In this fragment of SCHISM we interview the creator of ‘Ong’s Hat’, the first Alternate Reality Game, and ask what his experiences can teach us about the rise of QAnon. Is it possible that the ability to co-create and distribute our own narratives about reality could be altering its basic fabric? And has Noam Chomsky’s… Continue reading Did An Alternate Reality Game Gone Wrong Predict The Rise of QAnon?
Tag: ong’s hat
ARG Pioneer Joseph Matheny on the Counterculture’s Hijacking from Corporatization to QAnon
*This episode became one of the top ten most downloaded episodes of Parallax Views. On this edition of Parallax Views, a special, previously unpublished conversation with Joseph Matheny, a pivotal fixture of the bohemian tech counterculture during the early days of the internet, who may offer a key to understanding the wild social media phenomenon… Continue reading ARG Pioneer Joseph Matheny on the Counterculture’s Hijacking from Corporatization to QAnon
Gizmodo-Ong’s Hat: The Early Internet Conspiracy Game That Got Too Real
LINK TO Gizmodo piece on Ong’s Hat, from 2/21/19 Chosen one of The Best Long Reads Of The Month, picked by Digg’s editors Chosen as a “WEEKEND READING PLEASURE” editor’s pick at Fortune In the ‘90s and early 2000s, seekers looking into the legend online began to believe that just reading about Ong’s Hat was… Continue reading Gizmodo-Ong’s Hat: The Early Internet Conspiracy Game That Got Too Real
Slate-Decoder Ring: The Incunabula Papers
What lies at the heart of Ong’s Hat? Listen to this episode of Decoder Ring: LINK TO DECODER RING PAGE Decoder Ring is a podcast about cracking cultural mysteries. Every month, host Willa Paskin, Slate’s TV critic, takes on a cultural question, object, idea, or habit and speaks with experts, historians and obsessives to try… Continue reading Slate-Decoder Ring: The Incunabula Papers
Ong’s Hat: Is Princeton Opposed to Satire? The Ballad of “Jojo” Jayaditya Deep
Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, every parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied. On May 31, 2021, Princeton’s elite educational institution, through their journal, TORTOISE: A JOURNAL OF WRITING PEDAGOGY,… Continue reading Ong’s Hat: Is Princeton Opposed to Satire? The Ballad of “Jojo” Jayaditya Deep
Original Boing-Boing Article: Advances in Skin Science
Part of the “original 4” pieces of the Ong’s Hat storyline. It appeared in print as Advances in Skin Science, later to be released on the Internet as ADVANCES IN SKIN SCIENCE: QUANTUM TANTRA AN INTERVIEW WITH NICK HERBERT BY JOSEPH MATHENY Boing-Boing issue 11