Like horn rimmed glasses, but it's a kind of jacket?

November 13, 2012 3:43 PM

Authentic Wm. Gibson promises “synopses for William Gibson novels that are definitely 100% real, but only in a timeline with greater authenticity than this one.”, and delivers exactly that.
posted by acb (26 comments total)

This is hilarious.
posted by brundlefly at 3:48 PM on November 13, 2012

Mind blown.
posted by brundlefly at 3:49 PM on November 13, 2012 [4 favorites]

Unclassifiable mega-storm decimates swaths of Boston-Atlanta Metro. Axis. NJ residents vote by fax. World transfixed by S. Korean pop video.
posted by hot soup at 3:54 PM on November 13, 2012 [14 favorites]

Most are so-so (though I enjoy them), but this one is incredible:

10^6 rounds of high-v caseless ammunition missing from armory at 46th Rocket Div Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast. 'Dolphin safe' macaroni isn't.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:01 PM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the ammo/dolphin-safe one absolutely nails it, but this:

Unknown weirdo creates pastiche of iconic SF author, constructing textual Cornell boxes, filled with snippets of cyberpunk microplots...

This is genius — that the TNG_S8 of Gibson novels would end up describing itself is so completely perfect. And the whole account wasn't something I knew I needed, but I did.

Who's going to start the meta-parody Twitter account that only tweets perfect ideas for parody Twitter accounts?
posted by RogerB at 4:06 PM on November 13, 2012 [6 favorites]

This guy follows me on twitter.

It makes me slightly nervous.


Slightly.

( begins tapping out a binary SOS on the desk)
posted by The Whelk at 4:11 PM on November 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

RogerB: "Who's going to start the meta-parody Twitter account that only tweets perfect ideas for parody Twitter accounts?"

Wasn't there a MeFi post that linked to a Tumblr blog composed of ideas for Tumblr blogs?
posted by brundlefly at 4:15 PM on November 13, 2012

Wasn't there a MeFi post that linked to a Tumblr blog composed of ideas for Tumblr blogs?

Yes, I believe it was called “Look At This Fucking Blog To Book Deal”. It's no longer around, though.
posted by acb at 4:18 PM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

And by recently you mean three thousand years ago.

The speed of the modern meme cycle is a little scary.
posted by The Whelk at 4:19 PM on November 13, 2012

This. is. wonderful.

...internet dorks disappointed that it's not a whirring, molybdenum-cased Markov robot pecking the keys of a 1892 Blickensderfer typewriter.

Damn skippy.
posted by Avelwood at 4:26 PM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is the implication here that the actual William Gibson is unauthentic? because that sounds like it might be a good William Gibson story
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:28 PM on November 13, 2012

He's a simulacrum of authenticity, created by "Siberpunku" a small collective of Japanese otaku obsessed with mid 80's American science fiction authors. Their workshop is phenomenal, with meticulously reconstructed Atari cabinets, Wang word processors, and early Madonna playing in the background.
posted by percor at 4:40 PM on November 13, 2012 [24 favorites]

He, Gibson, is done, right? I mean, this is it, his work has hit the nail so thoroughly on the head that it has gone through the wood (and the fabric of space-time) and looped back in on reality.

I bet he'd sad in a "and Alexander wept..." kind of way.
posted by sendai sleep master at 4:51 PM on November 13, 2012

Actually, he already retweeted the account a few times back on the 2nd. I can only assume he's working all the themes into the book he's currently working on. (If you aren't already following him, you should.)
posted by sysinfo at 5:07 PM on November 13, 2012

So it's an attempt to molydeux Mr. Gibson?
posted by mbrubeck at 5:14 PM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't mind that the world has turned into a William Gibson novel, if only it had turned into one of the good ones. I don't much care for sharing oxygen with enigmatic super-rich coolhunters moping through decaying urban cityscapes, with chronic jet-lag and tactical underwear.
posted by KHAAAN! at 5:25 PM on November 13, 2012 [4 favorites]

This is as good a place as any for this:

Fake Pinterest

I fear that the overlap of people who find humor both in this and the fake Gibson twitter might be small. Wave if you'd like to join me.
posted by mai at 5:45 PM on November 13, 2012 [5 favorites]

I guess I'm in that overlap area, mai.
posted by brundlefly at 6:05 PM on November 13, 2012

I feel I'm missing something with the dolphin one (durr) but this is genius:

Pigeons wearing anklets w/16kb of homemade mem & a low power LED flasher random walk the nodes of an underground network in occupied Tehran.

KHAAAN!: agreed. About once a week, I read a news story which brings to mind the line from Count Zero: ‘... the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.’ Though I seem to remember that in context it's rather more literally true than the cases I apply it to.
posted by pont at 6:07 PM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm in a universe where this is a for reals headline/subhead pair:

Did bath salts push John McAfee to murder?
The anti-virus software genius is on the lam in Belize, where a drug addiction may have driven him insane

I mean, the only part that doesn't seem Gibsonian is "bath salts," and that's just because it sounds too zany to be his kind of realish.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:42 PM on November 13, 2012 [5 favorites]

Antique Australo-American news magnate enters supercooled Cu-Perovskite capsule for 4 years -- not in hypersleep, he just hates it out here.

God if only he would. What can we do to convince him?
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 12:18 AM on November 14, 2012

Unfortunately the world is turning into a Phillip K. Dick novel.
posted by yonega at 2:08 AM on November 14, 2012

I mean, the only part that doesn't seem Gibsonian is "bath salts," and that's just because it sounds too zany to be his kind of realish.

That reminds me of a story a few years ago in which men in China were hospitalised after taking an illicit sexual enhancement drug whose name translated as “Power 1 Walnut”. Everything seemed Gibsonian except for the excessively goofy and not at all cyberpunkishly cool street name.
posted by acb at 3:19 AM on November 14, 2012

You Can't Tip a Buick: I'm in a universe where this is a for reals headline/subhead pair

We also live in a universe where... and let me try to get this into less than 140 characters:

Head of CIA & robot assassin program, adulters w/Mil.Int. major & Harvard PhD student, uncovered by FBI agent gone rogue and shirtless.

And that's not even half of the Gibsonian weirdness of that story!
posted by Kattullus at 7:04 AM on November 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

The media and the flashy toys are Gibsonian, the metaphysics and some of the politics are Phildickian, and we're all left hoping the final outcome isn't a Peter Watts novel.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:32 AM on November 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

I remember last year when there was a brief possibility of conflict between Anonymous and the Zeta cartel that "elements of an anonymous non-hierarchical international hacking collective go to war with a major drug syndicate founded by ex-Mexican special forces members" would make a great Gibson sub-plot.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:51 AM on November 14, 2012 [3 favorites]