Hey hey! This was originally supposed to appear in Absorbance 2 but no
one has any idea what the hell happened to it. So now i bring it to you,
faithful quad-p follower, for you too must know the greatness that my words
can bring. As a side note, it appears that my ego has taken over the rest
of my body...
WindRiders Rant of the Month
Volume 1 Episode 2: The Coded Frontier
That time of the month has come once again. Ive gotten out of the
rut that way too many commitments causes and have again decided to regail
you all with another worldly rant. Ive got a couple of things to discuss,
and im willing to bet that more than a few of you will feel completely at
home with what transpires below. This time around, my concerns are these:
explaining the scene to friends, and the potentially detrimental effect
that IRC could have upon it. Lets begin with explaining the scene to
others.
This began innocently enough a few days ago when i spoke to a friend
who had been surfing the net i hate that term but was just recently
exposed to irc. As with many people, the appeal of irc to him was the
abundant flow of warez sites that can be found in any one of a hundred
different channels. He was speaking to me of still trying to figure out
the fine details of the commands, so i spoke up and explained as much as I
could while still remaining within the realm of communication that a
beginner could understand. When he asked just how i knew all this, he was
quite surprised to hear that I had used IRC and the various available client
programs that were available. Inevitably, this led to the obvious question
of so what do you do on there? That seemingly simple question soon
revealed the great depth it possessed. I tried to explain the concept of
the underground computer art scene with mixed success, trying once again
to find just the right words that a beginner would understand. It was at
this point that i realized what is obvious to many, but beyond the grasp of
so many more. This underground culture, the ART SCENE if you will, has
developed such a profound linguistic and technical jargon that it rivals
most professions. Words like pack, newschool, oldschool, and colly seem
incredibly simple and obvious. To an outside observer, however, these have
an almost mystical quality. Bah, ive grown tired of this topic. If you
still dont quite understand this problem of jargon creating rifts instead
of bringing together, then maybe you should think about it. Or just go back
to ansi. And that brings me to the second point of this article: IRC.
Im getting really really REALLY tired of the attitude out there that
somehow IRC IS the scene. I cant recall how many times someone has
asked how long person x has been on IRC, only to say something incredibly
dumb like oh, so youre new to the art scene?. What a load of shit Can
you feel the definitive turn towards a rant that this has taken? I knew you
could. I had been involved with my own particular art form and had been
part of international groups for years before encountering IRC. Somehow,
the idea that ansi is the center of the universe has crept into the minds
of all the niave little children out there. I recall a conversation
recently from ansi one of the few times ive lowered myself to actually
stay in there longer than 10 seconds only to see someone comment that all
these other art channels were created because the people were pissed they
couldnt get ops in here. Wow is that both egocentric and incredibly wrong.
Unfortunately, the rare glimmer of intelligence that ansi shows is buried
beneath a 20 foot layer of pure crap. Just try to refute that. It simply
cannot be done. The sooner that people and im starting to use that term
loosely for most of the inhabitants realize that theres a DISTINCT
difference between the ld bbs art community, the underground artscene, the
ansi scene, and the ansi scene, the sooner we can all try to get back to
the sense of family and comradery that has been lost to the ircbeast.
Ill state this once again. I really dont give a damn if you dont
agree with this. Its a rant. Thats what a rant does. So you can
either step back and shut up or you can respond to this with
something other than ansi-speak.
- WindRider, King of the Mighty Rant