For all their wealth and power they too will someday die

A couple things before we get started today. Would you like a signed copy of the book? It can be yours for $30. Or would like a year's subscription to Hell World plus a book because we can do that for – I don't know – let's say $80. Email me to let me know buddy.

Also I'd like to hear from people about what they think about when they think of the phrase "we had it coming." Or if you think we in fact have it coming or not. Whoever we are and whatever it is. Will run in a future issue and can be anonymous.

If you could leave a review wherever people do that it would be appreciated.

The thing about Hell is that its engineers are always innovating. By necessity of the trade. "A person can become accustomed to almost any kind of pain," I wrote in this story. "Novelty is pain’s cruelest device." 

Our terrestrial tormentors on the other hand are decidedly lazier and stupider. Thus far they seem hyper-fixated on one single problem they invented for themselves and by extension the rest of us:

How to trap a nightmarish simulacrum of a human soul inside of the computer.

Then – somehow (?) – make a lot of money off of it.

The latest iteration of this doomed cycle is a company called 2wai – very annoyingly pronounced "two way" – from Disney Channel alum Calum Worthy and friends. A new advertisement for their alleged product shows us what it would be like if you could pull up an avatar of a dead loved one on your phone whenever you wanted to and "talk" with them. Until they jack up the subscription cost too high and you get to experience grandma dying all over again you'd have to guess.

Then one day we will all be responsible for crawling into the void ourselves to repeat the cycle.

It's nothing more than another attempt by our tech-brained parasites to cope with the devastating realization that for all their wealth and power they too will someday die. I am likewise frightened daily by this proposition but I have decided to write maudlin poetry about the fact like a normal person. I'm not trying to make my mortality everyone else's problem.

Check out an ad for the app here in a spot called "We've created the technology from Black Mirror's 'Be Right Back' an episode about why you shouldn't create the technology from Black Mirror's 'Be Right Back.'"

At first I wasn't sure that this wasn't a parody of the very kind of dystopian tech company in question or even just a comedy sketch – the mother is giving Tim Robinson character actor – but as best as I can tell it appears to be sincere. Not sincere as in "free from pretense or deceit" that is. It is the opposite of that. But sincere as in an actual advertisement for an actual (even if hypothetical) product.

The creator of Black Mirror Charlie Brooker has said he was inspired and disturbed by having to delete a dead friend's contact from his phone. This is something we've all likely experienced ourselves by now (as I wrote about in this piece a few years ago about reading texts from my dead father.)

I finally erased it because I felt it was time

They’re boxes we carry around that store our conversations with ghosts

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

I of course do recognize the pain of thinking "if I could only talk to them one more time." It is among the more familiar human laments. But that's just the thing it is a human emotion not a technological one. Our capacity for loss – in fact the necessity of losing and having lost – is what makes us who we are. There is no workaround. There will be no workaround. And every attempted step toward preventing that or perverting that is an affront to our humanity. Why not just taxidermy ol' nana and prop her up at the dinner table like in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? At least there's something real and tangible about that. Something honest about its evil.

That's right big buddy.

Gilligan's new show Pluribus is about what happens when everything individualistic and human about is lost by the way. Taken from us. Turns out it sucks. Who could've guessed. Unless you're a rich rapey pervert that is. Which is basically how our real world works too. Those guys always come out on top.

Here's two related Hell World pieces on American's fucked up attitudes about dying and death.

Having our dead bodies sold back to us

laying out a vision of a death untouched by profit motive

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

I grew up in a funeral home

Keeping watch in case the deceased randomly sprung back to life

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

There also happens to be a short piece about this very idea in We Had It Coming.

A desecration

My sisters had convinced me to upload her into the infernal contraption. They had all pitched in and got me one as a gift. As a transitional sort of deal.

My nephew handled the computer part of it. We were all proud of him for how much computer he was doing at school so I felt it was only right to let him chip in in his own way. 

So there it sat on the mantle next to the ashes and some of the sturdier leftover flowers they took back from the funeral home for me. 

She was never perfect I probably don’t need to tell you. You know how she was. We hadn’t had a very good last couple of years there toward the end. But from time to time I thought about turning it on. Turning her on. Not like that my goodness. Whatever the terminology is. Just as a test. To see how it worked. If it felt real.

Just talk to it they said. Just try to pretend they said. 

Alright.

Alright fine. 

I still spread out the quilt your mother gave us on the couch when I have dinner in front of the TV I told her. Even now. I load the dishwasher the way you used to. God you would get so mad about that. Make the bed most days too. 

The light inside of it was glowing. Like it was processing this new information. 

It let out a shrill beeping. The sound of a fire alarm and then her voice. 

Are you seriously smoking inside of the house right now?

The Evergreen Review was kind enough to run an excerpt from the book this week. Read it here if you haven't already. It goes in part like this:

You are in a museum

Evergreen Review

Evergreen Review

There had been a shooting recently so she felt on edge being in a crowded public space.

Seven members of a family in Ohio including a nine year old boy were shot in the head execution style. The shooter had become irate when the family asked him to stop firing off his AR-15 recreationally in his backyard so he killed most of them. Three of the other children survived. They were found covered in the blood of their mothers who were both killed while laying on top of them. Throwing their bodies in front of the bullets.

They safely hid a two month old under a pile of clothes.

Do you ever think about a shooting she asked.

By which she meant do you have a little pilot light of anxiety always burning somewhere inside. A little seed of dormant foreboding. Something strapped to your back like a heavy satchel.

I think about it more often in the aftermath of a bad one he said. I feel a bit more on edge in large public gatherings or in malls or wherever.

When do you ever go to the mall?

The proverbial mall. You know what I mean. But they happen so frequently now the reprieves in between don't last very long.

They were saying on my phone last night that you have to be prepared at all times like a soldier. Be prepared to kill anyone you see she said.

Fuck that he said. I refuse to think like that.

Here's another kind of fucking nightmare.

BU student brags on social media about calling ICE on Allston car wash workers

ICE raided the car wash. Many of the employees reportedly had legal status, but were unable to immediately provide their documentation when questioned by agents.

WBURRachell Sanchez-Smith

The president of the Boston University College Republicans said in social media posts that he repeatedly tipped off immigration authorities about an Allston car wash that was later raided.

In a post on X about a week ago, Zac Segal wrote that he called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for “months on end,” and that agents had “finally responded to my request to detain these criminals.”

Evil fucking King Krule over here – from London by the way – deciding who deserves to suffer or thrive or not in America.

I don't know maybe there are some people who we could try banishing to the phantom zone for a bit and see how it works. Maybe some of us have it coming.

The Joyce Carol Oates roast of Elon Musk from the other day about him not liking anything is something I've said before about a lot of politics poisoned posting addicts. People who never once post about a band they like – or anything at all. There are so many people like that.

Can you imagine – I don't know – whoever you're thinking of right now posting a picture of the ocean that they took? Or about a movie in aesthetic terms and not as part of the political discourse?

One of the great pleasures in life is sharing something beautiful with others.

Sharing art isn't quite the same as creating it in the first place but it's akin to that in that you are making it exist for others who might not have known it otherwise. You are also at the same time making yourself known. It's an act of kindness and generosity and vulnerability. Something is wrong with your soul if you never ever do that.

Maybe that's what being trapped inside of the phone feels like?

After five appearances in one week I will be happy to never leave my house for a month at least. The Boston and New York City dates of the book tour were so lovely and people were so nice but please do not ever look me in the eye ever again.

You can watch a recording of the NYC event here including a bunch of great readings and my discussion with Spencer Ackerman. It's pretty funny I think.

I know I just said up top I'll sign some more books but man I am so bad at it. At least I'm in good company.

That's all for today. I have to go drink a whole fucking thing of DayQuil and listen to this.

🚨 NEW ROBYN 🚨