This completes the COMPLEAT Broadcast series. It will remain here on this Substack so you may revisit it or share it. If you’d like a print copy of the book section of this work, it is available through https://compleat.store
Synthesizing research from Kendall Haven (DARPA’s Narrative Networks project), Carl Jung’s theory of synchronicity, Jeffrey Kripal’s concept of the Super Story, and Joseph Matheny’s transmedia ARG experiment (Ong’s Hat), Jose explored how human attention is hardwired by story structure. A powerful narrative environment organizes human perception, expectation, and search behavior so effectively that meaningful coincidences and anomalous events become active, trajectory-shaping realities for the participant.
Deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a group of disgraced scientists and counter culturists gathered to do tests on a mysterious object called The Egg. And they would make a startling discovery: a way to travel to parallel worlds. This includes a parallel Earth devoid of humans. Realizing governments and others would want this technology, the scientist decided to move to this other world mostly permanently. Or at least, that’s what the books Incunabula: A Catalog of Rare Books, Manuscripts & Curiosa, Conspiracy Theory, Frontier Science & Alternative Worlds says, and a book wouldn’t lie, would it? Okay, maybe they would. See, Ong’s Hat was one of the first internet fiction projects, an ARG before we even got close to creating their term. Created by Joseph Matheny, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Nick Herbert, and James Koehnline in the 1980s, the fist version of the story would appear in Edge Detector magazine. But after this, the group would spread this story in numerous ways, from leaving photocopied versions of the original article in coffee shops, to mail-order zines and even in-character radio show appearances. However, with the birth of the internet the project would only grow in scope. Not only did it allow the creators to tell the story in new ways via message boards, fake blogs, and even making emails and homepages for the story’s various characters. It also led to the project taking on a mind of its own, to the point that Ong’s Hat became a frequent talking point of real conspiracy theorists and it wasn’t uncommon to see web users cite the books as factual rather than fictional. Thus, after having people literally camping out on his lawn demanding secrets to inter-dimensional travel, Joseph Matheny ended the project and came clean about the whole thing in 2001. Ong’s Hat is a crucial part of internet history as not only is it a fun art project, the fact that the story, despite its weirdness, was able to embed itself in actual conspiracy lore foreshadowed our modern misinformation problem, years before anyone would talk about it. It is enough to make you want to move to the alternative-reality pine barrens. Deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a group of disgraced scientists and counterculturalists gathered around a mysterious object called The Egg, and discovered a way to travel to parallel worlds, including a version of Earth entirely devoid of humans. Realizing what governments would do if they found out, they quietly relocated there. More or less permanently. Or at least, that’s what the book Incunabula: A Catalog of Rare Books, Manuscripts & Curiosa says. And a book wouldn’t lie. Well. Ong’s Hat is one of the earliest ARGs ever made. created by Joseph Matheny, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Nick Herbert, and James Koehnline, in the 1980s, long before anyone had a word for what they were doing. The first version of the story appeared in a magazine called Edge Detector. From there it spread through photocopied articles left in coffee shops, mail-order zines, and radio appearances where the creators would pretend to be people who were involved with, or saw the fallout of the things that happened at Ong’s Hat. Naturally, when the internet became a thing, the creators quickly leaned into this new medium, seeding the story on message boards, as well as making numerous fake blogs and webpages. But the audience that found it wasn’t treating it as fiction. Ong’s Hat quickly embedded itself in actual conspiracy theory circles. People cited Incunabula and the other Ong’s Hat books as actual facts, and started to include the Things quickly spiraled out of hand, to the point that Joseph Matheny had people literally camping on his lawn demanding the secrets to interdimensional travel. He called it quits in 2001, coming out and explaining the history of the project and making it clear the whole thing was just art, nothing more. #arg#internethistory#internetmysteries#weirdhistory#conspiracytiktok
A B S T R A C T
Using ˇZiˇzek’s concept of ontological incompleteness, we theorise the touristic appeal of online
legend-tripping as derived from the fantasy of traversing reality’s uncharted horizons. While
online legends such as ‘the Backrooms’ invoke curiosity in suffering and the macabre, they
deviate from the sense of heritage, moral guardianship, and evidential integrity that characterise
physical dark tourism. Drawing upon an observational netnography of the ‘r/backrooms’ community
on Reddit, we unpack processes of temporal suspension, ‘good’ alienation, and transcendence
downward which enable online legend-tripping to function as a ‘para-terrestrial’ variant of dark
tourism. The importance of real-world referents recedes, giving way to subjective encounters with
the unknown. Obscene enjoyment displaces moral engagement, and participatory mythmaking
supplants the bureaucratisation and commoditisation of travel experiences.
This is one-half of the complete work. The second half is an audio conversation available for a discount for people who purchase a print copy of this work. A URL and/or QR code with a discount code is available in the book.
Although the function of following the copious amount of links in the text half of this work is impeded by the print format, I understand that some people demand having a print version. I have included the discount download of the other half of the work so that you may still experience this work as intended.
