Translation: “Dir. Estrella Fematt
Ong’s Hat, New Jersey 1930. We were the scene of great economic activity, we had the focus of many but the contact of few. What was your concern? We translate by object, shape, gravity, noise and reality. To you hustler, who through consciousness could shape the universe itself, cause chaos and, consequently, have a portal to the strangest. You are left with only the bricks of the structures that once stood there, an old shed and an incompetent curiosity.”
On May 31, 2021, Princeton’s elite educational institution, through their journal, TORTOISE: A JOURNAL OF WRITING PEDAGOGY, published an excerpt of a paper by one of their freshman students, Jayaditya Deep. The article is titled, The Fiction of Ong’s Hat: Too Good to be False.
In this paper, Jayaditya Deep, who likes to be called Jojo,” levels criticism regarding two pieces of satire, one written by me about 30 years age and another written by me about 20 years ago. Both articles are in out-of-print publications. “Jojo” uses archive.org links as his reference in this piece. The criticism never once mentions that the articles are satire and treats them as if they are not. These articles are not murky as to their intention as humor, but satire, clearly written and published as such.
Additionally, it looks like our little friend “Jojo” has taken to marking up the Wikipedia pages for Ong’s Hat to share his humorless view of the universe. I’m quite aware that he is obviously a person on some kind of quixotic crusade and desperate for attention, so this will be the last I mention it unless they decide to become stalkerish, as these crusaders sometimes do. Oh, and I did him a favor and made a correction to his “additions” since he erroneously listed the publication of The Incunabula Papers as 1898. 😀
PDF of Article
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This is Part II of our look at QAnon. Click here for Part I. As part of the NYU/StartEd New Media Accelerator, we are joining with faculty from the NYU Carter Journalism Institute to talk about QAnon Friday, Feb. 19 on Clubhouse. Join us!
Ever hear of Ong’s Hat? Not the charming little town in New Jersey that we all know and love, but the internet conspiracy. Actually, Ong’s Hat is most likely the first internet conspiracy, which is interesting because it started well before the internet was even in the hands of the average citizen. Today, many credit the sprawling, transmedia experiment — and its foundational documents known as The Incunabla Papers — as the first Alternative Reality Game (ARG), creating the template for massive experiential mysteries underwritten by sources as unlikely as Brigham Young University, Microsoft, and the rock band Twenty-One Pilots. Ong’s Hat was a much less coordinated affair, beginning as crude Xeroxed pamphlets, then skipping around on zines delivered in the mail, radio, bulletin boards, CD-ROM, and back to the internet. While the ghost town that gave the game its name is real, the science fiction tale that lurched around for years, involving Princeton scientists, quantum theory, multi-dimensional travel, and much more, is a work of collaborative fiction by a small group of outsiders and pranksters. But this long-forgotten experiment has become relevant again because it gives us clues into what’s going on with some of the most politically and socially radicalized people in the world.
The January 6 deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol was energized by many people who follow QAnon to varying degrees. Last month, we wrote that understanding the movement in religious or cultish terms was a seductive mistake, and that it’s best understood as an ARG that has a found purchase with huge swaths of alienated and postmodern Americans. While most games are harmless, Ong’s Hat turned quite dark before its chief storyteller shut it down, and we’d argue that the real-world violence coming from QAnon disciples is following that same arc. Hopefully, there are some lessons in previous experiments like Ong’s Hat that can help us blunt the destructive force of this movement, avoid more violence, and bring people back to a shared reality and basic set of facts. READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE: https://medium.com/caseworx/if-qanon-is-a-game-how-do-you-stop-playing-1489a388de75
I made an appearance on VICE’s Truth Hurts series discussing the danger of right-wing conspiracy cults and why this is not a new phenomenon.
What’s the difference between someone who’s into conspiracy theories and someone who’s so influenced by them they become a mass shooter? From white supremacist Anders Breivik to jihadist Tamerlan Tsarneav, some of the perpetrators of the worst acts of mass killing around the world have been enthralled by certain conspiracy theories. In this episode of Truth Hurts, we look at the tipping point in the conspiracist mindset that can turn people violent.
Watch more from this series:
Where Conspiracy Theorists Steal Their Ideas From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4hpedzjQZ8
The Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory in the World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7o3bVInA2A
Part 1
Part 2
Joseph Matheny, creator of Ong’s Hat, the world’s first Alternative Reality Game speaks with Prop Anon about QAnon, Robert Anton Wilson, Ong’s Hat, and how to survive the fast approaching wave of techno-mindfuckery that will arrive with increased technological development
http://www.prop-anon.com/
https://www.patreon.com/posts/46836443
We’re producing our first original on high strangeness. In it we explore the psyche of “strange” through the stories of three people in highly strange situations.
Season One – “Information Golem” looks at the life of Joseph Matheny as he dreams up what perhaps becomes the world’s first online ARG (Alternative Reality Game) known as Ong’s Hat. Launched in the 90’s as an innocent social experiment around story and information, things quickly went left of field. The oddities that surrounded Ong’s Hat are curiosities Joseph still struggles to understand to this day. Joseph has gotten alot of attention lately from the press because of the Quanon craziness and White House uprising. More recently he was featured on Slate Magazine’s Decoder Ring series. Also there’s news of a upcoming Netflix feature on conspiracy creation he’ll appear in. His story touches on the issues that seem to dovetail at the volcanic crossroads where personality and mental health meets randomness and free information. Lots of unruly yet relevant questions get born there.
Listen to “Highly Strange” on Spreaker.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/41996383
LINK TO SHOW: https://soundcloud.com/3vpodcast/the-mystery-of-ongs-hat-3v-off-the-books
Get your “It’s Time for Science” shirt at 3vpodcast.com also be sure to follow us on all the socials @3VPodcast!
Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode be sure to leave us a five star (or not) review! Also if you have any feedback or ideas for future episodes be sure to hit us up! Thanks again and have a kickass day!paranormalPodcasttrue crime3v podcaongsinternet mysteryongmysteryComedydrunkconstheoryconspiracy theoryThe Mystery of Ong’s Hat – 3V Off The Books by 3V Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
It’s refreshing to see someone make an attempt to understand what I was trying to do with Ong’s Hat and it’s encouraging to see them get it mostly right. Too many so-called journalists have focused on the more sensationalist aspects of my attempt, in the early days of the Internet, at an avant-garde art installation that was not constrained by space and time.
In this paper, I have brought together concepts from media studies and semiotics of interpretation in an attempt to analyze a complex media phenomenon and its unforeseen persuasive power. This analysis could be built upon to analyze similar phenomena such as conspiracy theories and fake news.
Link to the full paper: https://letreraria.com/2019/01/13/ongs-hat-and-the-construction-of-a-suspicious-model-reader/
