EP0007 – Modern Transparency

Please stop trying to figure out who I am and where I live. I know you don’t really get why, but it makes me very uncomfortable. 

And yeah, sure: go ahead and call me one-thirteen. I don’t mind it. 

Written and produced by Kale Brown. Artwork by Kale Brown. 

All music and sound effects used are available under a CC0 license or with permission. Music was ‘Sphere’ by Andrew Kn. [LOUD EERIE NOISE] was ‘Sci-fi Ambient Drone’ by Niedec. 

Visit us on Twitter at @sinkholepodcast or visit the website at sinkholepodcast.com. 

Transcript

INTRO: [Someone inhales deeply; their inhale has a distant, echoing quality to it. A strange, rattling sound grows in volume and speed before fading into eerie, warbling music. There’s a strange crackling sound. The voice whispers “Sinkhole.” The pitch and speed of the music drop, fading into the next track.]

[A low, slow hum fills the background. The melody is subtle and largely ambient.]

I’m not putting one of the tapes in my head.

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I’d just end up smacking myself in the face with a VHS. Somebody else would have to do it for me- and again, I have no intention of telling any of you where I live! 

Also, nothing interesting would happen- it’d just wreck the tape, and maybe make me sick from handling it. I’m not sure how quickly… things accumulate radiation in there. Whenever I go for testing, they always whisk things away immediately after removing them, so… I just sort of assume pretty fast?  

But whatever the Hole does to magnetic tape is not the same as what my sinkage does to things. There’s a reason people are allowed to live in the Sink: this is not a radioactive area. 

It’s just… low-income, because living here means living with the knowledge that if the Hole decides to throw another party at some point, you could get caught in the sinklight, and the only people who don’t have to worry about that are the hundred-twelve. 

The dome won’t do much if the Hole expands again. 

This Sink is a hazardous area, not a fucking fallout zone. It’s like… living next to a volcano. 

Also, a handful of you are still convinced I’m a liar. I don’t mind that. I don’t mind that at all.

To those of you who are upset and have jumped to my defense now that the skeptics have started calling me ‘hundred-thirteen’ or ‘one-thirteen’ or something: I’m actually fine with it. 

Someone who is convinced I’m not from the Hole is probably not trying to systematically work out which of the hundred-twelve I am, and that’s fine by me. I’d much rather have all of you think I’m lying than have all of you trying to figure out who I am and where I live.  

Go ahead and call me one-thirteen. I don’t mind it. 

I know the mods already made a post about it, but I’d like to… [sighs]

Maybe I can help people understand where it is I’m coming from. 

This is not me trying to hide something about myself from you. I’m… it’s just…

[pause]

The general attitude people have towards personal privacy now is very different than it was when I was growing up and, as someone who is very cognizant of being in a very different world than the one I grew up in, I try to be understanding of that.

But I don’t think I’m ever going to be…

I don’t think I’m ever going to be completely comfortable with how immediately and insistently open with their information people are these days. 

I grew up in a world where you couldn’t just feel someone’s intentions and know whether or not they were trustworthy. 

On the internet, people could lie, and they did. 

It wasn’t always easy to tell who was telling the truth, and there was a whole microculture of fear that developed around that specifically. 

So whenever one of you publicly posts your location data for the whole world to see, it kind of freaks me out a little. I get this reflexive knot in my gut like I should do something about it, even though I know things are… different now. 

[LOUD, EERIE NOISE]

The concept of stranger danger clearly wasn’t a thing for you, but it was for me, and I can’t shake that. 

[sighs]

I can’t get comfortable with the sort of unconditionally trusting transparency so many of you want from me, and my refusing to assent to it is not an invitation to be... 

Do- do people still used the word ‘doxxed’? Is that still the word for it? 

[shifts in chair]

[old man voice] “Back in my day, we called it ‘doxxing’. That word came from indoctrination, because chanting strangers in black robes would come to your house in the middle of the night and take you away to a haunted pizzeria! And no one would see you again. Just another Tuesday on the internet…”

[normally] No. No, I’m joking, it wasn’t actually like that, and I actually have no idea where the word doxx comes from. 

Anyway, whatever you call it, d-don’t… don’t. Please? I get that you want to feel close to me and you want to feel like you can trust me, but it really freaks me out. 

[old man voice] “Because I’m old and decrepit and simply masquerading as young person. I am surrounded on all sides with these fellow youths with their head-wires and their nervous technology.” 

[normally] Sorry, I’m in a bit of a mood.

I got rained on coming back from the corner store and didn’t have my umbrella, and knowing that the Earth has slightly less water on it than it did before some of it fell into my weird head always makes me feel kind of… a little… existential, I guess.

Also, one of you sent me the most uncomfortable version of the Tennenbaum VR headset you could find, which is very funny, but… 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really nice gesture, and the idea that there was this thought process that went, “They’ve got a sunk head, so it has to feel terrible to wear,” is just… is just so funny to me, but… 

Please don’t send me gifts.  

It’s not that I’m not grateful. 

Thank you. Sincerely, thank you. You must’ve gone pretty far back into my post history to know I was looking for one of these, and I appreciate the effort you must have gone to in finding it- I mean, I- I’ve been sitting on these Tennenbaum simulation cartridges for over a year at this point because I couldn’t find one. 

But please don’t send me gifts. 

Please. 

I’m so off-topic here.

The mods have given me way too much leeway. I’m turning into a problem child.  

I have an update on the Sinkhole tapes: I’ve started to see more significant distortion. There’s definitely something there. 

But I don’t know what I’m doing. 

[beat, laugh] You know, a long time ago- before the Hole, before everything- I had a friend who was really into vinyl. 

Uh, records, I mean.  

An analog audio storage medium. One I didn’t mention in my first source post, which a lot of you were quick to point out, and looking back, I’m a little surprised no one picked up on it sooner. 

She always used to complain about these old collectors, these people who had been around in the sixties and seventies and were able to pick up the pressings when they were first made- she always used to say, “they’re too in it; they only see the scopes of their childhoods, and they don’t understand the medium.”

I never understood what she meant by that. I kinda always thought she was just being pretentious.

And, y’know, maybe she was. 

But she was also right, and I’m… I’m realizing that. I think I’ve been telling on myself since the beginning.

I think if she’d been one of you, she would’ve looked at my perspective on pre-NEV and instantly clocked me as one of the hundred-twelve. 

[EERIE NOISE]

For most of you, the relationship you have with analog and early digital is cultivated: it’s something you sought out and chose to learn about the same way people in my generation sought out and chose to learn about vinyl. 

It is not within the scopes of your childhoods. 

But for me, my relationship to videotapes and cassettes- old CDs, flip-phones, all that shit- I grew up with that. The way I look at it is defined entirely by the scope of my childhood. 

Before I started doing these posts, I never knew how much I never knew because when you grow up with these things, you just assume you know everything you’ll ever need to.

The tape goes in the player, the disc goes in the drive. 

I guess what I’m saying is… I’ve realized I’m… in over my head and I need help. I don’t know the first goddamn thing about signal isolation. I don’t know why I thought I’d just intuitively understand it. 

I don’t. 

I’ll play you some of the raw data I’ve pulled- it sounds to me like bits of other signals are intruding on the originals, and part of me wonders if it’s actually some sort of data bleed from the other tapes- but I don’t have the faintest fucking clue how to find out if that’s true. 

I’ve been acting like I’ve got everything figured out, and I absolutely do not. 

I’d like to cross-reference the tape data with the intrusive signals and check my theory, but I don’t know how to do that. 

This is what I hear when I play these things. 

[indistinct voice speaking amidst a chatter of much clearer voices]

Help me. I’m goddamn helpless. 

If you can send me some resources, that would help me a lot. I’m honestly drowning. I can pull and compile the data without a problem, but now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it. 

I think what needs to happen here is my swallowing my pride. I think we’re going to get our best results from working together. 

Also, um- sorry if I never seem to shout out who sent in what, it’s just that I’m never sure which of you are in, um, experiential collectives and I know that’s sort of a thing with that when it comes to referencing the individual versus the collective, so I’ve… I’ve just been avoiding it. I don’t understand it very well and I- I don’t wanna… accidentally insult anybody.

If you want to be shouted out when I get to your tape, shoot me a message about how I should do that and I’ll make a note of it. 

Sorry for everything, and thanks for your patience. 

I’m really feeling my age today. 

Uh, that’s all for now, I think.

Stay safe and try not to fall into any holes. 

[The ambient music fades into the next track.]

[An eerie, warbling music akin to the opening music plays, rising in volume and then slowing and quieting.]