Both parts of a 2 part interview with Joseph Matheny on Steal This Show with host Jamie King

Part 1- THE DIGITAL UNDERGROUND: WITH THE GREY LODGE’S JOSEPH MATHENY

The Grey Lodge was an underground private torrent tracker used by millions of people per month in their quest to uncover the esoteric, strange and the downright weird. In this episode we hear from Joe Matheny, one of the founders of the site, about how it kicked off in the very early days of BitTorrent, online culture in the early days of the Internet, proto-copyright trolls, how even weirdos eventually get pursued by the MPAA, and how the demise of indie trackers from Grey Lodge to What.CD mean a net loss for our culture. Coming soon: the second part of this interview, in which Joe discusses his work as an early creator of “this is not a game” ARG experiences and his well-known work Ong’s Hat, The Incunabula Papers. We’ll be making that available for supporters on the Patreon (and maybe more widely) in due course. In the meantime, if you’re curious to take a look at some of Joe’s work, he’s been kind enough to give us a free pack including Ong’s Hat and some samples from his ARG! Enjoy. Part 2- SPECIAL EPISODE: ‘FAKE LORE, DARK MEMES’, WITH JOSEPH MATHENY This episode is part two of our interview with Joe Matheny. Part one, The Digital Underground, covered Joe’s experiences running The Grey Lodge, an early, underground private torrent tracker used by millions of people per month. Part two covers Joe’s groundbreaking ARG & literary work, Ong’s Hat, and its place in early internet culture, before we veer off into a discussion about how the ‘fakelore’ methods Joe used in the development of that work connect to the meme wars of today and the increasing political importance of memes (e.g. Kek, the ‘alt-right’ appropriation of Pepe The Frog.) We also discuss the very improbable connection (it really is) between Joe and Jamie, and how Joe became a patron of the show himself; PLUS, the potential for Kodi addons as a distribution point for indie creators. Original URLs- https://stealthisshow.com/s02e07/ and https://torrentfreak.com/steal-show-s02e07-early-days-private-trackers/ https://stealthisshow.com/fake-lore-dark-memes-with-joe-matheny/ 1 [embed]https://archive.org/download/S02E07TheDigitalUndergroundWithJosephMatheny/S02E07_The_Digital_Underground_with_Joe_Matheny.mp3[/embed] 2 [embed]https://archive.org/download/S02E07TheDigitalUndergroundWithJosephMatheny/Special_Episode__Fakelore_and_Dark_Memes_-_Joe_Matheny_Pt_2.mp3[/embed]

Official Archive of the Ong’s Hat Project