Cyber Nihilism

a hyperreal realm charged by technocapital

This is one of my favorite interviews — Mostly because it flows so quickly and seamlessly between disparate theoretical references, but also because I have an aesthetic fascination with the cyberpunk CCRU era of the late nineties. The text and images in this conversation represent a young person reaching toward politics through a beautifully stylized subculture. They pick up and discard theory as needed. They freely borrow from meme formats and philosophical canons to build out their own unique a la carte worldview.

At this point, I am fully convinced that Deleuze is just poetry for art students. In the history of organized labor, there is no shop stewart who ever said the word “rhizome” or talked about “bodies without organs”. Simply put, this stuff has no relevance to organized political life. Perhaps what these internet subcultures did best, is that they revealed this type of theory as a slippery aesthetic fluid that fills in the gaps between incongruent theoretical frames. Either way, its a beautiful aesthetic journey that inspires me to this day. #accelerate

hyper-communize
age 18
Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
Instagram, Discord

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How would you describe your politics or ideology?

Eh I guess Accelerationist, Cyber Nihilist, some influence from Communization and Egoism. In other words, edgy.

Who are your biggest influences?

Marx, Fisher, Deleuze & Guatarri, Dauvé, Debord, Vaneigem, Baudrillard, Land, Plant, Haraway, Camus, Stirner are probably my biggest influences

When did you first learn about or start visiting online political communities?

About November 2017, was initially interested in Anarchism and Labor Politics. Made an instagram account where I'd mainly post memes and have group discussions in chats. Prior to that I had visited some breadtubers as well as done some primary research. It was mainly because Youtube and Instagram were accessible but obviously that isn't necessarily a good thing lol. Shortly after I began politicizing my discord and joined some servers recommended to me on instagram.

What was your ideology before entering these spaces?
Or how have your views evolved since you started participating?

I was just a non-aligned liberal berniecrat who then took interest in social libertarianism and workplace democracy but after this and shortly before my descent into anarchism/mutualism I was a right-leaning libertarian who still somewhat cared about social justice but in no meaningful way.

What changes do you think we are likely to see in the next 10 years?

Probably an economic crash and capitalists + politicians will be scrambling for immediate solutions. These immediate solutions will likely offer some quick recovery but of course the ever falling rate of profit will simply continue. I mainly see the entropic nature of capitalism furthering and states becoming more overtly authoritarian to secure capitalism's survival. Well, perhaps overt if you aren't subsumed into the ideological structure of capitalism that is.

What changes do you think we are likely to see in the next 40 years?

I can't predict entirely, but I would just say more of the former until some transmogrification occurs once capitalism has totally deterritorialized. Of course we'll also see the rise of insurgence as the global environment and economy begins to annihilate itself into inescapable crisis.