojams and utopian virtual as much as from drum and bass. it’s dark, but not overbearingly so, with subtle lines of optimism present throughout.

ｔ​​​ｇ​​​１​​​　​​​ｓ​​​ｐ​​​ｏ​​​ｒ​​​ｔ

out on Michigan-based net label Shatterfoil Industries, this signalwave album by T e l e + 1 tackles the ultra-specific aesthetics of 80s sports broadcasting, producing warm, crackling synths and while still maintaining a pulsing energy.

​̩​͙​*​+​. ̊☽ 𝖓​𝖎​𝖌​𝖍​𝖙​𝖒​𝖆​𝖗​𝖊 ☾ ̊​.​+​*​·​̩​͙

this three track EP by Yakumo rides the line between sextrance and hard trance, building the genuine sensation of sprinting through a nightmarish landscape as a demonic figure from the depths of your subconsciousness tails you in close pursuit.

Fantasy Is Necessary

this atmospheric drum and bass from LA-based producer Blessu is dripping with psychedelic laincore vibes despite it only being a two track single.

ghost

according to ASTROPHYSICS, ghost is “a ballad for fallen angels.” featuring all the hallmarks of depressive breakcore, its distorted and otherworldly vocals, dipped in layer after layer of autotune and buried beneath the clarity of a synth, feels reminiscent of the indie music popular during my high school years and post-punk all at once.

ancient memes

back in August, Gary Brolsma, better known online as the Numa Numa Guy, posted an update to his ubiquitous lip-sync (originally uploaded to New Grounds in 2004) that began blowing up on TikTok this past week.

the comments across the board are gold: “just when we needed him, he returned,” “we got new Numa Numa and new Beatles before we got universal healthcare/GTA 6/new Elder Scrolls,” “240p numa numa hit different.” i still think about Numa Numa pretty regularly,1 and this got me considering other ancient memes and their lasting impact on culture.

in 1976, Richard Dawkins first described memes in The Selfish Gene, though he meant something very different than we do when we talk about internet phenomenon. a question has plagued the chronically online for years: what is the first meme? some people suggest it’s 1995’s dancing baby, minus “Hooked on a Feeling,” which was added when the animation appeared on Ally McBeal later in the decade. others say that emoticons were actually the first memes, though many digital historians dispute those claims, as they feel that emoticons do not meet meme criteria. some have suggested that the first modern internet meme (a personal favorite of mine) is “all your base are belong to us,” referring to an inaccurate English translation of the 1989 arcade game Zero Wing.

all your base are belong to us

the “all your base” translation specifically appeared in the opening cutscene of the game’s 1991 European port for the Sega Mega Drive. some sources suggest that in 1999 and 2000, the meme began making its rounds in video game forums, but by 2001 a version featuring a gabber track found its way to Something Awful. AYBABTU became a defining artifact of a particular era of the web, a time when the internet began transforming from a niche space to a definitive component of each and every person’s life. and unlike today, where true memes are insular and hyper-specific, and the traditional representations of memes have largely been replaced by trends, the staying power of a meme lasted for years. and this meme has traversed time, communities, and spaces, reaching ultimate cultural saturation without ever feeling irrelevant or obsolete. as recently as 2019, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted this:

there is conversation to be had about whether or not it’s cringe af for a politician of all people to meme on serious matters of state, especially with a meme as ancient as AYBABTU. but i think this instance serves more as a reminder that the internet and its culture has forever altered the course of history. as millennials,2 the first generation to truly and fully be immersed in the culture of the web, grow older, we should expect to see the internet bleed more and more into spaces where it previously would have been unthinkable to see.

leek spin

in the second episode of Bleach, Orihime briefly spins green onions like a baton while describing her grocery haul, prompting Ichigo to ask, “What the hell is she trying to make?”

the green onion spin (which otherwise became known as leek spin) was ripped the episode, looped, and set to "Ievan Polkka" by the Finnish group Loituma, by a LiveJournal user named g_r_e_e_n in 2006. soon, if an anime girl existed, she was doing a leek spin. there used to be a website, leekspin.com, accessible now through the Wayback Machine. it is, of course, a parody of the NSFW shock site Meat Spin, which was commonly loaded on many of the public facing computers at my college as a joke.

advice animals

you probably never wanted to see these again. sorry not sorry! in 2006, Evan Harrington posted an image to the Mushroom Kingdom forums3 depicting a rainbow wheel background and his grinning dog in the middle. this became an early and influential bottom text meme4 called Advice Dog, featuring a dog who gives bad advice. the meme spread from Mushroom Kingdom to YTMND, and then to the rest of the internet.

Advice Dog inspired similar characters: Philosoraptor, Socially Awkward Penguin, Hipster Kitty. Eventually, the format moved away from animals and towards people giving us the likes of Scumbag Steve, Bad Luck Brian, and Ermahgerd. Advice Animals had a long life online, only falling out of fashion when the internet became so saturated with them that most of us never wanted to see one again. part of the prolific nature of these memes came from sites like Meme Generator and Imgflip, which provided templates where users only needed to insert their text—they were infinitely reproducible.

void dive

Self-Destructed by Jac Disclosure

L E M O N S by INA VARE

cube_test v4 by lxtxcx

thank you for joining me. until next time.

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

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Ｍ​Ｅ​Ｔ​Ｅ​Ｏ​Ｓ​Ａ​Ｔ

when people talk about warmth, they talk about the sound of vinyl or the grain of film. rarely do they include VHS. video has long been chased by the opposite reputation—cold, clinical even. think of news broadcasting, where no particular attention is paid to cinematography, or the low-budget instructional videos that were largely shot and released on VHS throughout the 80s and 90s. the six episodes of The Twilight Zone that were shot on video, then a fairly new format, are largely considered the worst looking of the series. but time has lent a warmth to analog video, as captured perfectly in this climatewave album by International Telecom, which has more substance to it than your typical Weather Channel late night lo-fi.

STAR VIRGIN (THE REMIXES)

just like the title says: these remixes of サクラSAKURA-LEE’s beloved STAR VIRGIN tracks are tight, pulsing examples anime house and future funk royalty.

EGO DEATH

it’s not enough for new music to just be scene—the subculture is perhaps too associated with millennials and MySpace for any take on it to feel fresh—scene didn’t have the legacy that its counterpart emo had, after all. while emo had simply changed with time, perhaps the closest thing scene had to a predecessor was mall goth (it’s also arguable that scene played a role in birthing the pastel goth aesthetic that became popular on Tumblr in the mid-2010s, around the same time soft grunge also blew up on the site). scene was never really a genre of its own. lately, i’ve noticed the proliferation of the tag scenecore on albums like this sophomore effort by ethosss.

while many of its elements seem inspired by crunkcore acts like Blood on the Dance Floor and Dot Dot Curve, even clearer are influences like the bitcrushed trap emblematic of hexd (a tag that doesn’t appear on the album) and aesthetic connections to digicore, chiptune, hyperpop, and nightcore. some tracks, like “goth girl get down,” even drop future funk into the mix. if you want to check it out, there’s a listening party on November 3rd at 3pm EDT.

GREAPER

released for Halloween, this short breakcore EP by Latvia-based Poltergeist pays homage to your favorite Nintendo ghouls.

chiyo chans adventure in music

i have mixed feelings about the use of the term lolicore,1 and I guess maybe N0where G1rl does, too—the word doesn’t appear anywhere on the album’s Bandcamp page despite it leaning into the genre’s aesthetic tendencies. instead, the producer opts for breakcore, mashcore, speedcore, and experimental, which are also accurate, but don’t quite capture the depressingly online, NEETcore vibes music of this kind expresses; sometimes it’s hard to tell if releases like this are put out by trans femme anarchists or /r9k/ regulars. Azumanga Daioh2 has long been one of the few things that unite Something Awful goons, 4chan degens, and Tumblr anime girlies,3 and it’s a staple of the aesthetics of shitposting. overall, chiyo chans adventure in music is a shitpost album, but a thoughtful one, choppy and complex in ways that feel dark and immediate.

bootleg tape vol​.​2

new from beansclub, this sextrance-dariacore-nightcore bootleg tape will mesmerize you as its icy, pounding beats bring optimism to tragedy.

Games For Gaza

this bundle on itch.io hosted by Esther Wallace includes work from 140 creators and raises funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians. it’s only $10, but you can donate more if you want.

dead sites

speaking of Azumanga Daioh, one of its most popular fansites was called Wonderland, and though it’s well remembered in the fandom, the site has been offline for years. Here is how it appeared on December 30, 2007. there’s a contact page for the webmaster, listing only an email with a dead domain.

created in 1999 and last updated in 2011, Jonny's Website has information about the Amiga, web development, game tips, and some links to websites the author likes, including a now-defunct GameSpy site. digging through the HTML also reveals a hidden link to the textiles.com UFO archive.

last updated (probably) in 2014, Animetion was a popular UK-hosted anime site that published news, reviews, episode guides, convention updates, cosplay, and community links. its news archive goes back to 2004, and it has that charming DIY feel similar sites of the era exuded before the lucky ones (or maybe not so lucky) got pumped with venture capital.

void dive

SEHR BREITE REIFEN by connectedoom

BULL UP XTZ😈 by KazuhiroAihara

soapy_suds by sean_luke

thank you for joining me. until next time.

please be aware that the void dive section below contains flashing gifs.

you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, satcult merch here, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.

i write and research satellite cult each week because i love it, and it’s important to me that it remains free to read and subscribe. but if you want to give altar offerings for the time and labor i invest, you can support me on Ko-fi.

if you enjoy what you find here, like, share, and consider subscribing to satellite cult.

Subscribe now

ascending 2 worlds​.​com

weirdcore aesthetes online have long found themselves drawn to biblically accurate angels: sprawling winged beasts with no faces but hundred of eyes who have more visually in common with long Furbys than with the rosy-cheeked humanoids who populate Renaissance artwork. this album by Denver-based #xspiltmilk/::, which describes itself as arrhythmic dariacore and sits at the intersection of harsh noise and breakcore, has that quality, sometimes violently heavenly, sometimes submerged beneath a deep, dark all-engulfing sea.

that sinkingfeeling

according to k0wne’s Bandcamp recommendations, she reviewed Kero Kero Bonito’s Bonito Generation1 as, simply, “super yummy.” there is also something super yummy about that sinkingfeeling, though it satiates a very different craving. moving from soft ambient noise all the way to harsh depressive breakcore and experimental drum and bass, everything juxtaposed against a candy-colored otakucore coating, this album produces a push and pull between dread and release.

home invasion

yes, it is breakcore, drum and bass, jungle. the whole umbrella. but this album by kennedy somehow feels just as adjacent to both Modern Baseball and Passion Pit circa 2009. even the style of the album cover calls back to visual hallmarks of both midwestern emo and indie pop of the late 2000s an early 2010s—somehow aggressively Tumblr 2014, but also modern and updated. this is one of the most interesting breakcore releases i’ve heard recently—it’s absolutely eclectic.

tifucore

this energetic dariacore EP by tfwamirite plunders everywhere from SpongeBob to Yeah Yeah Yeahs and engages in a lethal dose of shitposting with track titles like “sampling where are you now at the same time as sampling REDDIT CORE SAMPLE PACK HARDSTYLE IN FORNITE 3D (joel remix).”

Under The Mushroom With You

may this classic late-night lofi by COOLSUN 涼日, released through B O G U S // COLLECTIVE, lull you into a sweet, comfortable cocoon of ecco and haze. don’t worry. things will work out (or at least that’s what i’m trying to tell myself, and this album is helping).

neocities features

3 imaginary boys is a Final Fantasy XIV fansite showcasing the webmaster’s characters, game resources, and a blog that was last updated in July of 2023.

YEAR 199X ☆ is a personal site by someone named Caela with a classic Geocities retro anime design. it was last updated two weeks ago.

Gaming World is a gaming website. really. i promise.

Frasier Fantasy

in this Game Boy Color odyssey (playable on desktop or in browser), you can absorb all the charms of the Frasier RPG you never knew you needed. a game by Edward La Barbera, Frasier Fantasy is the incredibly specific throwback you’re looking for.

void dive

SCENE BOX by flintpope

run 2 by silvasantuz

_shine by ex_mortal_

thank you for joining me. until next time.