Category Archives: Incunabula

Alternate Reality Game, Incunabula, Joseph Matheny, Ong's Hat

Ong’s Hat and the construction of a suspicious model reader

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/

Alternate Reality Game, Incunabula, Joseph Matheny, Ong's Hat

Did An Alternate Reality Game Gone Wrong Predict The Rise of QAnon?

https://youtu.be/brijcd-8oWE

 

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 concept of ‘manufactured consent’ produced by centralized authority and corporate media now been outmoded by a new era of ‘manufactured dissent’, powered by networks, meme culture and supercharged shitposting?

LINK: https://youtu.be/brijcd-8oWE

Episode sponsored by Joystream, the video platform DAO: https://joystream.org
 
Support us on Patreon https://patreon.com/schismfilm
 
Credits, references & more http://schism.film/illusorytruths
 
Help share this episode, earn goodies: http://mop.to/schism3
 
 
 
 
Alternate Reality Game, Incunabula, Joseph Matheny, Ong's Hat

More Gunderson, Finders, QAnon, et. al

Back by popular demand, this episode features more dirt on Ted Gunderson. It starts out pretty straightforward, with digital forensic investigator Ed Opperman talking about his experience with the disgraced former FBI agent. Then public satanist Lucien Greaves talks a bit about his investigations into the Satanic Panic, including his experiences with ol’ Ted. Finally, Joseph Matheny comes on for a wide-ranging chat about QAnon, the Finders as metaprogramming, the gameplay-theater-ceremonial magick nexus, and more! Things start out pretty down-to-earth, but by the end of the episode, there is plenty of esoterica for you to chew on. Get ready to have your mind blown, then press play…

link to show: https://anchor.fm/failedstateupdate/episodes/25–More-Gunderson–Finders–QAnon–et–al-elcm3k/a-a3k0etn

But for chrissake, if you haven’t listened to the previous episode (24), please be sure to, so you don’t get too lost…

Grey Faction (Lucien Greaves) website: https://greyfaction.org/

Lucien Greaves on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucienGreaves

Joseph Matheny website: https://josephmatheny.com/

Joseph Matheny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ongshat1

Joseph L. Flatley website: https://www.lennyflatley.net

Joseph L. Flatley on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennyflatley

Failed State Update Newsletter: https://lennyflatley.substack.com

Incunabula, Joseph Matheny, Ong's Hat

Red Pages Podcast: Episode 154: Chatting with Joseph Matheny

https://archive.org/download/rpp-20-09-29/RPP20-09-29.mp3?_=1

Justin sits down to talk with ARG pioneer Joseph Matheny about politics, conspiracy theories, games and the future of America.

Haps Discussed: Independent art production, marginal voices in marginal spaces, propaganda, misinformation, QAnon, social media, owning your data, Rockefeller Republicans

Books Discussed: Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski

Games Discussed: Ong’s Hat, Majestic, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Myst


Links
Paralax Views Podcast episode Adrian Hon: What ARGs Can Teach Us About QAnon Conspirituality Podcast

 

Alternate Reality Game, Incunabula, Joseph Matheny, Ong's Hat

This is not a game

By Tom Dove

Link to the entire article: https://medium.com/@illexical/this-is-not-a-game-44142be5ff2c

Ong’s Hat.

A funny little name. A name on a map of a town that can’t be found.

Emerging on the nascent public internet at some indeterminate point in the late nineties, Ong’s Hat was the prototype for what would become a genre of participatory literature called the alternate reality game, or ARG. An ARG is part adventure story, part puzzle, part esoteric mystery, part scavenger hunt, part online community, all quite weird. They are mostly played on public forums, to capture the widest audience, but their content often spans multiple platforms, and typically multiple media. There have been many thousands of ARGs now, tiny and massive, but one of them was first, and it was wilder than the rest.

Ong’s Hat was by turns surreal, goofy, cosmic, and sinister, drawing heavily on classic counterculture and conspiracy theory lore. In the very early days of the worldwide web, it was doing something in a dispersed form that Mark Z. Danielewski would shortly be hailed as a postmodern genius for doing in the novel House of Leaves: playing adeptly with our ideas about how and why we find things to be true. What makes us believe a thing is real? The course of the game, its story, exists only in inaccurate second-hand reports and archived materials stripped of context now. By accident or by design, all the original online content has long since subsided into the digital sands, but the ghost of Ong’s Hat haunts us still.

 

Incunabula, Ong's Hat

Small Town Secrets: Celebration, FL/ Ong’s Hat, NJ

Ong’s Hat WAS a place set deep in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.  The 17th-century town was more of an outpost with just a few buildings.  It was known as a rowdy place.  The town got its name from a man named Jacob Ong who after a fight with a woman threw his beloved hat up in the air.  It become stuck in a tree and he never retrieved it.  But Ong’s Hat may have served a different purpose in more modern times, it may have been a place where fringe scientists and cultist gathered to travel into other dimensions.

Link to Show Page: https://shows.acast.com/small-town-secrets/episodes/celebration-fl-ongs-hat-nj

https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5c5da99a215eac406099a9c4/e/5f40d3738be9370aed0d4cc3/media.mp3?_=2

 

Alternate Reality Game, Incunabula, Ong's Hat

Cults, Cryptids, and Conspiracies Episode 169: An Egg In These Trying Times

Episode Info

New Jersey is quite a strange place in America. Especially in the Pine Flats area where a nuclear spill nearby a place known as Ong’s Hat. This is probably the most egg heavy episode you will ever get. Prepare for intense science theory and a surprise ending with this episode.

https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/40317271/episode_169_mixdown.mp3?_=3

 

LINK TO SHOW PAGE: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cults-cryptids-and-conspiracies/e/76951755?autoplay=true