BNet

Well, after a torturous 5+ months, the new BNet PDF is here. I’ve received hundreds of emails, every day, asking where it is, and I can now say that it is here in your inbox. I hope you enjoy it. Bnet 24q4 2.27MB ∙ PDF file This belatedly concludes the BNet 2024 experiment of a quarterly zine. It might not have been what I initially envisioned, but you cannot say I delivered four quarterly zines (on a less-than-quarterly basis). Maybe we’ll be back soon. Maybe not. I love to keep ‘em guessing.

The third issue of the BNet zine is now here, in your inbox, for your consumption. This issue has been a labor of love for me. I’ve spent the recent months trying to figure out how I could best use my platform to make readers more informed about the issues of the day. This autumn, we all must seize the opportunity to use our voices, to stand up and be counted. BNet is often about silly stuff that I love about technology.

The rumors are true: BNet as a zine is back with yet another issue. Maybe this one is too grouchy, idk. I know it’s a couple weeks late. Why is it late? You’ll have to read the PDF to find out. Topics include: the real purpose of tiktok, concert etiquette, video essays, new norm, a picture of a truck that caught fire that I took on my way to work. Questions? Comments? Complaints? —> brian@peeingandpoop.ing See you later!

Hello, I’ll keep this brief. For 2024, BNet will be a zine. The PDF file is attached. I realize sending a file attachment is weird. I feel like if I say “It’s not a virus,” people will think that there’s definitely a virus in there. I swear there’s not a virus in there, okay? Download link: — Brian Send feedback to brian@peeingandpoop.ing (similarly, that’s a real email address and not a joke).

The vast scale of the internet is cool in that it allows to see all sorts of stuff we’ve never seen before. You can watch a celebrity try a really spicy chicken wing for the first time. Or you can watch some guy on YouTube listen to Bruce Springsteen for the first time. Every day someone finds out about a new nepo baby. Probably some other examples too. If you know where to look right now, you can watch people who play video games discover the ancient concept of parody.

More and more with each year, I hate the idea of year-end recaps. As we all know, it’s an arbitrary boundary. But also, I think the growing aversion is because for roughly a decade the tone of all these recaps has been something along the lines of: This hellyear was an unhinged, chaotic dumpster fire and we all deserve an A+ simply for making it to the end — under late capitalism.

Last month, I went to the movies to see Priscilla, the second installment in the Elvis Presley Cinematic Universe that started with 2022’s Elvis and presumably continues with 2024’s Thomas. During the pre-roll ads, Regal was kind enough to let everyone know that, just in time for the holiday season, the theater would be screening Ron Howard’s notably dreadful 2000 film Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There are two things I remember about Grinch 2000, as it is sometimes called.

Readers of BNet know that I am sick and damaged in many ways. One of my most acute maladies is that I enjoy playing video games. This is not as much of a problem as it used to be, but it's still an ever-present challenge. It twists your brain in disgusting ways; I cannot in good conscience recommend this hobby to anyone. I am being a silly, li’l scamp and doing a bit here. But there are risks associated with the hobby.

Two large entertainment unions, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are on strike. These unions represent writers (the W in WGA) and the screen actors (the SA in SAG-AFTRA). They are on strike because the economics of film and television production have changed, largely due to streaming, and as a result the profession of screenwriting and screen acting has become financially untenable for a large majority of those who do it. They're right to be on strike. That's not tough to understand.

Around 1993, the internet entered a period known as Eternal September. The flipside (Temporary September?) refers to an annual spike in new internet users gaining access via their colleges at the start of the fall semester, and subsequently not knowing how to behave. But starting around September 1993, people started coming online all year round, similarly not knowing how to behave — a year-round influx of newbies of all ages and myriad backgrounds.