So is everything bots these days? I know that this is the Onion but this seems to be the general consensus. Why does everything have to be sociopolitical? Are there still stories being created for the sake of a fun story without everyone needing to turn it into a soapbox? Am I allowed dislike things like bombs being dropped in space or Leia suddenly becoming a master force user after being blasted out into space or does that mean I'm a Russian bot and I hate women? For what it's worth, in my opinion they're all very silly movies that you have to switch your brain off in order to completely enjoy, including the original trilogy. They're all kinda overrated. Does having this opinion make me the worst kind of bigoted Russian troll bot?

This 'Russian troll' scare is really starting to make it seem like people were born yesterday. Guess what, we always had 'fake news'. Back in the day we used to call it 'propaganda' and it's something that every organisation and government uses, on it's own people as well as everyone else. Your government does it too. Guess what, we always had this kind of 'troll'. Back in the day they were called 'shills' and it's something that every government and organisation uses to spread their propaganda or message or adverts. And here's one more 'guess what', and this is a big one. Not everyone that doesn't share your opinion is a troll or a bot trying to spread some shitty sociopolitical message and not all art is a soapbox. Sometimes a story is just a story and people just call it good or bad based on their personal feelings of it.

Hope I'm doing this right. Don't think I can link anything but I feel like this is a great way to start getting into the swing of things here. I've been out of touch with the music scene for a while now. So I don't really know much new or obscure stuff yet. Although in an effort to start finding my interest again, I've started going back to old stuff or rediscovering bands that I've lost touch with. Currently on my playlist by album is:

Silverchair - Young Modern (2007)

If I had listened to this album when it first came out, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it. Even now, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me as it's a lot more poppy than the stuff I usually used to listen to. Right now this is one of my most played albums and I can't really get enough of it. It's fascinating to see how this band has changed, from 1995's 'Frogstomp' which was made for 16 year olds by 16 year olds to the oddity that is 'Young Modern'. Daniel Johns in particular has shown an amazing evolution in musical and vocal styles.

Skunk Anansie - Anarchytecture (2016)

I've just recently got hold of this one. This is an album that didn't immediately grab me apart from one or two tracks but it is something that is growing on me over time. It's a little too love song heavy for my tastes but I'm enjoying the overall style of music. Not as rebellious and angry as Skunk Anansie used to be and it feels like Skin's solo career has forever effected her style.

Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks (2013)

Right now I can't get enough of the song 'Copy of A' in particular. Beyond that, I still haven't managed to concentrate enough through this album to end up with any other favourite songs from it. That's not to say it's unenjoyable but I'm finding that this style of makes me easily drift away and get lost in doing other things.

Alice Cooper - Killer (1971)

This one goes right back to the basics of my musical tastes. This is when Alice Cooper was still a band and not a solo act, when heavy metal (or I suppose classic rock) was still relatively new and experimental and unshaped by subgenre after subgenre after subgenre. I'll probably never get tired of this album.

This looks as good a place start my journey here as any. I created an account here in the past but didn't end up very active and this website became lost to me again in a sea of bookmarks that I'll probably never get back to. I was reminded of it randomly in a Reddit thread and thought I would give it a try again. Let me introduce myself by using some adjectives. I got a bit carried away, so if you stop reading at this point I wouldn't blame you.

I am white with olive skin, Roman feet, Asiatic eyes, part brown, part blonde hair, a y chromosome, a second generation South African whose father was the only one of his siblings not born in the Netherlands. I don't speak Dutch and was raised 100% English. I don't feel at home in my own country anymore or like I belong to any specific culture or creed and I have current aspirations of learning another language and becoming a stranger in a strange land in a South American country somewhere, where I have no sociopolitical battle to confront of my own. But I have no current steps or short term goals for getting there.

I procrastinate too much and am currently unemployed with only blue collar skills on my CV and I tend to daydream about being something more without acting on it more often than I'd like. I used to read a lot and write short fiction that I would mostly keep to myself. I was a metal vocalist for a while for three different bands over a short time fuelled by beer, pot, failed romance, financial hardship and in-fighting. I also used to play acoustic guitar and write my own songs. Over the years I lost my way, probably starting from the moment I discovered Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' in my father's LP collection when I was a small child. One of my all time favourite books is Philip K. Dick's 'A Scanner Darkly' and the last book I ever read and thoroughly enjoyed was 'Steppenwolf' by Hermann Hesse about ten years ago. Since then I've battled to get through any book. I also stopped writing music or singing years ago and my guitar currently collects dust in the corner of my cupboard, it's few unbroken strings old and out of tune.

When I was thirteen years old, curiosity got the better of me and I ate some highly hallucinogenic flowers without knowing what I was really getting myself into, having never been intoxicated before. It was simultaneously a great experience and a terrible experience. I followed the white rabbit into Wonderland and at times it was hard to remember that I was just creating this strange new strange new world without becoming one with it. Actually at most times it was hard to remember. I still cannot remember if I was in Wonderland for one day or two days and I haven't dared to ask but I spent most of it as mad as a hatter. The only problem is that because I was too young and too stupid, I ate them during a school break time and while my mind was busy changing from a caterpillar into a cocoon on the inside, my paralytic body was being dragged across the school quad into the sickbay, and into a hospital where I spent the next day or two looking for the secret escape tunnel to get away from my captors and into the wild. I ate the same flowers again years later after a particularly bad case of heartbreak and hopelessness and thanks to being around good people, I was much more in control of my experience. That second time was also about ten years ago, coincidentally.

Over the years I have grown angry, although I can't tell if I'm angry at society or angry at myself. And I want to regain my love for reading and writing and music and finally let my mind emerge from that cocoon, whether it's as a butterfly or a moth. I want to slow down my news and politics intake and watch from a distance as the world burns without getting too close to the flames. I want to learn multiple languages. I want to teach myself programming. I want to stop smoking so many cigarettes and slow down with the pot. I want to get unstuck.

So I guess I'll finally get around to introducing myself to this website. I am Zero22xx, or John Smith as far as the internet is concerned. I hope that I'll find this website to be a place that can replace most other social media and start feeding my soul and my mind more than my base emotions. Somewhere that I can slow down my social media intake without giving it up altogether. I'm even thinking that I might switch to Zen mode after checking out all of the features and workings of this website first. I don't always talk this much about myself and I honestly don't know what got into me here. Glad to be here, I look forward to discovering what this place is really all about and hopefully interacting as positively as possible with other travellers in time.