satellite cult 18.18

sleepyhexD, moms on the net, hate leaks, trans havens

Mar 10, 2023

welcome to this week’s satellite cult dispatch. i’m so glad you’re here. i hope the artifacts i present you with will trans your gender. i’m serious. everyone knows the web is for trans people.

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 Bandcamp embeds.

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sleepyhexD

the self-titled EP by sleepyhexD begins with chiptune reminiscent of old dungeon crawlers, descending further and further into layered, noisy atonality with each second. breakbeat, nightcore, and post-vaporwave influences round out this release on internet label Net Positive Records. and of course, it’s hexd.

if you buy the digital album on Bandcamp, you also get access to a digital art gallery consisting of aesthetic edits—a fun touch.

un4bl3

un4bl3 by 99% packs big vibes for its length—this signalwave EP consists of five tracks, running about four minutes in total. it delivers some hexd vaporfunk, plundering from existing vaporwave and futurefunk releases. for me, it evokes channel surfing on a cozy evening while you wait for Toonami to come on, maybe under a blanket with your Game Boy at your side.

ＭａｌｌＳｔａｔｉｏｎドずむ 𝟐𝟖𝟓𝟐

slushy mallsoft by 2852 temptation, released on the Tulsa-based web label 𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕜𝕖𝕃𝕒𝕓𝕤金欠ラボ, ＭａｌｌＳｔａｔｉｏｎドずむ 𝟐𝟖𝟓𝟐 is a backrooms utopia (or perhaps a mid-century utopia that never was, as described on the Bandcamp page). this album places you squarely in 1990, in the mall’s public bathroom at 7 AM. you’re washing your hands before your opening shift at Orange Julius, catching the distant, far off sounds of the mall Muzak as you prepare for a long Saturday. you still haven’t shaken the hazy sleep from your brain, and the three cups of coffee and two cigarettes you’ve already had have only made you hazier.

Misc. Software

Misc. Software by Mom and Dad’s Computer feels like an odyssey through scrapped Windows 95 startup sounds. it’s a concept album—your parents find a box of old software and ask if you want it. of course, the answer is yes.

SUNNY DAYS

as some of us are slowly emerging from our annual bouts of seasonal depression, SUNNY DAYS by Virtual Miami ラジオ, released on net label Vapor Scape Records, delivers some warm future funk and nu disco vibes that hit somewhere between Anri’s Timely!! and the best of Bananarama.

moms on the net!

a few weeks ago, i featured some instructional videos from the old days of the net, all geared towards helping new users adapt to personal computers and the World Wide Web. i didn’t highlight classics, like The Kid’s Guide to the Internet or the Matthew Perry/Jennifer Aniston Windows 95 guide—those have been memed to death. but this week, i came across one of the silliest how to internet type videos i’ve ever seen: Moms on the Net.

did you know that moms, too, are on the net? it’s news to me.

2600 pages of hate

freedom of information advocate and cool kid hacker maia arson crimew, best recognized by offliners as one of the figures behind the Verkada hack and, more recently, as the person who leaked the no-fly list, has now posted thousands of pages of emails sent among the “anti-trans expert witnesses, US right-wing lawmakers and conservative legal groups” who are responsible for orchestrating the current political attacks against transgender people in the United States.

the emails were sent between 2019 and 2021, and they’re the ones cited in this Mother Jones story. maia clarifies on her Neocities blog that she is not the source of the leak, but rather published the emails to ensure that established journalists weren’t the only people who had access to them.

the web has become a haven over the past few years for those who want to eradicate trans people from the public sphere,1 but it’s been a haven for trans people for even longer. over decades, from Usenet to Geocities to LiveJournal and beyond, many of us have turned to online spaces for community, support, and resources when we lacked them IRL. as legislation is pushed forward across the US in attempts to forcibly detransition trans adults, deny trans youth life-saving care, and criminalize the act of being trans or visibly gender non-conforming out in the world, more and more trans spaces may move from IRL to online.

if you’re trans and you need a sweet distraction for an hour or so, i recommend playing Secret Little Haven, a game by Victoria Dominowski, about a teen trans girl in 1999 who hasn’t figured herself out yet, but who finds solace on the web.

and if you’re cis, you are not powerless. they are ways you can show up trans people in your community, especially if you live somewhere like Tennessee or Florida. do your research.