Has anyone been following this by anychance? I dont really know the extent the mainstream media has given this coverage as most of what I've heard about it is from smaller sources, though it seems to have grown to quite a large scale.

For those that dont know, Anonymous essentially comes from the nature of posting "anonymously" on 2ch-type boards, and thus somehow has grown into an anonymous entity that has actually grown to be somewhat powerful in the realworld. 2 days ago, they organized a worldwide protest against scientology, and the numbers that showed are somewhat stunning. Probably more surprising is the fact that this group is completely anonymous and roots from all places, such as 4chan which is both intriguing and frightening at the same time.

Theres a relatively good source of videos, links and pictures of this on Warren Ellis's discussion board:





Honestly, what I find most interesting about the whole thing has nothing to do with Scientology itself, but a great example of how the very nature of the internet is completely shifting/transforming social boundaries, and how certain power dynamics are structured. Its really interesting in this case, because a seemingly random collection of memes, and "anonymous"-posting has somehow created a non-existent entity. But this seemingly non-existent gets simulated in real life, almost like the imitation of an imitation, or some wierd sense of simulacra......

i dont know if such a term exists, but have we possibly reached or approacing a sort of www/internet singularity?

As much as I find the teachings of Scientology insane and silly, bottom line is they have every right to free speech, good or bad. How are they any different from all the other fundamentlist nutjobs "threatening" humanity. If anything people should educate themselves about Scientology and hopefully pass it off as the complete bullsh*t that it is.

a self righteous and malicious crusade of pranks, threats, spamming and hacking by an anonymous collective of cowardly protesters is ultimately empty and accompilshes nothing. Were they trying to be helpful? to whom? If anything it gives Scientology more undeserved publicity.

wiki info:



can't speak to your internet singularity theory as its past lunchtime and I had turkey which makes me a lazy tard. intriguing thought though.

That is really interesting stuff. I think you used two great words to describe it: interesting and frightening at the same time. That's a loaded question about whether or not we're reaching an internet singularity. I really don't have an answer, but it'll be interesting to continue to see how the internet affects our lives beyond the net.

Hum I feel like I need to read more on this then what I briefly went through in the link, but some of my first thoughts were, I'm not sure if internet "singularity" is the right term. What exactly do you mean by singularity or what's your definition? From what it seems these people are doing - the bare bones of it at least, gathering and protesting against an institution, that's not really that unusual. In this day and age there are definitely many other activists have organized protests by circulating publicity via the internet, and they usually manage to gather people from outside of their immediate neighborhood. I remember a couple of big marches when I was in college where people would circulate mass e-mails about time, location, etc. and then drive down to Washington D.C. together.

The scope of Anonymous and the perpetuation of internet memes are unusual, but again I'm not sure if that's enough to make the event stand alone as a singularity. In my mind it'd kind of be like, if 4chan organized anime fans to protest some company or something and they showed up in cosplay... not that that example is something that's realistic or going to happen soon, but in my mind the memes thing is essentially just a way for these people to gather around something they can commonly identify with. Maybe that would be part of what you mean by internet singularity. I'm thinking though you could also argue that the www/internet singularity doesn't exist outside the internet, once it enters RL. Again the anime cosplay example comes to mind - if anime fans dress up as anime characters, essentially bringing to RL parts of anime, does that make that a "singularity" the way that Anonymous is doing with those internet meme costumes/get-ups?

Also I'm not sure how long this Anonymous "movement" will sustain itself. Again I'm kind of vague on what you mean by singularity, which I'm more or less equating as an unique identity here - but if it doesn't manage to sustain itself over a decent period of time, and I'm kinda skeptical on how long the public interest in taking down the church of Scientology will last, then that's another disqualifier in my mind.

With that said I think you're an academic at heart crap xD You should pursue the college professor thing so you can research and write books about stuff like this ;3

I guess Im referring to a "technological" singularity which is roughly defined as the point in time when technology becomes so advanced it itself creates improved versions of itself. In other words, the human factor sort of gets taken out of the equation and it becomes its own evolving entity. I sort of took it to refer to this sort of internet phenomena where I'm seeing its becoming ever closer to a point where the internet itself isn't merely just "real" people using a means to communicate but a sort of organism that is changing by itself. Its hard to put it into words but I roughly see two elements to this. On the one hand you have the simple fact that the internet can be seen as a possibly an extension, replacement, alternate social space that has a sense of freedom of flow that isn't seen in reality. i.e. such things as discussionboards and even something as simple as wikipedia really conveys this notion of a shared body of knowledge physically manifesting itself. On the other hand, the very nature of the internet has allowed people to converse and act without identity, or anonymously as seen notoriously on places like 4chan.

What I find so interesting about the latter is not that people have gotten together to protest, but that such a group in itself has been able to form without any sense of real identities or structure. What is different here then normal social cohesion is that it isnt formed by really any standard form of socialization. If you followed how this actually progressed, it was simply people posting videos and someone/peoples posting an announcement for this mass protest. There is no sense of leadership or membership even by any normal usage of the terms which makes it even more shocking at the singificant turnout rates in some of the locations. Oregon being a great example, with at least 400 reported and London which last I heard has easily more then 500.

Possibly the more entertaining aspect for people who actually have been lurkers on 2ch boards knows the complete absurdity that this is. In that essentially mediagroups such as Fox have pretty much fabricated the existence of "Anonymous" themselves as some sort of covert group of cyberterrorists when in fact its just an essentialization of sites like 2chan and 4chan, which in turn somehow got mimicked in real life and became a real entity. Basically, anonymous never really existed, but once this pseudo organization got reported on, it somehow actually materialized. The whole thing actually makes me think of Baudrillard and his ideas of Simulacra, where theirs a blur between reality and imitation. And in a final step, where the imitation or simulated becomes the real, or replaces the real. Think about how something like "Guitar Hero" has replaced many people's hobbys over the original instrument of learning to play a real guitar.

#Simulacra_and_Simulation

Its funny you should mention anime though cause theres a great example of such an event. You can read about it here:

#2channel_incident

And like you honestly, I had little confidence that such a protest would ever work, I mean...who would show up and seemingly "break" their anonymity? But the large numbers have already shattered that prediction or feeling completely. Whats also funny is, at least according to Warren Ellis (not that hes a reliable source), supposedly he has stated he knows from unnamed sources that the anonymous group is actually getting collaborative help from "some veterans in the protest and independent-media businesses". So I dont know, maybe this whole "protest" thing is alot more serious then it appears to be. Cause to me and many others, the protestors don't seem to be taking themselves that seriously but there might be other larger parties at play here.

Whether or not they can sustain themselves is really hard to predict. Im surprised people even showed up for this protest but only time will tell if future dates will yield equal or possibly larger results. What is known though is that it can't really be combatted in any conventional sense. The entity itself doesn't exist on any physical plan nor does it have a sort of infrastructure one could possibly attack.


...yea and thats my long bit of randomness for the day....

oh and the wiki article on the technological singularity for those unfamiliar...

I second the college professor career path for crap!...thanks for the info, I'm slowly digesting the singularity wiki.

...incidentally crap is my new man-crush. I will now go read his blog and get in touch with my weird asian half.

random: I could be wrong but I think crap is the reason I picked up 'Old Boy' years back o_O;

evol = stalker

hahah uh.....thats interesting, thanks I guess.

anyways, for those that actuallly wanted to know exactly what anonymous was protesting against, and sort of the main narrative behind the development, the following video does a pretty good job of summing the whole thing up. hosted on spikedhumor of all places:

Hum... ok. I can kind of see aspects of the singularity thing, but to me it still seems more like the means as opposed to the end, if that makes any sense. If they had just randomly gathered then I would read that more as the internet recreating itself? Especially to your point about how it didn't really come together until the media reported on it, and that there may (or may not) be larger parties involved. After watching the latest video you linked, it especially made me think that this was a very cleverly planned movement. Protesters were in costume which feeds off memes, but there was also a practical reason behind it - they didn't want to be sued. Since Scientology has a history of going after people, Anonymous invented itself as a "guerilla" organization without any clear structure or identity. People contacted well-known Scientology critics for advice. Maybe it's true that some of the protesters weren't serious about the issue against Scientology and were out to have a good time, but at least from the spikedhumor video, it seems like most people ARE taking it quite seriously and their positioning of themselves against this institution is what lends the whole thing its credence/identity. So yeah that's kind of what I was thinking with the means vs. ends thing. This is not to say that I disagree with your points - they make sense to me - but just presenting another perspective.

BTW, the "His face is beard" bit was awesome xD

when i made a made a reference to singularity i meant more how the internet is becoming something that is beyond our control. this isnt to be taken in similarity to an idea of the internet recreating itself, though I did mention simulacra. Im actually finding its alot more clever then I original had thoguht indeed. Before, it seemed amatuerish but what is striking is that they simply put out comedic notices saying to be at said place at said time, and wear a mask.

In all honesty though, all of what I said is just random ideas and shit Im throwing out there. its not meant to be taken as my stance on anything really.....

And sort of a strange video I found several months back:



Its actually kind of shitty but it does paint a very general but interesting possible narrative in regards to the future of communication+media.

Some interesting stuff I stumbled upon...

Youtube Blocking Scientology Protests from Reaching the Frontpage
Cult Awareness Network Boughtout by CoS


The count is now at least 7500 in attendance.

That is pretty interesting. Have the protest been uprising only recently?

Well, it was only one protest, it was pre-announced via a youtube video and online flyers that were distributed on *chan boards and the like on Jan 21. On a global scale, the protests took place on Sunday Feb 10 in major cities around the world.

The larger ones I know of took place in LA, Oregon, and London. Each at about 300, 400, and >500 respectively. The next protest is set for March 15, two days after Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. Subsequently, protests are expected to occur every month til May.

Interesting new development, although any correlation to Anonymous protests is wholly speculative....

Shawn Lonsdale, a prominent Scientology Critic found dead:



many people find it somewhat freakishly coincidental in its close timing to the protests and the investigation itself is under heavy debate. For example, its been deemed a suicide but seems fishy in that he was found dead in his house with a hose going from his car, to inside his house from his exhaust. Im not going to personally make any conclusions on this myself but I can definitely see where people are seeing this as some sort of setup......

Just to add quickly, just found out that Anonymous has already put forth a 2nd project...
Operation Reconnect: