# critique of aaa-indie garmedevs 100 rabbits calculating the truer costs of the 'aaa indie' garmedev lifestyle aka 'my life as an instagram filter' while contextualizing its hip colonial tourist fantasies ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-01.jpg|600]] > why do you think that vidyagarm adventurers always need to tour the world's hottest locations > ~ critical distance > normal person: where did you grow up? > rich snobby freak: the south pacific > normal person: i'm sorry where? > rsf: the south pacific islands; tuamoto archipelago - french polynesia tahiti papeete > normal person: flock off > ~ cypher 2002 takeaway: oh the screaming artifice and affectation - everything about this couple cries 'christ what a pair of pretentious munts' to imagine a contextual critique for the (frankly unlikely sounding) devine lu linvega and rekka bell - names bringing to mind people called 'clay' in bad 80s novels about sociopaths ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-01.jpg|600]] also sounding like you named yourself after monstrous silicon life form form 'davine lu linvega' from tsutomu nihei's cult cyberpunk manga blame! doesn't bode well if one _doesn't_ want to appear as if one has 'w4nk37' permanently inscribed on one's forehead **on the frozen minimalist hedonism of certain indie garme development studios** notes and observations based around ir artificial feeling skillfully advertised and precisely manufactured patreon video - which might otherwise seem perfectly ordinary and everyday - perfectly naturalized ie. made somehow natural or effortlessly self contained - within the dead beating heart of global capital that is ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-03.jpg|600]] **+** right off the bat watch as precisely 100 rabbits in ir cool logo quick march into line with military precision forming a single hyper efficient modular unit logo / logos **+** ominous background music then begins; a warning lightly infused with unconscious apocalyptic dread as though gloom death and foul decay are always the unconscious (background) fellow travellers on such a strange developmental journey queue the image of a young pale skinned couple in 'too cool for school' techno-cyber nugoth / soviet realism statue mode - somehow perfectly po faced poseurs - survivors from some lightly failed andor wilfully obscure 90s electronica band ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-04.jpg|600]] a soft sensual voice in the digital darkness then whispers: > 26 days until we leave - until we can truly begin **+** ah the humble myth of 'honest' fresh new beginnings apparently free of context cultural history or politics (for those who can afford it) ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-05.jpg|600]] yet what precisely brought you there to your holy 'alpha moment' clean and innocent - precisely on whose dusty tired shoulders does one too often arrive like queens and princes - without acknowledgement > we are independent designers **+** independent of andor from what exactly? how about being inter-dependent non designers? one is also reminded of old record shops in the uk with a darkly laughable section called 'world music' ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-06.jpg|600]] > together we made oquonie a video garme about impossible spaces - about being lost **+** interestingly oquonie is described as an ios puzzle play for ipad and iphone where bizarroid characters speak an obscure language - almost as though 100 rabbits were describing themselves ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-07.jpg|600]] to consider the 'impossible space' 100 rabbits smoothly semi-unknowingly inhabits as that of global capital; a dark space of privilege cold calculation and oh so well designed computer user interfaces featuring violently clean postmodern typefaces - a space that from the outset is precisely designed and socio synthetically constructed for one's own needs for synthetically intelligent paperclip maximization > our garme is about being lost making sense of the world **+** it's virtually impossible to be lost in today's hyper wired universe of digital information; the network has now expanded everywhere and is increasingly able to instantly find and locate - ie. contextualize anyone on its vast data control grid. or perhaps it could be more about feeling lost to the realities of the real world - just making nonsense of actual facts - another mere convenient escape into one's own tiny insular universe of neat nutrasweet moments carved up into easily traded garmeified micro fun(tm) units ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-08.jpg|600]] > we made it while travelling. we started it while we lived in japan and it was finished during a trip to thailand **+** the rapidly dying earth as one's private global entrepreneurial playground without end or limits. it must be hard going - i hear those long air conditioned trips with little niblets and in flight video can be arduous then follows a shot of a stunningly beautiful young thin woman in a clean spacious well lit and ventilated room surrounded by high end technology - probably built by wage slaves in some awful asian sweatshop ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-09.jpg|600]] > i guess i could say that oquonie was reflection of ourselves at the time. lost in translation **+** *rolls eyes*. to also consider the movie 'lost in translation' a deeply racist vanity project; watch as some fiscally solvent blank eyed city girl pirouettes on a cushion of perfumed air through a dystopian megacity of expensively cheap neon dreams - the dim ever so slightly bored look on her pink cheeked face precisely mirroring the carefully constructed 'lite' and breezy ironic detachment with which the apocalyptic west treats other people's culture - as a mere slick super surface - a convenient hyperreality coating to be casually tossed over one's own private ideological skeletons ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-10.jpg|600]] > going to new places kept us creative slavoj zizek in the most sublime hysteric said it best: > previously it was possible to talk about periods of 'equilibrium,' during which the processes of production and reproduction spun peacefully and periods in which the contradiction between the forces and the relationships worsened whereas contradiction the forces/relationships discord is part of the very 'concept' of capitalism itself (in the form of the contradiction between the social mode of production and the individual mode deprived of appropriation.) it is this very contradiction that forces capitalism into a state of permanent expansive growth incessant development of its own conditions of production. this is quite unlike earlier modes of production in which (re)production - in its "normal" state - took the form of a circular movement > if this is the case then the evolutionary reading of capital as its own limit is no longer sufficient. it is never the case that at a certain point the framework of relationships of production block the further development of productive forces; on the contrary it is this immanent limit itself this 'internal contradiction,' that pushes the perpetual development of capitalism ever onwards. the 'normal' state of capitalism is the perpetual revolutionization of its conditions of existence. from the very outset it is rotten marked by contradiction distortion immanent disequilibrium and it is for this very reason that it changes incessantly that it never stops developing" by being at sea 100 rabbits also seems to be able to 'move fast and break things' in much the same way ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-11.jpg|600]] > we decided then that this was the kind of life we wanted for ourselves **+** that one is already able to choose one's lifestyle seems very 'lucky' - yet what about everyone else? where does that leave them? where do they factor into this perfect life equation? ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-12.jpg|600]] > we want to feel lost again **+** one is reminded of ancient chinese emperors who burnt all ancient texts and cultures that went before them. in ir enforced illusion history really does starts with them. yet perhaps one is already lost in deep shit - but just doesn't care to fully realize it that is to say we enjoy the unacknowledged privileged feeling of having the fiscal choice to engage in creative expression apparently outside dominant modes of mainstream cultural production but rather than 'outside' it such our seeming independence is our very dominant mode of our existence. just like apple hypercorp used to say 'think different' - yeah but note all such alleged thinking lies clearly within the boundaries of your tax free territory that's the very definition of main stream; where most of the stinking shit and garbage floats ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-13.jpg|600]] 100 rabbits renamed ir boat pino (a stunningly aggravating character permanently suffering from inbuilt brain-damaged cuteness) from pseudo-philosophical anime 'ergo proxy' in a later patreon video 100 rabbits and a bunch of the beach bronzed and beautiful re-christen a boat with beer; laughably however rekka is quick to point out that some fancy hipster craft beer will be used for the ceremony. but of course it will dahlink - after all such distinctions separate the truly in from the out crowds **+** next a series of images taken with a nice camera then drift past all looking as though they've been given a luxurious instagram treatment ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-14.jpg|600]] > there's nothing more foreign to us than a boat in the open ocean consider what kind of enthnocentric psycho-projections are busy at work here. what unquestioned cultural values are needed to maintain perfectly plastic senses of some infinitely exotic free floating ambient 'otherness' - what forms of concrete (in the inverted hegelian sense) colonial expansionism are actually at work and play on these dirty global data waters of designer info capitalism exactly what toxic myths float such tourist dreams of 'foreignness' - what 'big other' which are ultimately from outset only ever mere reconfirmations of the epic heroic status of one's self - one's own desperate clawing white techno culture ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-15.jpg|600]] > we take off into the cosmos ready for anything - solitude hardship exhaustion death. we are proud of ourselves but when we think about it our enthusiasm's a sham. we don't want other worlds - we want mirrors > ~ scientist gibarian solaris (steven soderbergh 2002) > we want fewer things in our life **+** yeah but _all_ the 'right things' right? as though being financially independent means independence from finance - from the holy global shopping imperative. in which such obsessive-compulsive spartanism exposes the need to escape to some mythical private brotopia - the construction of a monument to digital hyper quantified self(tm) ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-16.jpg|600]] > we spend time in cafes **+** i just bet you do; casically gazing east in cool private abstracted reverie while sipping coffee made by brown skinned people under the poverty of global capital ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-17.jpg|600]] > it's a big move for us - a really big step into the unknown **+** but it is precisely known; eminently knowable and understandable thanks to one's privileged background. sure there are always risks involved in such 'capital adventures in indie venture capital' - but these somehow seem minimal and generally laughable ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-18.jpg|600]] > thank you for keeping us afloat - literally literally this is the last thing said in every flocking 100 rabbits video; consider how it signifies keeping the dream alive - the dream perhaps being an insular escapist illusion of aaa indie-pendence totally dependent on a global system of exploitative trade based on asymmetric power relations and slick endlessly psychologically self justifying elite public relations ding ding! cazually all aboard the virtual love boat to private entitled indie fantasy - in which it's a minor miracle the boat doesn't sink from the sheer unacknowledged (/unconscious) weight of pretend-scious private fantasy aka the hard labor and suffering of other human beings actually needed to keep such dreams alive. (this is somehow mirrored by little cartoons of happy couple at end of each patreon video - conveniently abstracted notions of innocence) ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-19.jpg|600]] ****update patch** one: free lives studio** a similar video exists on youtube from free lives studio responsible for 'broforce' *rolls eyes* in which director jock evan greenwood appears to effortlessly onion parody combine every 'aaa indie' development rock star asshole cliche: thanks free lives; anyone who honestly states video garme development is hard now has bile inducing corporate videos like these to contend with - what an absolute fuc shower of genital jousters ****update patch** two** ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-20.jpg|600]] in which n seems 100 rabbits are now official darlings of patreon - the unacceptably all too acceptable face of modern indie capitalism from the 100 rabbits patreon video: > we're just there - in our own little world - alone on planet pino > ~ it felt like watching a movie > both of us stood there thinking - how is any of is real - is this really our lives now? **+** when finding that delicately floating 'work / life' balance often means hard labor - for some invisible someone else ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-21.jpg|600]] > ghost hands cling desperately at the helm in an era defined by increasingly morally and ethically flexible economies and labor forms digital nomads represent another ultimate manifestation of capitalism. these location independent freelancers working from laptops on gigs ranging from web development computer programming to life coaching and video garme lifestyle blogging have emerged out of the millennial convergence of wireless technologies flowing transnational capital - and massive global inequality they travel (read: frictionlessly float) predominantly between countries with a low cost of living following the networked global slipstream which is at once stable and ephemeral - all that is solid rapidly melting into bitcoins to paraphrase marx (as in groucho) ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-22.jpg|600]] the once quirky trend enabled by the sharing economy digital nomads have grown into bona fide international subculture of true smug self-serving assholes. an ever growing list of startups exist to cater to them; tailor made visas cropping up in nomad friendly countries with no shortage of lifestyle advice neat accessories online aimed at them and ir ilk but as a community of internet enabled supra-national travellers has grown a myth has strengthened around them - the idea that all it takes to eschew citizenship to a 9 to 5 brand of hypercorporate kapitalism is an internet connection and a mildly adventurous attitude skype calls in cafes without using headphones talking loudly over locals about 'crushing it'. young entitled and arrogant crossfitters meet digital bromads. in which the digital nomad life means flexibility and freedom for those carving out a career of ever shifting postmodern dislocations. web developers copy editors online marketers or graphic designers can now apparently leave behind the nine to five grind to travel the world designer laptop in hand to fund ir private psychic adventures ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-23.jpg|600]] however though such lifestyle tells itself and others that it's open to all the single white male caricature has flourished - the popped collars of college bros with the pathetic braggadocio of 80s style stock traders. one may easily picture the digital bromad - just add a macbook infinity pool mojito and expensive flipflops bromad's particular brand of unearned confidence and hedonism is however simply the toxicity of unchecked masculinity casually invading some distant 'exotic' locale "bromad" describes someone designed primarily to make quick money live in cheap places that makes others feel uncomfortable or unwelcome with ir utter lack of respect for women or the nuances of local cultures; they may often do crunches or pushups in public with the rise of the digital nomad arrives increasingly stark awareness of shades of the gentrification and colonialism it entails - contrary to any expectations set by instagram's digital nomad hashtags 'freedom' and 'flexibility' do not automatically mean endless stress free vacation days it can mean tight budgeting difficulties adjusting to local culture constant stressful efforts to ensure one's next contract is lined up - though bromads are of course able to benefit from key systemic privileges already firmly in place western countries with attractive passports and good visa options are more likely to turn out digital nomads - indeed male dominated tech digital industries mean young men are more likely to have established enough career contact networks to risk it all on one way tickets to the mythified east - business class of course and if the nomad life does not work out rest assured the upper middle class fallback of mommy and daddy's account takes away the worst of risk ![[100-rabbits-critique-robert-what-24.jpg|600]] of course even being labelled a 'digital nomad' makes one squirm since the term conjures images of straight pink skinned male millennials usually either developers programmers or other virtual product hucksters selling something the world doesn't need (themselves) while preying on the labor of others; these of course are the loudest of digital nomads ones who have crafted the public image of ir lifestyle people worldwide have been repeatedly subjected to conversations in public places between bromads about how many local women they took home this week - how little money they are spending opposed to how much they are making everything about it is abhorrent; the globalist hipster's wet dream where the perfect sunset on another day of successful creative capitalism is shared with friends and a cold craft beer **+** "nomadism - as real virtual mobility **+** "interfaces - as mobile devices **+** "desert of realness - as the internet **+** "oases - as third -world places cafes public libraries free or cheap wi fi zones **+** "virtual fires - as forums meetings in third places **+** "originally these codes of digital nomadism were artificial or conventional but gradually have become natural or behavioral - all connected with the intellectual cultural mentality of a global community of oh so faintly detached smug wankers example reference links **+** https://www.irishtimes.com/business/hipsters-and-artists-are-the-gentrifying-foot-soldiers-of-capitalism-1.2789886 **+** sage journals: 'hipster capitalism' in the age of austerity? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1749975516681226 // republic of bob