The moribund Usenet newsgroup alt.slack found a bizarre new lease on life
from an unlikely source last week -- human sacrifice.
Alt.slack had been going through its annual "This is really boring - you
all suck" spring phase and Ivan Stang was sitting in a Dallas garage full
of moldering merchandise wondering if -- finally -- he would have to get a
real job.
In many ways, alt.slack is one of the Ur-newsgroups. Dennis
McClain-Furmanski, a kind of anti-moderator, claims it's been around for
more than ten years. Other groups dabble in outrageousness, but along with
alt.religion.kibology and alt.discordia, alt.slack has long seen itself as
a thumb in the eye of the smug and conventional. The turd in the punchbowl
as the SubGenii themselves say.
But newsgroups, like other complex organisms, have life-cycles. Each year
as the long winter draws to a close, but spring somehow still seems out of
reach, alt.slack denizens ("yetisyni" in their parlance) begin to snipe at
each other like cranky kindergarteners on a rainy afternoon. Typically it
begins with a post accusing the 'froup of being boring; the inevitable
response is, "Well, why don't YOU post some good/funny/outrageous stuff?"
No one ever does. Topic drift then ensures that the discussion will mutate
into posts about a heavy-metal rocker's tongue-enhancement surgery, and the
history of England's smallest county, but the bitter undercurrent remains.
And the faithful lurker begins to wonder why he logs on every day and
wastes so much time wading through the cross-posts and spam.
Alt.slack has a 3-space referent in the Church of the SubGenius, usually
described as an outrageous parody of organized religion, masterminded by
"Rev." Ivan Stang, self-styled "Holy Scribe" of the Church of the
SubGenius, who has successfully avoided ordinary gainful employment for his
whole adult life by means of a syndicated radio show, and sales of tacky
merchandise commemorating J.R."Bob" Dobbs, described by Stang as the
Church's pipe-smoking "High Epopt," but actually a piece of 50's clip art
torn from a telephone book and elevated into iconic status.
Stang appears at various performance-art venues with his patented rants
against "The Con," a vast conspiracy taking in everyone not a member of the
Church of the SubGenius. A major tenet of the SubGenius anti-faith
("You'll PAY to know what you think") is the coming "Rupture." On July 5,
1998, according to PreScripture, the "X-ists", space aliens in flying
saucers, will come to destroy the earth as part of a deal made with JHVH-1,
the OTHER space alien who has been posing as the God of this world.
However, through the intervention of Dobbs, paid-up members of the Church
of the SubGenius will NOT fry in the energy beams of the X-ists, but
instead will be saved by alien Sex-Goddesses and whisked away to the
counter-Earth. Stang says that Dobbs promises "Eternal salvation or TRIPLE
your money back," and points out that you can't get a deal like that from
any other organized religion.
Stang groped his way onto the Internet a couple of years ago and found
SubGenii already there. Indeed, he said, the Net was a kind of upside-down
mirror where Yeti were looked up to and admired, rather than scorned and
ridiculed as in "real" life. He cut a deal with Sun Systems and put up a
massive web page on SunSite ("SubSite"). Sprawling and amorphous, the site
perfectly mirrors the two major SubGenius publications, "The Book of the
SubGenius" and "Revelation X: The 'Bob' Apocryphon" as well as the
confusing and annoying pamphlets that have been popping up for years on
college campuses all over the US and in other countries around the world.
A major component of SubSite is gleanings from alt.slack, where for years
disaffected SubGenii have ranted on every subject imaginable -- and some
NOT imaginable. These archives clearly reveal the life cycles of the
'froup. Several of the "alt.slack is boring" downswings are clearly
documented there.
As is a certain amount of Stang's angst in trying to build (and pay for) a
life based on a piece of clip art. More than once Stang wondered aloud if
he could go on making a living based on sales of Dobbs T-shirts and coffee
mugs at sci-fi conventions.
Somehow, he kept trying. Markers throughout the SubSite point to the
"On-line Scatalog," offerings of Dobbsiana for sale over the Internet. But
the seasonal downswings that affect alt.slack apparently leak into 3-space
and they began to affect Stang as well. He quit smoking before New Year's
and descended into a hell of depression and paranoia which naturally
manifested itself as doubt about his ability to go on as Dobbs's Holy
Scribe.
So matters stood on March 26th, 1997.
Then the news began to percolate. 39 dead in an apparent mass suicide in
Southern California. Members of a cult. Bizarre beliefs about rescue by
flying saucers and the Hale-Bopp comet. Since the cult members apparently
made a living designing web pages, the news was instantly all over the Net.
And somehow a connection was made with the Church of the SubGenius.
Members of a cult. Bizarre beliefs in rescue by flying saucers. Traffic on
the SubSite picked up dramatically. Hits to the Scatalog increased. Jesus
Christ, Stang's business manager, reported a massive increase in orders for
Dobbs swag. Re-energized, Stang blazed into action, swooping onto the
Higher Source web site, swiping graphics and scooping up doctrine, lashing
together a new addition to the already massive SubSite. Within hours, a
cruel parody of Higher Source was up, with pointers to the mirror sites and
to the inevitable conspiracy theorists, but mostly filled with Stang's
mocking laughter at the Heaven's Gate cultists who had misinterpreted
Dobbs' word and jumped the gun by 465 days.
And in the Usenet Matrix, the denizens of alt.slack gathered before their
altar. Other artifacts in the Matrix are smooth and slick, perfectly
shaded polygons, but alt.slack's ancient altar is pitted and dark with old
stains. Slowly they gathered, one by one, keeping their distance from each
other. At the altar through the ascending smoke they could see the fixed
grin, the pipe, and -- the flash of the blade. Being SubGenii, naturally
they complained: "Body count's not as good as Jonestown." "Not as crispy as
Waco." "Oklahoma City had more bang." "Lacks the intellectual rigor of the
Unabomber."
One newby made a comparison to the World Trade Center bombing and was
hooted out of the group. "That was just ordinary political terrorists, not
apocalyptic lunatic fringe screwballs! Haw, haw! Boy, are you dumb!" With
gathering speed, the cruel jokes, the tasteless rants, began to appear.
"Heaven's Gate" as a term for wacko/loser/cultist was passing into the
common currency of alt.slack. The ancient, reptilian newsgroup was
redeemed for another season.
And Tarla began to dance.
--
Jim the Prophet
Licensed SubGenius Preacher