armoredsuperheavy

In the US, we've seen ever more radical ideas take hold at ever accelerating rates through the last decade. Really you could see the roots of this far back in the history of the net, but when social media platforms began using algorithms to optimize what you see, who you hear from, the most popular post, that's when it really started to happen.

After the 2016 election, if you were as loudly upset about Trump's victory as most of us were, you were probably finally unfollowed by everybody you know who disagreed or decided to vote for him. At that point, you can pretty much conclude that there's nobody seeing your posts who doesn't broadly agree with you on politics.

We've been progressively more divided in our society because social media breeds this environment where "If you don't agree exactly with what I am saying or have questions about it, you are completely wrong and a horrible moral failure of a human being"  I've really seen this mindset taking hold in fandom because that's where I hang out, but it's not just fandom. It's everywhere.

Now with COVID-19, a lot of people have been stuck home for months doing their entire social interactions via social media platforms. All of these effects of socmed and its fucked up rules of engagement has snowballed and now it's an avalanche.

Every day there is a fresh outrage and situation that people feel compelled to instantly, aggressively comment on. All people need is a headline to go off. I'm not talking about any one incident in particular, either. This is just the normal pattern of social media interaction. See the trending post. Feel the righteous indignation. Click Retweet or reblog. Dogpile on. It feels good, like you're doing something to fight... whatever danger or injustice you have in mind. We've all done it.

But at the same time, it feels safe to do it. You're at home. You don't have to worry about getting arrested for this form of protest. You don't have to get in anyone's face. Nobody will deck you. You can say hurtful, harmful, libelous shit with what seems like virtually no repercussions. But the repercussions are society-wide when everyone conducts themselves like this. 

What are you really doing? You're not thinking critically. You're not looking to understand a situation in any depth before having your piece to say. You're probably engaging in mob vigilantism, and it may be based on absolutely nothing true. Who wrote your talking points? Whose narrative are you advancing? On social media, we are gerbils tapping the lever for another feel-good hit, over and over and over.

All drugs have side effects, even Soma.

Conspiracy theories are everywhere right now, and the idea that there are sinister motives lurking behind every person's actions has really taken hold.  

If you dislike the attitude of Bernie Sanders' followers,you're a right wing shill.

If you're willing to consider voting for Joe Biden, you secretly think rape is totally fine. 

For that matter, if you voted for Trump, you secretly think rape is fine.

If you voted for HIllary, though, you think torture is fine.

If you watch Edward Scissorhands, you're secretly totally fine with alcohol- and spousal abuse.
(p.s. is Depp still canceled? Uncanceled? Who knows - mob justice doesn't issue errata in the next issue of The Daily Outrage)

If you write a novel, you're secretly a child molester.

If you draw a pic of soldiers or cops fucking, you're secretly a fascist.

If you elect not to go into the street and face the national guard in a violent protest w/ major Covid risk, you secretly wish for the rise of a dictatorship.

Just... God Damn. Do people hear themselves?

I hope we snap the fuck out of it soon. The world is a scary place but the degree to which we have leveled suspicion against each other as individuals is at the breaking point. We are entirely too easy to steer by the wrong people. We're at their mercy as a society and the level of mistrust sown between individuals means it's virtually impossible to organize in any forward-thinking, constructive way, much less have honest and meaningful conversations with people we disagree with. We are truly divided and conquered in a way never seen before. Not just divided: we've been atomized.

At the rate we're going, we'll be manipulated into discrediting ourselves again and again through events like that are going on this weekend. The situation is fucked up, and no, I"m not going to go out there in the middle of the street to spit on cops in riot gear. Does this mean I secretly hate black people, support police brutality, and think there's nothing wrong with our criminal justice system?  Well you tell me, oh valiant paladin of the internet: What does socmed outrage conditioning make you conclude about me? What does a sanity check tell you?

I bind fanfic and other underground writing into real books. I am a Guerrilla publisher.

Why are you doing this?

• To make a demonstrative statement on the validity of “fic” in general (and fanfic within that specifically) as a newborn genre of literature that has really only come into its own in the last 15-20 years.
• To disrupt preconceptions about what is valuable and worthy of being memorialized in print, much less published in a fine edition.
• An act of anti-capitalist resistance. Participation in the traditional gift economy of fandom. Most of my projects are volunteer and gifts.
• Preservation of fandom history and works for future generations. These books won't blip out of existence by politically-motivated, puritanical updates to a corporate terms of service. These books are acid-free, archive ready, made to survive for another century.
• Demonstration against censorship of fiction. Most of the books contain subject matter some people may find objectionable on various grounds. I have begun to deliberately seek out works that authors and artists were persecuted online for creating.
• In summary, it’s a big Fuck You to power structures that silence people. On a positive note, it encourages people to keep creating and I hope reassures them that their work has enduring value. It makes my friends so happy that they cry, so that’s nice too.

Stylistic Choices

My book design is deliberately conservative because I am challenging ideas of what should be inside the book. The more a book looks like something a “real” publishing house would put out, the stronger and more subversive the statement it makes.

I've settled onto a bit of an equilibrium point with regards to my setup, production speed, the amount of labor I put into each book. My goal is not to make the most exquisitely fine objet ever bound. My long-term goal is to capture and preserve in print a broad array of fic and outlaw writing. Therefore, I haven't leveled up my equipment to "fine binding" levels, I economize as much as possible the decorative paper, and don't lavish hours on technical perfection. To me it is a race against time to bind as many works as I can. I am racing against repressive bans of adult content, the chilling force of contemporary purity policing, and my own mortality.

Future Plans

Starting out two years ago I'd set a goal of 100 works, and I'm now on project 90. I am on track to meet that goal by the end of the summer, but have no plans to stop.

In the future I would like to somehow propagate this practice to others, and create a movement of decentralized, anarchistic, hardcopy fic distribution. I believe in the community-building power of fandom as a gift economy, a bit of an oasis from capitalism, and want to perpetuate this practice as much as possible. It may not be possible for many people to get into full-blown bookbinding, but I would like to see old-school zines and other paper goods circulate more.

I have deep concerns about the future of these fragile online communities we continually build, only to lose. Every couple of years, a major purge event causes many people in fandom spaces to precipitously fall out of touch. One way I see to combat this is to "get real", and distribute physical things to your circle of friends.

If we are serious about being connected, if we would like to have each other as a modern-day "found family" in the queer tradition, rather than a bunch of randoms unified only by commercially unsavory thirst-consumerism, then we have to do the work to stay connected in an environment where nobody but us gives a fuck about our community, and none of the monetized structures we exist within online are going to go out of their way to support or enable that.

We have to do it; it's up to us.

And that's why I'm a Guerrilla publisher.

(Pseudo x-post on Tumblr)

View examples of this work