Joseph Matheny's Blog, page 14
June 21, 2021
May 13, 2021
Ong’s Hat: Is Princeton Opposed to Satire? The Ballad of “Jojo” Jayaditya Deep
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.
PDF of Article
Ong’s Hat: Is Princeton Opposed to Satire?DownloadApril 2, 2021
Why Did This Entire Village of Scientists Disappear One Day?
About Thoughty2
Thoughty2 (Arran) is a British YouTuber and gatekeeper of useless facts. Thoughty2 creates mind-blowing factual videos about science, tech, history, opinion and just about everything else.
March 19, 2021
Yet another Kindle eBook giveaway this weekend
Since the Liminal and Xen giveaways were such a success, I have decided on one more book to offer for free, starting Saturday, March 20, 2021, 12:00 AM PDT (tomorrow) through Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 11:59 PM PDT the latest version of Ong' Hat: The Beginning (Authorized Version) will be free to download as a Kindle eBook. For those of you who are Kindle challenged, here's a PDF version on my website.
I would ask you all one favor. Many have written to express gratitude for the free books and even to tell me how much they are enjoying them. While ratings are not the reason I give books away, I do it because I love sharing books, I ask that if you have a minute, please rate the Kindle books so I can receive better recommendations on the Amazon juggernaut. I write these things to share information and that works better if more people are exposed to it.
I will be sending out a few announcements throughout the year about part three of The Liminal Cycle and some other exciting projects that are in pre-production as I write this.
I hope you are all staying well and creatively productive.
February 18, 2021
If QAnon Is a Game, How Do You Stop Playing?
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!
The U.S. Capitol was just another part of the gameboard. (
: LA Times)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
February 4, 2021
Joseph Matheny Appears on How Conspiracy Theories Become Violent | Truth Hurts | VICE
https://video.vice.com/en_uk/video/vice-how-conspiracy-theories-become-violent/5fcfa4408b7fc464401542c3?jwsource=cl
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
February 3, 2021
Coming Soon: Highly Strange
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 ’90s 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 a lot of attention lately from the press because of the Qanon craziness and the White House uprising. More recently he was featured on Slate Magazine’s Decoder Ring series. Also, there’s news of an 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.
January 29, 2021
Joseph Matheny & Prop Anon expose QAnon
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
December 13, 2020
The Mystery of Ong’s Hat – 3V Off The Books
Today the gang is diving into one of the OG internet conspiracy theories. The mystery of Ong’s Hat. But the real mystery is why did the gang decide to record this drunk? The world may never know.
https://jmatheny.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/ongshat_offthebooks.mp3
LINK TO SHOW: https://soundcloud.com/3vpodcast/the-mystery-of-ongs-hat-3v-off-the-books
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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.
December 7, 2020
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/
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