Different Kinds of Nihilism

harmpit: di dyou eevr meet him @bluntfiend

bluntfiend: I have no idea who you're talking about.

lesbian_gengar: yeah hey bluntfiend have you ever heard of [mystery noun]

harmpit: we wree justtal king about the art boys who do yuo think im talkin about

polaricecraps: called context clues, dumbasses.

bones: Is this friendly banter, or is there enmity?

polaricecraps: just playn around, big guy.

bones: Good.

bluntfiend: You mean Mr. The Critic? Not to be confused with that one cartoon made by I think the Simpsons people with Jon Lovitz and he'd go “it stinks” and that was his catchphrase. I mean, like. I saw him once or twice. We never had a big conversation. He was kind of weird. He was way older than you'd think.

hetcopogg: you're fucking old, too, bluntfiend.

bluntfiend: I'm the oldest one here, aren't I?

bones: I am much older.

gaycopmp4: you dont count thats cheating

bones: I don't cheat.

lesbian_gengar: that show owned honestly.

harmpit: waht was he like? the critic

bluntfiend: Like all of them. Shit fiends. Self-interested assholes who thought they were funny.

lesbian_gengar: so like us :P

bluntfiend: They were bullies. Geeks who got hurt a lot. And they internalized it until it fucking bursted out from them and hurt anyone around them. AWCY? didn't care who they hurt whenever they made some bullshit point.

polaricecraps: some of their shit you told me about was funny, tho. like that fucking robot you guys made to troll the janitors?

bluntfiend: I mean, fuck, don't get me wrong. That shit was funny. But for every one of those, every joke, lovingly created to own the fuck out of someone, they had a shark, or some stupid shit, that was like “not really there guys” and “maybe panic is more dangerous than a shark” but the fucking shark killed people, dudes, the fucking shark ate people and they died and it hurt people that didn't need to be hurt people that didn't need to die for the sake of some bullshit artistic point that could've been better served written on the fucking back of a goddamned cereal box.

hetcopogg: aren't they all rich kids or something?

bluntfiend: I mean, kind of? It's not, like, they were all fucking children of billionaires, but the dudes tended to recruit from top art schools. So normally, you'd get a lot of people who were good at art and also lucky enough that mommy and daddy had enough money to get them into school. There wasn't a lot of, like, outsider art stuff with them, you know? All very “in the academy.”

gaycopmp4: how did you get into it were you in art school i cant imagine you going to classes and shit like a normal dude

bluntfiend: I went to art school, yeah. I guess I got into it 'cuz of my whole, you know, magic shit. Maybe it's like stand users, you know? Stand users are fated to cross the paths of other stand users.

jockjamsvol6: If I had a stand and it turned out not to be a punch ghost, I would cry.

gaycopmp4: if my stand had a destructive power lower that was c or lower id jump into a ditch and die there in the ditch where i belong

hetcopogg: what about soft & wet?

gaycopmp4: im breaking up with you over this betrayal

harmpit: im otahts a childish way 2 look at stands

bones: Bluntfiend, may I ask you a question after this initial question?

bluntfiend: Go wild, dude.

bones: What made you leave them?

It had to have been 2008. The promise of Obama's inauguration was still sweet in your mouth. It meant something to you, then, didn't it? The good guys won. Too young to understand that he wouldn't be delivering on those promises. Too stupid to realize that the capitalist system would never be overthrown by a capitalist. But you were happy. You weren't an idealist, but you had a kind of peace within you, right? Everything was going to be okay. They were gonna close Guantanamo Bay, and a country built on the backs of slaves had its first black president.

You were happy. It was simple. Maybe it was even childish, but you were happy. It's cheesy, stupid fucking bullshit, but wasn't it nice? Wasn't there hope in the air?

The first time you realized you weren't right for them was right around the inauguration, right? So close. Maybe it was before. Maybe it was after. It doesn't matter. You smoke too much. Who cares when an event goes before another. All that matters is they both happened.

One of them had an idea. Just a little joke, right? The normies were so happy, and in such large crowds, and wouldn't it be fun if we snuffed out what we could? The world's just absurd. And you were there to add to it, weren't you?

Ossify Wall Street. That had been fun. Show those fucking fatcats what kind of shit they had to look forward to. But they all weren't like that, were they? The violence was never kept to the upper echelons. Indiscriminate. But wasn't art indiscriminate? What about Guernica? the Critic would ask. Doesn't there need to be destruction for something beautiful to be made?

It meant nothing to you. It meant nothing to you the longer you thought about it. You let it go through your brain, leave your lips, and hang out to dry in the air. Why did you need to destroy to make anything beautiful? What was the point? It seemed childish, didn't it? Guernica was a crime. Nothing about it was good. What was that old motherfucker thinking?

You remember the statue. The Dali thing, or whatever. The rape statue. Someone had made that. Someone you knew. And it had been praised. You were uncomfortable. Of course, you were. You were young. And you just didn't understand art or the point they were trying to make. Too filled with things that mattered in a world where everything was shit.

But that was stupid. People had worth. Ideas had weight. The world was filled with meaning, and you left them. Made a big show of it, too, didn't you? Do you think anyone died? Would that make you a hypocrite if they died? Is this just like Batman, and is killing the spree killer actually somehow morally reprehensible?

You didn't want to hurt anyone, anymore. If you could make things happen, if you could do things, small things, beautiful things, and fill the world with, fuck, laughter, meaning, anything, wouldn't that be better than making whatever weird shit the Critic ejaculated onto canvas? Some fucking asphalt that eats people and spews out a poem about how big the artist's dick is and how smart they were? Fuck that.

The hope coursed through you. This feeling of the world maybe being different. You were only twenty. You were a fool. A stupid fool.

harmpit: whatt he fuck is ossifywall street????

bluntfiend: Some fucking bug that did some skeleton shit. Look, I wasn't exactly in the ornithology department of AWCY.

bones: Entomology.

polaricecraps: big man in w/ the own. hell fuckin yes its like when your teachers make fun of each other.

harmpit: was itlike the bugsi n the mmuym movies with brendon frazier

bones: It wasn't an own.

jockjamsvol6: I guess it's a good thing you left then. I just know some of their highlight reel. I didn't know, you know, about ideology or anything.

bluntfiend: It was a toxic environment to be in. I can't even think about what my life would have been like if I stayed with them. I mean, shit, guys. Some of my shit is straight up wild. It's not all just, like, you know. Memes and shit. I've tested it, and I'm pretty fucking sure I could Doctor Manhattan the shit out of someone. At least, like partway Manhattan'd. Quarterways.

bones: I am unfamiliar.

polaricecraps: like fucking reducin people to like atoms of air and shit explodeways you know fucking pakoosh.

gaycopmp4: pakoosh

hetcopogg: pakoosh

lesbian_gengar: pakoosh

jockjamsvol6: That shit is like way beyond me. I don't, like, fuck with explosions and all that shit, you know. I'm much more of a not doing that sort of thing guy.

lesbian_gengar: you wouldn't have killer queen is what you're saying.

bones: I think it is good that you left them if you would have caused pain by staying with them. Sometimes, it is better to let go of what you used to be. Definitions of self and the concept of being can be malleable, and sometimes it is good if it is malleable.

bluntfiend: Yeah, fucking right on, dude.

bones: It is good not to hurt.

polaricecraps: awww big guy youre too cute.

bones: @Bluntfiend, where did you go when you left them? I know you came here, but we have not known each other for long.

harmpit: pakoosh

It's 2012. It could be any other year. It doesn't matter. They all feel the same. An unending stream. You've tried to kill yourself a few times by then. It's amazing how hard it is to die when you're some kind of magic. You try to tell yourself it's because you're there to do something special. You tell yourself your inability to end your own life is a direct message beamed down from VALDIS or whatever shit Philip K. Dick thought.

There's something you'd read about when you were in high school. The dark night of the soul. You remember your teacher drawing small peaks and troughs. He said that was the life of a regular person. Small highs, small lows. Nothing so intense.

The life of a saint, the life of someone so close to God or whatever, has much higher peaks. They come so close. It's gotta be happy, right? To be so close to God. But their darkness is more intense. Their troughs scraped the bottom of the chalkboard, presumably into hell itself, or at least that little metal bit the teacher left the chalk on.

That was how you felt. Except, this trough was long and wide. This dipped below the chalkboard into the fucking carpet. Or was it tile? You can remember the smell of the classroom, but not the room itself. It smelled of whiskey. You were the first class. A theology teacher with alcoholism. Maybe he had his own dark nights.

Everything was still shit. You saw the meaninglessness in all of it. You understood where they came from, and in your darkest moments, didn't it almost make sense? To show them what they didn't understand, taking them by the lapels and throwing them to the wall? But you never did. Call it stubbornness. Call it morality. You weren't exactly Batman, but you weren't going to take another life. Ever, ever, ever again.

You were alone. For a long time. It was easy for you to work alone. But, on the internet, you could talk to people without leaving your room, without having to stop nursing that bong that was affixed around your lips, sucking in anything to keep you from having to think, from having to take anything seriously.

And that's why it was so funny. Gamers. Like your parents would ever have let you play a video game. Against weed. Like you ever did anything else to fill the void that stretched out like some fucking wide open gaping ass wound or whatever.

It was just a fucking joke at first. It was easy for a joke to get overused, to keep coming and coming. But it was a good name, wasn't it? But then it started to, well, fit. It started to make sense. More stratified, maybe? You started doing things again. You weren't going to hurt anyone. This wasn't art. This was trolling. This was fun. This was harmless fun, most of all.

And no one died. And no one needed to die.

gaycopmp4: wait you smoke weed

bluntfiend: Don't troll me. My fucking handle is bluntfiend.

gaycopmp4: im serious i thought your name was an ironic thing i quit smoking as soon as i joined

hetcopogg: oh honey.

polaricecraps: lmao nice.

jockjamsvol6: You're only 18. You shouldn't be smoking anyways.

gaycopmp4: okay one youre not my dad and two ill be nineteen in july so suck it

lesbian_gengar: we can't really act like we're totally disconnected from shit, tho. we're not all jokes. remember all that shit we sent to the protesters after the election?

bluntfiend: I mean, I guess we do take some things seriously? Look, everyone needs a conscience. We didn't give them anything they could hurt someone with. Just keep the cops off of them. I guess. Fuck, I mean, like, you know what I'm saying here?

harmpit: i think making joeks all the time and sayins illy shit doesnt mean you cant find some things important and it doesnt mean you cant help sometimes

bluntfiend: Yeah. That. I think. Anyways, what the fuck is your big serious back story, bones? And don't tell me that bullshit again.

bones: I am one half of an alien intelligence in orbit behind your Luna. I am a weapon devised to destroy your Earth after it is catalogued by my best friend, Lyris. My friend read Homestuck and decided that she would rather be a part of the world than end it.

hetcopogg: i wanna be a satellite.

polaricecraps: hahahahahahahahhaa big man getting em IN today!

lesbian_gengar: that's fucked up because if i was an alien who read homestuck, i'd wanna blow the world up even more.

harmpit: homefuck

bluntfiend: Fuck you. You just owned me. I come here with personal truths, right outta the vein, and I get the Homestuck shit.

bones: It was not an own. I only tell the truth.

jockjamsvol6: Yeah, don't you guys live out on the moon, too?

gaycopmp4: bones you know saying that only makes the own worse right

bones: Yes.

Nothing made sense in what felt like a new world. 2016 had been the worst year of your life, but hadn't it also been the most fun? There were so many things to do. So many jokes to make, pranks to pull. And in this new fucking world, in this Trump's America, couldn't we all do with something funny?

Satire never helped anything. It really started bubbling up in Germany in the fucking twenties or something. Fat lot of good that did in stopping the Nazis. Jokes didn't stop the Vietnam War. Every artist besides like Toby fucking Keith or something was against the war in Iraq, but that shit's still going, isn't it? It all seemed meaningless.

If the world was a meaningless, hopeless place, if nothing could be made good with what was had, you didn't want to make it worse for anyone else. Existence was a vast, yawning void, but it was your job to bring as much, fuck, joy, smiles, love, what the fuck ever you wanted to call it. If nothing mattered and nothing was worth taking seriously, why not lay the fuck back? Why hurt and take and jerk yourself off until your dick gets chapped and your hand falls off?

Maybe it made you a liberal. Maybe you weren't as radical as thought. Maybe, in your heart of hearts, you were still a sweet Catholic boy and not the renegade you thought you were.

But you don't have any pretensions about what you do. Someone like you could make great changes in the world just with thinking. A lot of people in your group, in splinters of the group, and splinters of splinters can do magical things that would set the world ablaze.

But that's not what you're here for. It's the jokes. If nothing matters, you should make sure to ease all the burdens you can. And a laugh's the only way you know how. You couldn't stop everything from sucking so much, but maybe you could make the suck sting just a bit less.