After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley

by Rob Reid

ABOUT ICELAND: Iceland is a former leper colony situated on a pile of rock and puffin dung somewhere near the North Pole. It gained independence in 1944, when its traditional back-and-forth proprietors, Denmark and Norway, finally ended a centuries-long game of “not it” by jointly disavowing any further responsibility for the crabby and pointless wasteland. For most of its history, the country’s principal export was Viking semen. But this market dried up, if you will, when Iceland’s seafaring dominance waned at the end of the Age of Global Rape—a centuries-long era whose passage is still mourned by local bards in interminable, tuneless sea shanties. Speaking of which, Iceland’s main export these days is Bjork, a pretentious and untalented singer known mainly for her debut album, which peaked at #61 in 1993; and for wearing a swan-shaped dress that one time. The country is also appreciated by certain “hobbyists” for the beauty and promiscuity of its womenfolk, most of whom can be found in California’s San Fernando Valley pursuing careers in filmed entertainment. The national bird is the Glass Heel, and the national footwear is the Biting Midgefly. Or rather, vice versa.

Some punk scenes are so hostile to mainstream norms that everyone ends up dressed and coiffed identically in the name of nonconformity. Some campuses are so devoted to tolerance and diversity that no one dares to voice thoughts that clash with the narrow ultraorthodoxy that this devotion dictates.

“My…aggressor?” Jepson says. “I didn’t know there were politically correct terms for muggers now. What’re the kids calling rapists these days?”

No evil group—not the Nazis, not the Spanish Inquisition, not ISIS—has ever wanted to kill everyone. Right?

JAYSH AL HISAAB

Its core precept is that any act of mass murder at any scale can be justifiable and desirable, as all of its victims immediately go to their “infinitely deserved” fates in either heaven or hell. Because the rewards and punishments of the afterlife are determined by infallible divine judgment, unjust outcomes after death are impossible.

The movement carefully shapes its propaganda to appeal to the depressed and the suicidal, who exist in all societies, and can be highly vulnerable to emotional manipulation and apocalyptic reasoning.

she’d allegedly tweeted something that offended some spontaneous, self-righteous mob, thereby forfeiting her right to privacy, a career, or any shred of dignity!”

Internet mobs don’t care why it’s there. They just want the victim ripped to shreds.

Wired since childhood to be polite, to vote, to never rob liquor stores, and generally be a model citizen,