Hypnospace Outlaw has delivered this year's hot Christmas jam!!
December 24, 2019 9:06 AM Subscribe
The Chowder Man - "Christmas Pain in Christmas Town" (feat. Dave Pino) [YouTube] “The biggest musical surprise of this Christmas is not the back-to-back Christmas Number Ones for songs about sausage rolls but a monster jam coming in hot from Hypnospace Outlaw. The Chowder Man, a faded rockstar you might have encountered when surfing the information sleeperhighway, released a Christmas song over the weekend. It’s named Christmas Pain In Christmas Town and here’s the thing: it’s an absolute banger. A proper great Christmas song. A friend who doesn’t know Hynospace likened it to a Carly Rae Jepsen song, which is one of pop’s highest compliments. And the Hynospace-y music video, oh my!” You can listen Christmas Pain to on Bandcamp and Spotify too, where you’ll find more of Hot Dad’s music. [via: Rock Paper Shotgun]
Bonus Game Review: Hypnospace Outlaw is a hilarious satire on internet stupidity and venality [Polygon][Game Trailer]
Bonus Game Review: Hypnospace Outlaw is a hilarious satire on internet stupidity and venality [Polygon][Game Trailer]
“Hypnospace Outlaw is a flawless piece of historical fiction, a savage work of contemporary satire, and a genuinely tricky puzzle game. Set entirely in a late ’90s Geocities-like online hub called Hypnospace, it tasks the player with working as a community enforcer, administering a code of behavior across its user-created pages. These ugly websites are populated by a diverse cast of internet archetypes extant in the ’90s, as now. My job is to take down copyright infringers, virus makers, hackers, scammers, and trolls. I interact with them in ways similar to mechanics in other politically charged games, like Papers, Please and Orwell, gathering information through observation. I look through their websites and I decide if they are breaking the rules. I can delete stuff from their pages, and I can report them for greater punishment, such as a ban.”
It's too bad this post and Hypnospace Outlaw by extension isn't getting much attention here on Metafilter. The game is a well made celebration of late 90s/early 00s internet communities and Metafilter is one of the remaining relics from that era.
The game very intelligently commentates on the ways people expressed themselves on their ramshackle personal websites in a way that's lost today with Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, how communities formed in the early internet and the bickering that would inevitably ensue, the troll communities (Something Awful, teenage pseudo-hackers) surrounding the sincere ones, and the different ways corporate interests tried to integrate into the system (from blatant corporate sponsorship of organic communities, to ad-sponsored "online helper programs" ala Bonzai Buddy to exploit older users intimidated by the technology, to the larger tech companies trying to wrest control over their users). The game is also partly an internet community moderator-simulator and they perils that come with it. All of these nicely tie into the variety of dramas you may have seen on sites like Metafilter over the years...
I don't think the game was incredibly successful but hopefully someone here sees this thread and considers trying it out. The game is more than it seems when you first start - it is not just a Geocities satire and treating it purely as parody really lessens it.
posted by bittermensch at 3:10 PM on December 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
The game very intelligently commentates on the ways people expressed themselves on their ramshackle personal websites in a way that's lost today with Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, how communities formed in the early internet and the bickering that would inevitably ensue, the troll communities (Something Awful, teenage pseudo-hackers) surrounding the sincere ones, and the different ways corporate interests tried to integrate into the system (from blatant corporate sponsorship of organic communities, to ad-sponsored "online helper programs" ala Bonzai Buddy to exploit older users intimidated by the technology, to the larger tech companies trying to wrest control over their users). The game is also partly an internet community moderator-simulator and they perils that come with it. All of these nicely tie into the variety of dramas you may have seen on sites like Metafilter over the years...
I don't think the game was incredibly successful but hopefully someone here sees this thread and considers trying it out. The game is more than it seems when you first start - it is not just a Geocities satire and treating it purely as parody really lessens it.
posted by bittermensch at 3:10 PM on December 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
First 40 seconds: I'm going to go reply that this song is bad and you should feel bad.
60 seconds in: the CGI elves clapping is getting me.
78 seconds in: okay that guitar jam is catchy.
Song hasn't ended yet: messaging everyone I know who will appreciate the musical equivalent of The Room but also good.
Song ends: I could listen to that again.
Save yourselves.
posted by abulafa at 7:52 PM on December 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
60 seconds in: the CGI elves clapping is getting me.
78 seconds in: okay that guitar jam is catchy.
Song hasn't ended yet: messaging everyone I know who will appreciate the musical equivalent of The Room but also good.
Song ends: I could listen to that again.
Save yourselves.
posted by abulafa at 7:52 PM on December 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
God help me, I can't stop listening to this. How can it be both a perfectly embarassing evocation of the classic mediocre 1999 goatee'd middle-aged prog rock dork AND a bop?
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 10:58 PM on December 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 10:58 PM on December 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Thank you internet.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:24 PM on December 25, 2019
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:24 PM on December 25, 2019
This is the first I've heard of the game. I like the animation, but I don't know that the gameplay itself sounds enjoyable. Interesting concept though.
The appeal of the song is completely lost on me.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:46 AM on December 26, 2019
The appeal of the song is completely lost on me.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:46 AM on December 26, 2019
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