Introduction
The term ‘brain rot’ has lost all meaning. Once used as a neologism for understanding niche online content, the term has recently been co-opted by Axel Weber watching, @trashcanpaul following Zillenials to describe their “broken humor” to fellow GW Political Science majors. It is true that thanks to the mass migration online during the first Covid-19 quarantine in early 2020, the average (gen-z) internet user is definitely more online (where ‘more online’ means both "more time online” and “more involved in online culture”) than they used to be, and the consequence of this is that countless would-be normies are experiencing their first interactions with ‘deep’(-er) content and experiencing the IRL self-othering that comes with continually niche-ing your online experience.
This process was aided by TikTok’s rise to the #1 spot among social media platforms. The app’s main draw, the now infamous ‘For You Page’, is the greatest brain-rotter on the internet. FYP uses a strikingly robust algorithm to push infinite targeted content to every user, and actively leads users farther and farther up their own asses by shrinking their specific content bubble with each interaction. The FYP will have you thinking your favorite artist is streaming 10x more than normal by flooding your feed with fellow fans using their music. The FYP will show you creators with 7 followers as often as creators with 700,000 followers as long as the content fits within your specific online content universe.
I’m not trying to gatekeep freak internet content here nor go CNN-moral-panic mode over the TikTok algorithm, I’m just explaining what I thought was the obvious: it always goes deeper.
That being said: I do legitimately believe my brain has rotted. In fact, the way my brain feels consuming content now feels post-rot. Like my brain has rotted, cocooned itself butterfly style and peeled off to reveal a new, sopping wet doughbrain that views content with fresh eyes. I’m at the rotpoint where the tension isn’t that some of my real-life friends don’t understand the new content I've been consuming, it’s that I myself do not understand it. I’ve found some clarity about this end-of-rot feeling through Soph’s IYKYK piece and some of the discussion around it. The post (and commentary from the Contain podcast(I think)) describes this feeling of experiencing and consuming content which the consumer finds beautiful or revolutionary but cannot describe - maybe the words to describe this content don’t even exist yet. Therefore, the only way to engage with it is “IYKYK”. Rather than learning an objects history or exploring its network, the best way to understand the effect of certain content is just to understand it. Obviously this requires experience with certain networks that not everyone can have access to, but that’s the point. Not everything needs to be discernable by everyone.
Honor Levy’s “shitposting is Godly” idea also feels relevant to this discussion. The idea (which I encountered on Wet Brain but could be an angelecism01 thing) is that maximal posting is near-spiritual: creating at a frantic level yields content which can get you close to a childlike freedom in imagination (it is like automatic writing). However, shitposting and hyper-referential posting can also lead to niching so heavily that increasingly fluid and indescribable (IYKYK) artworks are created. There may be a lengthy list of influences and references which explain the content, but you may forget the origins of some of those references and this creates that unexplainable quality inherent to post-rot content.
It is this intangibility which leads me to believe I have actually achieved the ‘brain rot’ alluded to by so many online. I cannot explain the beauty or context of much of my favorite new internet content effectively - like physically I can’t. I will look at them for long periods of time trying to describe them semi-intellectually but the words to not exist. It is literally definable only through IFYKYK.
Because of this, I’ve decided to start a log called ‘Digital Footprint’ which will act as a sort of journal of my favorite “IYKYK” content I find online as a means to share the stuff I find most interesting and keep a log for myself. We consume way to much information now (high school health class-type take but whatever) and I want to keep track of the obsessions and small communities I stumble across while online. Please enjoy:
Digital Footprint: The Fog is Coming
I. Do the Mason Noel Challenge
Before you keep reading you absolutely must go watch Mason’s TikTok videos, especially this one which I think radically rewired my brain chemistry the first time I watch it. Mason’s videos exist in this little subgenre that uses melancholy ambient/drone music over mostly unrelated esoteric video clips and/or memes. The best of these videos create an uncanny valley sensation by using the darker affect of the music to bring out the “truth” of the strangeness of the content (i.e. memes about alienation will feel more “real”/impactful in this context). A lot of creators are pretty good at this, but I think that Mason has perfected the uncanny vibe of these videos by using mostly beautiful videos in conjunction with audio and memes that emphasize their dystopian (sorry buzzword) qualities. That first clip from the aforementioned video - the one of the military jetpack test - is probably the best use of this format I’ve ever seen.
Aesthetically, it has an almost Drain Gang quality to it; the weather (which also makes the video look like it could’ve been shot against a green screen), the heavy presence of advanced (but analog/tangible) technology and of course the atmospheric drone music combine to create a futuristic vibe. Obviously, the following clips of an app called “Replika” offering an “AI Friend” has unsettling qualities that would be redundant to point out, and the clip of the birds on the water is a cliché but effective use of juxtaposition (enhanced by the fact that the weather in the shot of the birds makes us feel like it was shot on the same day as the jetpack clip).
In this video, Mason uses the same strategy (assorted esoteric clips and memes with drone music… or in this case the outro to a 5th wave emo song) but opens with a muted clip of Grimes (probably talking about communism or AI) with some crazy art behind her. Removing her from whatever she’s actually talking about and replacing it with the unsettling (longing) music is a crazy move - Grimes still seems ultra earnest about whatever she’s talking about but the video (through the music and immediately cutting to the AI friend app again) makes it feel futile and sad. The genius turn (imo) of this video in particular is the move to the Thanos meme , which in my mind reveals the truly interesting thing about these videos. This meme is extremely effective in the context of this video. To me, these videos feel otherworldly but not like “not of earth”. Instead, they feel non-geographical, like they cannot be traced to real-life space, only to internet space. Using this kind of existential meme without any context of comedy makes it feel very liminal and empty.
One could certainly apply the post-cringe/sincerity viewpoint to Mason’s work, suggesting that the melancholic effect is created by taking these existential memes extremely seriously and therefore injecting a sense of urgency to them, as if the poster is pleading that you “really read the meme, man”. I think this viewpoint is helpful, but incomplete. Instead, I’d like to invoke the spirituality/supernaturality I suggested in the introduction to describe the effect of these videos. I will not claim they are “religious” in any sense, but I do think that the ‘urgency’ and ‘melancholy’ I spoke about experiencing is closer to a spiritual reckoning: the feeling that the vibe is off, is depressive, is decaying. Why is there a sense of dread embedded in these videos? Why do so many relate to giving up on the future? It is because these videos are not punching at “technology” or “capitalism” or “TikTok” - they are exposing a loss of spirit. The jetpack is not hope, it is not progress, it is out in the middle of a nowhereocean lost in the fog. The fog that’s coming sooner rather than later. The progress of technology is so far removed from the average person that it may as well be magic - I can have nothing besides faith that these hardwares exist and are good, or that my Replika girlfriend can really listen to me. This is a deeply unsettling spiritual conundrum which creates a dissosiative reaction to viewing things we believe are “real” but will never witness in our lifetime. This creates a gnawing desire to see more, even when the practice of going deeper online is almost entirely unhelpful and damaging. On the other hand, this content is aesthetically stunning. I watch this video and I can’t help wonder: where is the boat and where can I see some of that crazy fog?
II. Luke Blovad, Spinal Tap and Evil Outfits
Switching gears a bit, my second recent obsession has been with skater-turned-tiktok-fashion-legend Luke Blovad, whose ridiculous and incredible outfits are blowing minds on TikTok. I remember seeing one of Luke’s early videos and being completely in awe of the way he pulls off outfits that look like they were sourced exclusively from random bootleg shops on Canal street. Being into the hyperpop scene, I’ve seen a lot of people do this similar looks to this before, but most stop at the point of wearing a minions shirt and fluffly hat without fully embracing the possibilities of blending humorous and stylish clothing. Luke combines classic staples like Minions and Minecraft branded clothing with more modern gag shirts featuring properties like Rick and Morty and Among Us (which are just outside the window of being dead so they can be resurrected as comedic reference points) along with Luke’s own T-shirt which features a (frankly genius) use of papyrus font.
I think the most surprising thing about these videos (and part of why they are so successful) is that Luke is extremely hot. His hotness makes the irony-poisoned look actually subversive and allows him to push the envelope of the look because he’s not afraid to turn shirts into crop-tops or do sexy TikTok dances. It’s cool as hell.
Luke’s fits definitely teeter on costume, but what’s crazy is that people who make fun of him by impersonating his fits just prove that he’s actually turning out interesting and well proportioned outfits because they don’t look nearly as good as he does.
One of the many amazing aspects of the Safdie brother’s 2019 film Uncut Gems is that it is a period piece about 2011, a time not long enough ago to be a “throwback” era (the way the 2000s are) but also not recent enough to bleed into present day. The cultural markers Luke uses range from video games and media released in 2013 to TikTok sounds and dance trends that are only a year or two old to NFT T-shirts referencing only months-old trends. This is one of the best aspects of accelerationism. We have nostalgia for cultural products (TikTok sounds/dances) that are themselves nostalgic for another cultural period (those sounds are sped up versions of nostalgic pop songs). This is obviously extremely overwhelming and moderately schizophrenic, but it is also is incredibly productive and useful for categorizing cultural artifacts: why does Bored-Ape NFT so easily exist in the same universe as Minions or Rick and Morty? The fact that all of Luke’s outfits are basically D.O.A (dated on arrival) could be a turnoff for some, but I think that basically committing to the clothing-as-shitposting ethos and making it look this good is an amazing feat and carves out a legitimate space for this look that feels more like other well-defined internet looks i.e. scene rather than a gag. (Actually, now that I think about it - this style is basically scene. It’s a bit more mean-spirited though? It feels like scene injected with chronically online levels of self awareness)
I’ve gone down the rabbit hole and discovered shock value dirtbag-designers like James Wallace and extreme fit-creation page Spinal Fluid Fits who feel adjacent to the Blovad universe (or perhaps it’s the other way around). I think their creations are awesome for many of the same reasons that Luke’s works are, so I’ll leave you with a few photos and encourage you to check the pages out for yourself.
III. Shipbreakers, Heavy Machinery, Megalophobia
About a year ago I watched this incredible documentary on ‘Shipbreakers’ which details some days in the life of Indian Shipbreakers - the men that disable massive transport ships after their lifetime. It’s an incredible piece and very much worth watching. I also realized I said I wasn’t gonna talk about why I liked these things and then I did. I’ll stop that now and leave you with Shipbreakers and a couple of other machinery/magic videos. Thanks for reading.
Songs