satellite cult 57.57

everyone knows that, johnny mnemonic, queer web library

Feb 09, 2024

welcome to this week’s satellite cult dispatch. i’m so glad you’re here. i hope the artifacts i present you with will submerge you in a sensory deprivation tank in the middle of the mall where Bernie Sanders interviewed punks about anarchy and communism for public access TV in 1988.

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.

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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.

Elfwood homepage as captured by the Wayback Machine in 1999

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.

Shadowland homepage as captured by the Wayback Machine in 2005

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.

The Rogue Market homepage, as captured by the Wayback Machine in 2000.

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.