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NULL mag Issue 06 12 The Underground
lets see what "underground" means... and talk about some stuff...
// https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/go%20underground
> to start working in secret
> The political party went underground after the new government took
> power.
> a movement or group organized in strict secrecy among citizens
> especially in an occupied country for maintaining communications,
> popular solidarity, and concerted resistive action pending liberation
> a clandestine conspiratorial organization set up for revolutionary or
> other disruptive purposes especially against a civil order
> an unofficial, unsanctioned, or illegal but informal movement or group
> especially
> a usually avant-garde group or movement that functions outside the
> establishment
// https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/underground
> An underground activity is secret and usually illegal:
> an underground newspaper/movement
> The Communist Party was forced (to go) underground, and its leaders
> went into hiding.
> a secret system, used in the 19th century, by which slaves (= people
> who had been sold and forced to work) in the southern US were helped
> to escape to places where there was no slavery
so what it really means "underground", is doing something that at the
present time is considered illegal, against a law, a regime. in
secret! but as other words, we did finally succeed to change their
meaning and give them less important meanings or totally different. so
now "underground" means something that is not "mainstream". take a look
here: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Underground
but "not mainstream" is a complete different meaning from "going
illegal"! its not the same! some assholes took the word and for
profit in the music industry, named some songs/bands as underground
to gain more money. so today if you use facebook, you are mainstream,
but if you use discord you are "underground"?
what all this have to do with the bbs scene? well the bbs scene in
the 80s-90s was literally underground. the whole HPAVC thing was
underground! it was illegal! it was against big companies! it was
spreading ideas like anarchism! it was "breaking" into phone
companies! it was about hacking and spreading the truth! where is all
this now? in the internet? not like it was in the 90s in the bbses.
not even slightly.
today phreaking is gone... hacking is... really i don't know what it
is... you see "hacking" as a way for some thieves to get money and
not spread truths. we hear about "hackers" from countries like china,
us, russia etc... those aren't hackers... that's not underground!
that's a regime spreading propaganda! we see "hackers" finding
exploits and let companies learn about them, so they take some fee or
a job position in those corps. that's not undrgrnd! that's lame shit!
today's underground scene we can say that's only the "alternative media",
and this with some caution, cause you never know who's behind them
and some warez/torrentz groupz/sitez. even the dark web is not
underground... cause its not about freedom, but only for illegal
profit and even though, you don't know if this is a set up from some
secr.ser. to log idiot criminals. something like a "honeypot".
the meaning of the word has been diminished and i think that this is
done on purpose. in the 40s, if you had a radio and listen to bbc you
could be executed. today you can have a youtube channel and say realy
serious things and no one will care. and if "they" care, you will be
"put out" with false accusations, that will have to do with some
other aspect of your life and not about what you said. in this way,
not only no one will understand why you were "put out", but they also
see you as a weirdo, a criminal etc.
so... us the word "underground" lost its meaning, the same way the
whole underground movement lost its way, its meaning, its value. you
can see the word in music albums, in tshirts, just for the eye to
catch and someone profit some back$... but not for the true cause.
you can see young people talking about the underground scene, but
don't know shit about it and how it is to be really undrgrnd.
in the bbs scene, the only thing i see as underground is the works of
some artists, that trough they work, they cauterize society, the
present political status quo, the idiocracy of current society. it
may not be too much... but its a good and different move... cause
honestly, ansi/ascii art is not only drawing comics, bbs menus,
fonts, weird colored images etc. art for me has to have a meaning, an
idea, that is not just against the mainstream ideas of people, but
be "right" and come from the heart. now... what "right" means... is a
whole other story :(
so.. its nice to have some ansi/ascii-vists... even if they are a few of
them. as for networks and bbses... i think that there, its even worse.
with some exceptions of providing some warez/torrentz, i don't think
that there is something "underground" in the bbses... except if it is
so secret, that i haven't learned about... so it must be
underground(?) ;)
