she forgot to water the plant. it took time but the sun + water revived it. shes back.
chloe rose
editor-in-chief chloerosegerard.com
daniel howie editor
@dandanhow
katie tabeling artist
@kttabel
nubiya zavala graphic artist @nub.s
thank you for being patient.
for will
Lost Love is like a faded scar. It reminds you of all the times you once had Which you shared in intimacy, Which no one else can compare. Each scar is unique as its only story is That which you make it. Its memory will never leave you and Its depth is a reminder of how much it took. A scar, who does not heal is one whose Lasting memory may forever be present. Even when you receive a new scar, Even when it the pain comes, You’ll be reminded of the scars of the past. And just like lost love, the pain of each Is like a terribly fond memory. Understood to be all at once painful and Understood by you that it was what makes you. Her sex was like a bruise to me, One who’s colors shone through in Dark purples and a warm tenderness. Dark, but with it came love. She and Her Her
loved me She scarred me. lasting impression made, scar being nothing more than a reminder to me.
However, her love to me was like A great sickness within me, her sex was a broken bone and her love blinding. she has left me with the greatest of memories And the greatest of pain. Losing her left my body broken, it was like Losing myself. But as She and her continue to be So shall I have to continue. Though my scars shall never fade, Though my eyes may not see the same. Time, which does not heal Can only assist the self in becoming whole, However, I do not wish to be whole. However, I do not want to forget. her love and Her sex left my body broken. Her love and her sex left my body broken.
For that, For you and You, I am thankful. I am grateful.
ANONYMOUS
PHOTO BY: SARAH VENDAL
PHOTOS BY: DEREK BRACKETT + CHLOE ROSE
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MARY JANE by dylan royer
As a species, as far back as records can show us, we have always been interested in experimenting with our consciousness. As with anything in pre-history the origin of how cannabis and its recreational use came to be, but through all the smoke I have been able to stem together an-but-comprehensive timeline of our favorite medical herb. As a species, marijuana is indigenous to China and Taiwan. First recorded in 2900 B.C. by Chinese Emperor Shen Nung. Ma (as it was known by Mr. Nung) had a character symbol depicting two plants growing under a structure. The flower was archived along with other medicinal plants such as ginseng and ephedra that were being investigated by the human race as this time in our history. Its safe then to assume that some knowledge of it could pre-date Shen Nung by 100’s of years. Well a good secret is not a secret for long, it seems. AAccounts of hashish, bhang, bangue are found throughout Persian, Arab, Indian and African cultures. Its medical and recreational uses praised in most, used in all. The Europeans brought ganga with them to the Americas. By the late 1800’s people on all continents have been toking up for 100’s of years. Yes, pot’s permeation into Western culture was indeed inevitable, and unfortunately this is where things get a little hazy. The United States has long had a tumultuous relationship with the green goddess. This would be where I bring up the mandato-
ry hemp farming of Jamestown, the wacky tobaccy serums of the early 1900’s, or the paper the Constitution was written on for heaven sake, but I won’t. No, instead we’ll jump right to 1930’s America. Enter Harry J. Aslinger, the most important figure in American drug culture history. Dubbed the “Prophet of Prohibition” his preposterous views on cheeba would be hilarious were they not so influential. In 1936 Refeer Madness debuted to an uneducated audience, and the use of aspirin and morphine or other opium based narcotics gained gained prominence in American pharmacology. Samuel R. Clemons (No, not Mark Twain) was an unfortunate martyr of the War on Drugs, as it would soon be known, was the first person arrested and convicted federally for growing and selling grass to one Moses Baca on October 2nd 1937. They were both sentenced to prison where Clemons spent 4 years, the full sentenced. He died a year upon his release. The Battle for Bud, has been a hard fight, with as many ups in recent memory as downs. The Schafer Commission Study, the backbone of the 1970 Controlled Substance Act, simultaneously found that the Devil’s Lettuce had “no accepted medical use,” while also calling for its to be de-schedualized and decriminalized. The latter was hot heeded by President Nixon. However, in the same year NORML, a foundation focused on the education about and legalization of weed was founded. This stoned contributor is hopeful for the future of legalization. In the very recent past we
have seen full This is a time cans smoke up, are prescribed
state wide recreational legalization in many states. where, according to CBS, 51 percent of of-age Ameriwhere its medical properties are being found anew and in their full flowered female form. Connoisseur, Dylan Royer P.s. stay educated, stay safe, stay free. â–Ş
LOVE: A MUSING (CONT’D) A FEELING MORE REVEALING ALLOWING PASSION & COMPASSION EQUAL BILLING GOD WILLING -- TWICE AS THRILLING AT TIMES IT’S EVEN CHILLING TO ESCALATE AND ELEVATE & POSSIBLY RESUSCITATE.. TO MEND A HEART THAT’S TORN APART SMASHED TO PIECES (..WHATEVER PEACE IS) TIME TO LEARN AND GROW TO TELL AND TIME TO SHOW TO SHARE ALL YOU KNOW (..AND THEN SOME) A GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING AS LONG AS IT IS LIVING FOR GIVING IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD THE LIGHT TRUST AND ACCEPTANCE REPENTANCE, MENDING FENCES THE LOVE THAT THRIVES IS ALIVE IN THE PRESENT ###
by ossian
PHOTO BY: SARAH VENDAL
I am an artist and tattoo artist by trade. I love every ounce of what I do, but with that being said, never get into tattooing. One inspirational quote I have lived by over the past four years religiously, almost obsessively, is this: “Stop giving a fuck. Just stop. Fuck the saying ‘Eat, pray, love’. Feast, prey, and create. Live, eat, shit, and breathe this. This is your mind and soul connecting and manifesting into the work of your hand, and it should be unapologetically you.” Being an artist means being vulnerable. It means you take a small piece of your heart and you smear it on whatever you call your canvas. No amount of criticism, mistakes, or any other bullshit is worth shaking your vision. Set your eyes on your path and your style and never look back. I joke all of the time about being Kevin Durant’s cousin (I wish), but something he said in an interview after winning a hard-fought game has always stuck with me, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” That is the gospel in its truest goddamn form. I hate hearing “You’re gifted” or “I wish I was born with the talent to do art”. ME FUCKING TOO! Ask any devoted artist if they were born understanding color theory and advanced light sourcing. The answer is no. Constant frustration, practice, and studying. That’s the great golden secret. The only talent I’ve ever possessed is perseverance. Mistake after mistake and failure after failure. The trick is learning how to land, and that’s all you ever need to know. Your mind is a water well full of ideas. Learn to harvest them instead of doubt them. Nothing great and nobody great ever landed up on their first attempt. Find your passion, find what lights your fire, and then find a fuel that never lets it burn out, even in the low times. Unapologetically yours, Kade Durant▪
Qs BY GRANT LOOS PHOTOS BY CHLOE ROSE
singer-song writer. lavender lover. cat mom. body positive. mental health advocate.
1. what is the theme of your upcoming album? The theme of the album will be about trying to find myself and my own rhyme. Recognizing that I don’t need someone by my side to feel accomplished or worthy. 2. what do you hope to achieve by releasing it? I’ve been in so many toxic and unhealthy relationships. I am beginning to understand that I have wanted someone to be my safe space so badly that I’ve ignored the red flags. By writing and releasing this, I hope I can help others see how much positivity we deserve on this earth because none of us deserve diluted love. 3. how does raising the funds via kickstarter change how you feel toawrds your album vs if you were to just pay for it yourself? Funding through kickstarter is very stressful. To be completely honest, its terrifying to think about it not being completely funded and not making my goal. The donations kept going up at first, and stayed at the same place for a week, and then went up again. It really is a roller coaster of emotions. I felt excited and grateful, to sad and worried that it won’t be funded in a matter of hours. My anxiety has never been so high because if I don’t make my goal, there is no way I can make my album without delaying the release several months. (she made it!)
4. why did you choose to withdraw yourself from music for a time? I think it has a lot to do with my bipolar disorder, but I also truly just feel that I need time to go through things and process them mentally before writing them down. I will go through a deep depression, completely unmotivated to write anything, to writing a full length album in a month. Everything is dependent on my mood. One part of me thinks that my writing process is beautiful, the other part think its frustrating. 5. how will this album differ from your last? This album will be different because it will have a wider sound. I will be touching on some new musical elements and focusing more on having fun. 6. what would you like to say to those who have donated or may donate? Thank you to everyone who has tried so hard to make this happen for me. I have received so much love and could not feel so empowered without you all. I don’t know what I did to deserve such beautiful and caring friends/supporters. You can preorder my album for $10 on my music page Fiona Kimble Music on FB. Sending love.
“i know what im worth can your opinion get any worse no ones gonna tell me how to live”
// who are you
end of kickstarter release party May 26th Crofton 9:30 Bashful Youngens 10:00 Fiona Kimble 10:30 Ryan Groff 11:00 message @ Fiona Kimble Music on FB for address▪
what happens on earth stays on earth
by daniel howie
Kendrick releases his most subtle yet vulnerable work yet with
masked in a mainstream sound and a fractured album structure
Kendrick Lamar was one of my first introductions to rap. My parents weren’t too big on explicit music, so I pretty much avoided hip-hop since most of it I saw had that red label on iTunes. One day, however, I found “ADHD”, a song off of Kendrick’s Section .80, and I couldn’t get enough. It one of the most interesting and creative hip-hop tracks I had heard and I couldn’t stop replaying it over and over, hiding it from my parents since they didn’t want me listening to “bad words”. His use of the phase “fuck that”, rapped like “fuck thought”, was so compelling and thought provoking to me and encouraged me to drift away from my usual tastes of rock and metal and dip into hip-hop. Soon enough, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City came out, and I bought it on iTunes immediately-the clean version, of course. I was hooked. The story telling, clever lines, incredible beats and catchy hooks made me a huge fan. I listened to that album endlessly afterwards, and I couldn’t get enough. When To Pimp a Butterfly dropped, I had grown out of the “no bad words” phase and got it the day of release, right before leaving on a weekend trip to Indiana with my family. I spent so much time in bed that trip, sprawled out with the album playing on repeat and the lyrics in front of me. I was transfixed, and knew I was listening to a masterpiece. Somehow, he delivered again. To Pimp a Butterfly was so drastically different from anything else he had done, but Kendrick still managed to sound so effortless and natural over these beautifully arranged funky jazz beats, and I credit that album as one of
the reasons I delved into jazz and funk. The messages and personal nature of that album struck me deeply, especially in moments like u, where Kendrick cried a verse about his flaws and mistakes with bottles clinking and alcohol sloshing in the background. It was one of the most amazing weekends I had, digging into this incredible work Kendrick had made. untitled unmastered further cemented Lamar’s talent in this style. Soon after though, I lost some faith in Kendrick. He started collaborating with poppier artists like Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift, which isn’t necessarily bad, but I was not digging his verses. Soon enough, seeing a new Kendrick feature didn’t excite me, even the better ones on songs like “No More Parties in LA” and “Really Doe”. I was scared. These new one-off features were disheartening for me, because it felt like Kendrick was sitting back and just putting out verses because he could. So, naturally, when “The Heart Part 4” dropped, I was concerned. The last thing I wanted was some solo Kendrick songs that were of the same quality of his recent work. Shit, was I wrong. My first listen of “The Heart Part 4” undid every one of my worries and concerns and erased all of his weak features from my mind. The beat changes, the different flows, and the different emotional tones assured me that Kendrick was back. As soon as I heard “Y’all got till April the 7th to get y’all shit together” I flipped shit. A new Kendrick album, this soon after untitled unmastered? I was ecstatic, and more intrigued for a Kendrick album than ever before. There were three beat
What does the cover mean?
The cover of DAMN. is a huge departure from Kendrick’s usual album art, and left me initially underwhelmed. However, now that I have the album to pair it to, it makes a lot of sense. Not only does he look downright empty and depressed, but he looks like he’s dying, almost like he just got shot-which happens in this album.
switches in Part 4-the first sounding like something off of Butterfly, the second sounding like something off of Good Kid, and the third being something COMPLETELY different. I had no idea what was coming next. “Humble” has cemeted itself as one of my favorite Kendrick tracks. The music video was incredible, the beat was so hard and unlike anything Kendrick had been on before, and damn near every line was memorable and infectious. I still lose my shit when I turn that song on. It was more of a mainstream hip-hop sound, but it worked so well, and I was really praying that Kendrick was going to pull through with an album of bangers like this. Kendrick isn’t a stranger to cockier and more energetic tracks, but this didn’t sound like someone trying to prove himself in modern rapthis sounded like someone who was the king and damn well knew it. The days leading to the release of DAMN. were some of the most exciting of my career as a hip-hop fan. Right off the bat, I’ll admit my bias-I think this is Kendrick’s most flawed album, but somehow it might be my favorite. At first listen, I got what I was expecting. Kendrick was rapping his fucking ass off track after track, with these hilarious “New Kung Fu Kenny!” lines hyping me up just like any other great producer tag. “DNA” blew my mind. The Bruno Mars sample on “LOYALTY.” had me flipping shit. The hooks were so catchy, the rapping was so sharp, Kendrick’s singing on tracks like “PRIDE.” and “LUST.” were instant attention grabbers. Even a more mainstream sound was pulled off on “LOVE.” He made a fucking U2 feature work-even
though I’m still mad about their album that showed up in my music library one day. Even the samples and beats from “The Heart Part 4” showed up, giving Kendrick a full song to flesh them out. At first listen, I really thought this was just a straightforward album cementing Kendrick as the kind of hip-hop, until I hit “DUCKWORTH.”. The story telling on that track is the best Kendrick has ever done. I was so confused up until this point, the album seemed like a collection of songs that weren’t too related except a few references, but then I heard that gunshot at the end of the final song, followed by a rewinding of the whole album and the line Kendrick opens the album with, and I realized I had a lot of unpacking and analysis ahead of me. Something important to note about Kendrick albums is that, up until this point, they’ve been pretty straightforward. Butterfly and Good Kid were both very complex and there was definitely a lot to draw from both, but, at the end of the day, the messages and story of both albums were clear as day. DAMN., on the other hand, is Kendrick at his most subtle and cryptic, and with each listen I pull something new out of it. There are a lot of themes and messages hidden in this album, but for me, I hear consisten concepts of Kendrick’s own contradictory nature, the duality of humanity, and faith. This is Kendrick at his most vulnerable and honest, and it’s the most fascinating thing I’ve heard from him. Let’s start with the contradiction of this album. Each song is drastically emotionally and stylistically different from the last, with
the exception of “XXX.” and “FEAR.” Just look at “PRIDE.” and “HUMBLE.”-the former is very subdued, with lyrics that seem to criticize pride instead of supporting it, while the latter track is incredibly energetic and filled with cocky lines that come across as much more prideful than the title implies. Moments like this are littered throughout the album, with some of them coming across much more clearly than others. These contradictions aren’t just from track to track, either, as some songs hold contradictions in their lyrics. “XXX.”, for example, details a conversation between Kendrick and a friend who is coming to Kendrick looking for advice on what to do after a man killed his son, begging Kendrick for prayers and an answer to how he should react. Kendrick, even after asking for people to pray for him on numerous songs throughout this album and trying to do what’s right, tells him exactly what he would do-”If somebody kill my son, that means somebody getting’ killed”. He even admits, although he was released many songs like “Alright” that support movements like Black Lives Matter, that “Ain’t no black power when your baby killed by a coward”, basically saying that when his family and friends are on the line, he’ll pick them over anyone, hearkening back to the sentiment of “LOYALTY.” Moments like this are all over this album, and each listen makes a new one stand out. Closely related to Kendrick’s own contradiction is the theme of the duality of man. Duality is all over this record, and not just in the form of contradiction. For example, the constant repetition of the line “Is it wickedness or weak-
ness?” that shows up multiple times throughout the album really pushes the concepts of two sides forward. Some have theorized that the album itself is so fragmented and each song so different from the last because it represents the wickedness vs. weakness mentality of flopping back and forth, an idea that could be applied to any of the emotions throughout this album. Kendrick comes across as lost in most of these songs, lost among the world around him and even in himself, and I think this duality theme really represents the back and forth he’s feeling in himself. The biggest and most obvious theme, however, is the constant religious references and tones all over the album. Kendrick constantly mentions prayer and how no one is praying for him, exerting a feeling of isolation and even depression, an issue that Kendrick has talked about in the past. This is a very depressed and downtrodden album, filled with darkly introspective reflections from Kendrick, and it seems that a lot of this depression comes from a feeling of abandonment that Kendrick makes most clear on the song “FEAR.”. Of course, the whole song is about fear and isolation, but I think the most important part of this song comes in the last minute and a half, not only because it gives us the most obvious context to the album’s title, but because it basically slaps the listener in the face with the overarching message. This minute and a half starts with a chorus abruptly halting the beat to hauntingly sing “Goddamn you, goddamn me, goddamn us, goddamn we, goddamn us all.”. This shit still gives me chills whenever I put it on. It sounds so dejected and so alone, as if these
Who is the blind woman? The blind woman who kicks off this album with a gunshot in the intro track is one of the most mysterious narrative choices that Kendrick makes in this album-who is she, why is she doing this, and what does it mean? While there are surely many more interpretations of this woman, there are three that I feel are pretty solid. Lucy This one is pretty straightforward. Lucy showed up on To Pimp a Butterfly as a representation of the Devil-Lucy, Lucifer-and is mentioned numerous times throughout that album. It would make sense for the blind woman to be Lucy, as Kendrick going to help her could be seen as his flirting with the devil and ultimately receiving damnation, in the form of a gunshot, as punishment. This is, I feel, the most literal and clear meaning of the blind woman. Lady Justice This is my personal favorite interpretation of the blind woman, and combines the literal nature of the Lucy theory with the messages of the Evil theory. Lady Justice is an allegory for morals and values in the justice system, and she is known for her blindfold, scale/ balance, and sword. However, the blind woman we see in DAMN. is only ‘blindfolded’ and armed with a weapon-in this case a gun instead of a sword. They key to this theory is in Kendrick’s action-helping the blind woman find something she dropped. If the blind woman is in fact Lady Justice, then that would mean she dropped her missing symbol, the balance, resulting in her shooting Kendrick. This could be both a statement on the lack of balance in the world and the lack of fairness in the judicial system, especially against black men and women like Kendrick. A Representation of Sin/Evil Similar to Lucy, this interpretation would fit more with the subtle and general themes of DAMN. This theory is more about feelings and deeper meanings than a character representing the devil, as the depiction of an evil blind woman could tell the listener that Kendrick believes that no one is safe from sin, even someone as innocent as a blind woman. This would also fit in with a song off of Kendrick’s last album, “How Much A Dollar Cost”, where he refuses to give change to a homeless man who ends up being God. In this sense, Kendrick would be saying that The Devil and God do battle on Earth through even the least intimidating creatures. This theory further supports the feelings of abandonment and depression throughout the album, since this would reveal that, when Kendrick refused to help a homeless man, it ended up being God and lost Lamar his ticket to heaven, while when he helped a blind woman, it ended up being the devil, taking his life. This supports Kendrick’s message of the absence of God in his life.
What is Kendrick saying at the beginning of “FEAR.”?
If you listened to Kendrick’s first track announcing this album, “The Heart Part 4”, then you had heard the beat to “FEAR.” before-it served as a transition between beats, and the haunting singing and melancholy guitars provide a perfect backdrop for what may be the most cryptic and religious song on DAMN. The song starts with a voicemail and a deep voice singing shortly after, but Kendrick’s initial appearance on the track is reversed. Here’s what he’s saying:
“Every stone thrown at you restin’ at my feet Why God, why God do I gotta suffer? Pain in my heart carry burdens full of struggle Why God, why God do I gotta bleed? Every stone thrown at you restin’ at my feet Why God, why God do I gotta suffer Earth is no more, won’t you burn this muh’fucka.” At first, this is disappointing-it’s the exact lines that are spoken shortly before this reversed section. So why have them reversed? From a pure listening standpoint, it sounds as though Kendrick is speaking in a different, older language, like speaking in tongues, as if his message holds a deep significance-a significance that could be a key to understanding the depression he experiences all over this album. These lines make Kendrick out to be a victim, carrying too much baggage to handle and resulting in a life of pain. Perhaps he feels abandoned by God-and maybe that’s why these are the only lines in the album that would be heard both forwards and backwards when the album is reversed shortly after the gunshot at the end of the final track.
are voices in Kendrick’s head telling him that God has left him-maybe these voices represent Lucy, or the Devil, a character that has shown up on previous Kendrick albums. However, right after this, we get the anticipated voicemail from Kendrick’s cousin Carl, mentioned previously on “YAH.” when Kendrick mentions his cousin by name, calls himself an Israelite, and says his cousin told him that “we all been cursed”. In this voicemail, Carl talks about how “Blacks, Hispanics, and Native American Indians, are the true children of Israel”. He then essentially states that the struggles that these groups have been experiencing in the United States are a result of God punishing His people, punishment that is littered throughout the Bible. Being raised Catholic, this didn’t come across as much more than an interesting and thought-provoking statement since the punishment of God upon the Israelites when they drift away from him is not foreign to me, but I soon discovered in reading about this album that there is an actual Black Hebrew Israelites movement that believes what Carl is saying. This is a massive sign as to why Kendrick is so scared and depressed-perhaps he feels as though God himself has abandoned him and that the mistreatment of him and minority groups in the United States is God’s punishment. This hooks right back into the beginning of the song, with the line “Why God, why God, do I gotta suffer?”. This connects with all the doubts that Kendrick has throughout the album and gives the most obvious explanation for these issues. There’s a lot more to unpack in this theme, and I could discuss it for hours,
but these parts I just wrote about are the ones that stuck out the me as the clearest ways to delve deeper into this project. The best moment on the album from a story perspective, however, is “DUCKWORTH.”. Kendrick perfectly tells the story between his father and Top, the CEO of Kendrick’s label, and how Top almost killed his father in a robbery but chose not to because he gave Top free chicken. Beyond the obvious direct meaning to this-Top spared Kendrick’s father, saving Kendrick from dying young in a life of gangbanging and giving him the opportunity to have a music career-there’s a much subtler meaning here. Going back to the wickedness vs. weakness lines throughout several songs-I believe these directly foreshadow this story, as Top’s sparing of Kendrick’s father could have been an act of weakness-having mercy upon another man that eventually resulted in the gift of his son giving his label so much renown-or an act of wickedness-selfishness for what Kendrick’s father had to offer him on a material level and, eventually, taking advantage of his own son for fame and fortune. And then, of course, the album ends with a gunshot, rewinding back and reversing everything he did back to the moment where the album begins as if it had never even started. That was the moment when I knew I had to play it back, over and over, trying to get some semblance of meaning from what, at the time, I thought were not cohesive tracks. All of that deeper meaning shit aside, this album is my favorite Kendrick album based on production and his rapping. On a production
level, there isn’t a beat I dislike, and there are so many moments in this album that I get chills (the beat switch on “DNA.”, the incorporation of the chorus into the verse in “LOVE.”, etc.) and each piece of instrumentation seems to fit perfectly to both the topic and mood of the songs. Kendrick’s rapping is, in my opinion, his best yet. He is rapping his ass off, beginning to end, and doesn’t take a single break throughout the album, and I love it. These two elements definitely drew my ears away from what this album really meant, but they give it the unique ability to be both instantly appealing to casual listeners and compelling in the long term for those that love to unpack and analyze albums like this. This is Kendrick’s most subtle, yet layered, album yet, and the fact that I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of this album in 2500 words stands as a testament to how incredible of an artist Kendrick Lamar is. ▪
ART BY KATIE TABELING
Joanna is a Chicago-based maker of photos, videos, jokes, and songs. After several months of not picking up a camera due to symptoms of anxiety and depression, one day, she went outside and took a picture. The next day she took another. And on the third day, she wondered what she would look like with a bigger head. This
is what Joanna looks like with a bigger head.
PHOTOS BY JOANNA JAMERSON
â–ª
BY QUINN KOENEMAN
Are Memes Folk Art? The Legend Of Speelbog Stoolborg
On September 28th, 2016, I was at work. Long lines of customers order coffee and pastries, very few tip. In moments of peace I head to the back and wash dishes. Sometimes, while the sanitizer is running, because I’m a terrible employee, I steal glances at my phone. I scroll through memes on Facebook and hope to catch a chuckle from one of my insulated “weird Facebook” groups. I see a post to a group I had joined only a few months earlier called “Coolfreaks.jpg.” > It is accruing likes quickly. Many questions are abound. Why is there a “best name” and “worst name” section on a credit score? Who is Speelbog Stoolborg? Why is it so funny? All the comments below are either adulation or confusion. Nolan Cook says simply “I can’t stop laughing,” Willow Rines declares the system at fault, saying that it clearly is “Supposed to say ‘light name’ and ‘dark name’.” Cook cooks up a meme out of it: > The image macro is based on a meme which was born July 14th 2013. The intentional misspelled phrase drawing attention to the duality of an individual, as a form of cringe humor. Cringe humor derives itself from social awkwardness, and it’s origin is commonly credited to the 1984 film Spinal Tap. The comment receives 126 likes. While everyone in Cool Freaks is trying to decipher what a best name and worst name is, and who the hell Speelbog Stoolborg is, my mind is elsewhere. In a home on Halsted back in my city Chicago, resides the Roger Brown Study Collection. I visited it once in college. An artist obsessed with
the prevalence of outsider art > and folk art, Roger Brown would drive around the country looking for inspiration for his paintings, buying handmade things off real people on the sides of roads and in small towns. Hand painted signs preaching Christianity and hating teenagers, little carvings of black boys and Uncle Sam and devils playing guitars, toy cars with corks for wheels. The kinds of things you can’t find anywhere anymore, except maybe the parts of the Deep South still waiting for indoor plumbing. The spirit of these things is carried on in mass produced lawn ornaments, cutesy kitsch things to keep on your bookshelf which carry the spirit of something artful and true to the people it represents, but is no longer of those people. In that collection, I found a mask. Hand carved from wood by some stranger from some other place and some other time, it sports a curly mustache, earnest grin, and the tired eyes of a man who has been working for far too long. In many ways the mask represents the laborer, and the people of this other place. It stares back at me, the mask. Perhaps in some way Speelbog Stoolborg is also a mask, one which each commenter and meme lover on the internet wears in some small way. In a lot of ways, parallels could be drawn between the folk art in the Roger Brown Study Collection and memes. The term “meme” is used today to mostly refer to image macros, usually of some humorous persuasion, which spread through the internet with such fervor that they become culturally relevant, sometimes overnight. The concept of the meme, however, is older than the image macro.
The originator of the meme was ethnologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, in which he talked about ideas, and how they spread. To Dawkins, memes were theories, ideas, philosophies, religions. They spread like viruses, they evolve according to natural selection. To Dawkins, memes were an expression of life in the mental space of the intellectual conversation. There has been plenty of exploration into how image macros and ideas spread across the internet according to Dawkin’s perspective on the world, but there’s also an undercurrent of the cultural voice within memes. A great example of this being the early graffiti image and text combination known as Kilroy Was Here, Foo Was Here in Australia, and Mr Chad in the United Kingdom. The combined image and text make Kilroy a good contender for the first modern meme.
When memes evolve, according to Dawkins, it is through the evolution of culture, the unified identity of a community. It used to be that folk art was first and foremost an expression of culture and community. In the face of globalization, industrialization, and commodification of culture, folk art has largely disappeared, but in the past, it was a barometer for shared
ideas and concepts within a community. First and foremost, folk art carried within itself shared community values and aesthetics, and most importantly it shared these concepts with outsiders and insiders alike, communicating them in a way that transcends language and other, less universal forms for communicating ideas, and it also gave a life to those ideas which was longer than the communities that held them so close, and longer than the lives of those who originated that thought. After work I take the bus home. Two people, who are definitely close friends, sit near me. I have my headphones in but I’m not listening to any music, just their conversation. It becomes clear to me that they are both exes, now engaged to other people, they are talking about the process of wedding planning. The woman is talking about the ways she and her fiancé are collaborating on the event, making it a mutual affair. The man is listening intently, taking in her ideas, evaluating them and making them a part of his. This sort of thing is happening everywhere I look. When I get home I grab a beer from the fridge and start doing some more research, periodically checking the comment thread under Speelbog Stoolborg. Most of the information I find specifically on internet memes talks of virality and it’s functions, and how those can be applied to marketing, but I find myself looking between those lines for some other truth about folk art and community. The Wikipedia page on Dawkin’s concept of memes proves to be the most fruitful. Wikipedia (but really, a collection of writers and
editors working collaboratively on Wikipedia) says that memes evolve through variation, mutation, competition, inheritance, and also collaboration. Stoolborg’s survival is dependent on these features within itself, and it is propagating like wildfire. The amount of life and vitality in the comment thread is making Speelbog seem like a perfect microcosm of what memes truly are, whatever that is. Memes responding to Bottini’s masterful “OC” (original content) are among two threads: discovering the meaning of Stoolborg, and inventing the meaning. The first few riffs are based on comparison memes like the aforementioned “Angle/Devil” dichotomy.
Sleeping Squidward originated in a post to FacePunch back in 2010, but didn’t spread virally until November of 2015. It’s earlier references tend to fit alongside the theme of waking up late, but it has since morphed into representing the things which keep us up at night. Spongebob would become prevalent in Stoolborg’s meaning as time went on.
Spielberg (?)” Immediately afterward, Willow Rines provides this gem, the first image to add to the lore of Speelbog:
The persuadable bouncer meme gained traction around the same time as Speelbog, September 2016, but the first use of the picture was from twitter in march of the previous year. Its traction and popularity is largely based on its ease in exploitability. Five minutes in MS Paint could make this meme into anything the user wanted. Speelbog Stoolborg also makes an appearance in the “Name a more iconic duo” meme and the “You vs. the guy she told you not to worry about” meme, “Speelbog in the streets, Stoolborg in the sheets”, “If a dog had a worst name, would they wear it like this, or this?” and more than a few clever riffs. The core group that opens the comment thread, Bottini, Cook, and Rines, are the ones that manage to develop the constructed meaning-and ultimate mythos--the most, but it remains a community effort nonetheless, and other users make meaningful and impactful contributions later on. When one user brings up the idea of a parallel universe, Bottini replies “In that universe I look like a spongebobian Steven
It receives 137 likes. E.T. And Steven Spielberg are now permanently linked to Stoolborg. There is discussion of the character of Doodlebob from the season 2 episode 34b story titled “Frankendoodle,” wherein spongebob makes an approximation of himself out of a doodle, which lacks the nuance or goodness of the original squarepants, and wreaks havoc on his life. The comparable themes to what would later play out for Bottini are surprising. Not long after Rine’s joke about E.T. Bottini returns with this image, the first known image of Speelbog Stoolborg, the mask of the internet proletariat.
It receives 137 likes. E.T. And Steven Spielberg are now permanently linked to Stoolborg. There is discussion of the character of Doodlebob from the season 2 episode 34b story titled “Frankendoodle,” wherein spongebob makes an approximation of himself out of a doodle, which lacks the nuance or goodness of the original squarepants, and wreaks havoc on his life. The comparable themes to what would later play out for Bottini are surprising. Not long after Rine’s joke about E.T. Bottini returns with this image, the first known image of Speelbog Stoolborg, the mask of the internet proletariat.
name, posting screenshots like this:
Others are dissecting the name, looking for anagrams and hidden meaning like it is some sort of secret code:
Which breeds even more obscure content:
It receives 94 likes and is reposted in the thread several times. Comments riffing off previously existing memes garner more likes, some exceeding 200, but original content riffing off of this original content receives massive comment threads underneath those comments. There is a growing sense of community among the commenters. Some users are caught up in the game of solving who Stoolborg actually is, but all of it is generating valuable content. Some users try researching the
Some users express genuine concern over this content. “I think someone is using my identity,” Bottini says in one comment subthread, “the report listed a few addresses and jobs I haven’t lived/worked at?” A couple users go in depth about
their experiences with the legal system and identity fraud in New Zealand, and in one small corner of this content, a genuine concern arises, but more on this later. Within the first couple days of this thread, the content being generated has grown into more than inside jokes, the comments seems to be celebrating Stoolborg as some sort of folk hero. Users are putting considerable effort into their content, especially by the standards of memes.
It starts with myths and legends, then it begins to appear in folk songs.
Even more impressive and in depth lyrical legends arise, which go into detail of the actual, now historical events that lead to this Original Content.
The comparison to folk art is undeniable after user Brent Mhic Pharthalain composes an actual folk song, and user Shanna Polley makes a music video, both seem like an unprompted celebration of their community. The 50 second video, “w o r s tn a m e ~speelbog stoolborg~ Official Music Video” can still be found on YouTube. While Stoolborg’s status as folk symbol is undeniable at this point, there are still interesting differences between the artwork on display at Roger Brown’s collection and the work on display in CoolFreaks.Jpg. First and foremost, the materiality of memes. By definition, folk art is utilitarian. It is defined by the landscape it represents, and is made of the most available materials, whether that be cloth or wood or clay or metal. But there is no material to the internet, and there is no true
landscape. There is only information and data, a seemingly endless mine of it. One estimate puts it at nearly 1.2 million terabytes of data. And the aesthetic of the internet meme reflects this landscape and this resource. Most are a quickly arranged combination of text and image, designed first and foremost for recognition and efficient expression. Even the outdated but iconic white impact font with a black outline is about efficient expression of easily read information. Even the image macros without text express this efficiency, most images found in meme circles are poorly and quickly photoshopped, as if they needed to get the idea out into the world before anyone else did. The other feature of folk art worth noting is that it is made by the proletariat, the Laborers, the aboriginal people of that landscape. Yet there are no aboriginal internet users. On the internet we are all colonizers. The web as a place was first built by institutions and governments, and was originally an exclusive space. Now the internet is a moving force for the globalization of culture, and has played an impactful role as the voice of the people, as in the Arab Spring, or the 2016 presidential election, but we are not the aboriginal nor the founders of this place. One could call the institutions which founded the net the aboriginal, but its landscape does not represent those governments and universities. It is a platform for free speech, of equal and democratic voice, it is a Wild West of free
expression, to a fault. Ultimately, the question must be asked: who was on the web before we arrived? I would argue it is in fact whatever Speelbog Stoolborg represents. If the name Speelbog Stoolborg stands for anything, it’s the shared concepts and identities in the culture of Coolfreaks.jpg. As a microcosm of what internet memes represent, it is a mask to a faceless shared identity that everyone turns to on the internet in order to feel that sense of camaraderie and solidarity that comes from a tight community. In this sense, it is the amorphous “we” that is of the internet, and all the data and private information and communication that exists as its landscape. In this sense, Speelbog Stoolborg is the folk art mask of Emile Durkheim’s collective consciousness. Durkheim introduced this idea to the cultural lexicon first in his 1893 book Division of Labour in Society, but continues to discuss in in Rules of the Sociological Method, Suicide, and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Durkheim argues that shared collective perspective and values create a “mechanical solidarity” in society. In his words, “The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness.” Other names you might know it as-names that have been used to casually refer to the functions of the web before--include group think, herd behavior, hive mind. It is the echo chamber, it is the current trending hashtag, it is the latest ice bucket challenge, the latest
dat boi is its folk art. There are perhaps countless different Speelbog Stoolborgs representing countless communities and collective conciousnesses that compose the internet. What’s especially interesting is that in a postmodern turn, Speelbog Stoolborg represents this as well. On September 29th, the comment thread still going strong, Bottini comments:
ness that Coolfreaks.jpg was no longer needed, it was now automated, to be be fulfilled by the efficient and informed Speelbog Stoolborg. It changed it’s relationship status to be with Bottini. It posted inverted versions of all his pictures on Facebook. It was quickly and unceremoniously taking over his internet identity. The joke finally ended, as they all do, when it went too far.
None of the users fess up to it being them, of course. It gets stranger when it starts adding all of Bottini’s friends, “OH MY GOD ITS FRIENDING ALL MY FRIENDS” as bottini says. Then, Speelbog Stoolborg makes its first post.
With Stoolborg gaining consciousness, we were sure the end was near. Our purpose as individual trains of thought in the collective conscious-
Once Bottini declared the meme over, the majority of the content generation halted. The subthread of comments beneath the picture on his door are all along the lines of congratulation. Everyone had a good time, and it seems everyone will be remembering this for a while. There seems to be a genuine and powerful love and respect between the members of the cool freaks community, now that they were all in on the same joke. Since the thread Stoolborg has made appearances in indie
games made by Coolfreak.jpg members. When No Man’s Sky came out, someone named a solar system after the internet meme. The original image has been the cover photo for the group ever since, and it currently stands at 791 likes, including my own, and 887 comments. Whenever a new meme reaches a certain level of virality, a member of the community posts a stoolborg version to the thread, and for a moment, it lives again. Yet, as time continued its intrepid march forward, I found the meme, and the ideas it was inspiring in me, still persistent in my mind. I was still curious about the legendary Stoolborg, and its author, William Bottini. I had to interview him, I had to know more. Over facebook Messenger, Bottini tells me he’s actually had a couple of memes go viral before, A GIF he made of Neil Degrasse Tyson blowing on a dandelion made of little Neil Degrasse Tysons was circulated enough that the astrophysicist retweeted it himself. “I was making it to learn a bit about 3D camera tracking in after effects,” Bottini told me, “I’ve had a few others go nuts, like the whole trump’s eyes look like his mouth thing, but in general I don’t make things to go viral, I don’t mind when they do, and I am conscious of the possibility when I am making and posting. I make sure to feed my work onto all channels - from imgur to reddit to twitter - but I am happy to make things and get a funny reaction or two. If something I do inspires another funny comment or image, I’m super happy.” In that sense, Stoolborg is a bit of a miracle. It went viral in the insulated community of Cool-
freaks.jpg, but barely spread beyond it. “If you read the post you’ll see that before the post there were 0 google search results for speelbog stoolborg, now there are like 20. I feel so happy about speelbog, it completely took over my life for 3 days, it reaffirmed my love for Coolfreaks, too. I like, too, that it’s not a big thing on the internet, especially since my full name is on it. It’s nice that it’s limited to cf. I’ve tried to track other things I’ve made and at some point it becomes impossible to see where your content is getting activity on the internet.” The community value of Stoolborg isn’t lost on him either, “In all my time on Coolfreaks, I never got more friends for posting, but with speelbog I met several cf’ers and now they’re part of my internet life. Flynn and Willow and Allen and Kat and Evan Pincus etc. It’s so cool, I’m so astounded by their talent, they’re really who made this go crazy. I think Willow was the first to post something that added to the meme, and it went off from there. “It was a life-affirming experience, to be honest. A lot of my personal life is on the internet, and in my graphic [art] work I am working through ideas of digital waste, and I often think, ‘what am I doing?’ Wasting time on the internet, posting meaningless stuff, but this event made me feel like, this is where I should be, I can engage meaningfully here as an image maker and image manipulator, there’s a sense of friendly competition with others, I know that I had to post my ideas quickly, because everyone else was generating content. It was pretty inspiring.” And it turns out, community was a
valuable resource in the face of the complicated real backstory of Speelbog Stoolborg. Right after Bottini checked his credit score, an investigator showed up at his house. He had been getting strange letters with unfamiliar names on them, “None, btw” Bottini says, “were speelbog,” and then cease and desist letters. The investigator that showed up to his house was “literally spying on the property, which was creepy as hell.” The investogator was a smallish Chinese woman--pretty average for the population of his town, but not average in the classic gumshoe image. “It was funny to have the image of the government investigator smashed in this way. She was kind when she realized I wasn’t who she was looking for.” She left her business card with him, standard county stock with the original number whited out and replaced with the handwritten one. As it turns out, someone had stolen his private information, and registered it under the name Speelbog Stoolborg. They had managed to hold a couple jobs under the social security number, and even registered a limousine service, which was illegally operating, without permits. This made the fake Stoolborg facebook account and note on his door especially terrifying, and mildly threatening. It turned out to just be another friend, a cool freak in on the joke, but still, the community supported him. “When the meme started getting out of hand, the moderators and others were sensitive to the fact that the meme put a lot of pressure on me,” he said. Everything ended fine for him, He’s been cleared of all charges and has a business that helps with identity fraud sorting out his information, and is now left with all the
positive fallout of the content he created. Though Bottini is the originator of a thought within the community, even he doesn’t necessarily consider himself it’s owner. “The thing I love about memes is that they resist any traditional notion of intellectual property,” he told me, “Other memes I’ve made, like the NDGT meme, are definitely mine, and I would challenge anyone who tried to claim ownership over it. But it’s totally different from speelbog, where the magic is in the co-created event of that comment thread. Most of the images don’t work outside the context of the thread, and besides they’re also riffs on other work, so I think the essence of the meme is embedded in the community ownership of it. And the beautiful thing is that it is communal and pointless: If the meme became about ownership it wouldn’t be fun anymore.” ▪
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