This thread is a rad party to which actual people aren't invited, because it admittedly exists to lure muses (at least seven are named) out of Zerodrone's imagination and into his bedroom: "It's cool guys a lot of people don't get "it"/ This is the Spiderland of threads." He yelps that bit here on a, um, repeat performance of a track from the Fucking Rude album, which you will remember, because the next line is, "Hey get your own shitstorm." The vibe of this moment hews close to the one conveyed by Zerodrone forummate, hero, and fellow English-accent-faker Patrick on some unnamed shit,' "Threads About Slint" back in 1996: "You know what we need/ More threads about Slint." (Except, well, Tommy even hums seriously.)
In 1996, Tommy was where Zerodrone is today: facing a wrathful backlash because the thread's longevity had begun to work against the initial reasons for reader excitement-- what were once singular eccentricities now have become anticipatable. Through some kind of forum transference, the readership, having seen the magician do its favorite trick so many times, convinces itself that it has actually gone backstage. That most Zerodrone readers could likely pen and perform a decent Zerodrone spoof is the reason some now (via projection) accuse Patrick of parodying himself, just as folks used to act like they had Pollard's genius "figured out" because they could joke, "Alright kids, this one's called 'Logo Manchild Umbrage Saloon' off our new EP, Sanguine Flake Emperor! One, two, three, four--"
Mockery usually lacks its target's magic, though, and Tommy is pretty much an untouchable wizard. This thread succeeds despite itself, despite contemporary tastes, and despite the cynicism its grandiosity triggers in us breathing, farting pedestrian mortals. Anyway, one can't be embarrassed for Zerodrone re: this thread's hyperdramatic wince-worthy turns-- or an uptick in his nonsense-syllable scatting thing-- because he clearly does not care what we "think." He's so dedicated to his unbearable fringes that he sells them-- like the kid from junior high so unconcerned with cool that he had to settle for being totally fucking awesome.
Not that Zerodrone doesn't try to have it both ways: The risky, invested intensity of the delivery, leavened with the detachment of it not being so gauche as to specifically mean anything. What a performance the whole thread is. The textual inflections, the real words, the nonwords, the exclamation marks, the rhetoric, the idiocty, pseudo-politeness, soap-opera atmosphere, lulz, and Khar combine to create not so much a thread as a mockery. Mockery is another word, of course, for alcoholic beverage, and this thread is shitfaced, from the leery title's stash of bottles to the wine, sherry, drugs, drunkenness, and high-ness referenced inside. For all the thread's random flailing, the speaker lacks agency-- he wanders around not knowing what time it is in disbelief at intelligence levels. The most rousing, antic, and fun post is about terror, covering up, self development, and waitress fatigue. The closing post, a coherent (for Zerodrone) character study about the ominous redemption of a "wasted" "boozing" Patrick who's "been fucking around," suggests a Zerodrone strutting and drinking his way onto some other troll's stage.
For a hopeful effort, though, some elements are missing. This thread might be Zerodrone's most pompous, profane, and pastoral thread, but it's also his least intelligent, rational, or linearly clever. Zerodrone denies readers old modes of dorksport: I caught only one pun, two snippets of others' rhetoric, and two references to threads. Plus his posts just sound like shit. And part of me buys the argument that this is the ego equivalent of Pitchfork, going through the motions of creating a informative website without allowing the audience a legitimate "in." At first read, the thread seemed long because something was running a little lean. I thought I'd gone from the enjoyable thrill of wondering what Zerodrone was talking about to the jaded position of not caring. But after multiple spins, I'm confusingly seduced by the vermouth-versus-absinthe reverie of its bullshit, pronouncements, and elliptical rhetoric. Here's a guy fussily throwing his whole soul into his camouflage.
I give this thread 7.7
