Here's what I've got essentially finalized (at least for a draft) thus far; rest is still notes that I need to finish compiling. Should have it done later tonight, otherwise in the morning.
***
One would have to take a survey of Anonymous to determine whether those who comprise the anti-organization feel themselves to be engaged in greater conflict with the CIA or Soulja Boy. Of course, such a survey would be impossible to conduct, as there is no universal or even practical definition by which to determine who is Anonymous and who is not, and many of those concerned would relegate all answers to Battletoads and Fuck you regardless of what happens to be asked, and anyway the answer is Soulja Boy. It would likewise be impossible to determine whether more energy has been expended on producing combat and medical guides for Arab revolutionaries or interrupting events in Second Life with giant simulated penises, or whether the movement has been more thoroughly infiltrated by federal agents preparing indictments or furry spies hoping to discover who ruined their Second Life event by waving around giant simulated penises while playing Soulja Boy, and whether or not the CIA has had a hand in such things.
As every media outlet has now learned to articulate, Anonymous origins track back to those of the image board 4chan, where most all messages were listed as having been written by Anonymous due to the tendency of most to refrain from giving themselves any specific moniker. On every other point there is disagreement, some of which is understandable, some of which is silly, and some of which is the result of intentional yet largely uncoordinated efforts to obscure the movements nature. Some of the truth is known to most anyone who looks for it; some is obscured and known only to those who were present, physically or otherwise, at certain times and places; some is known to a certain few whose knowledge derives from having themselves put things into motion on different occasions. This book will draw upon all three sources, leaving unknown only those things that will never be known by virtue of that fact that such knowledge would lead to legal action of both the criminal and civil sort and even violence. And a bit of that will make its way in, too, probably by accident.
***
Imagine yourself as an early adolescent, standing amidst an idyllic poolside setting. All manner of people dressed in every variety of clothing are discussing the latest in teenybopper news, flirting with varying levels of competence, or otherwise whiling away the virtual afternoon. The pool beckons you, and as you walk towards the ladder that will lead you in, you notice that others have had the same idea... many others. And all of them are black men with Afro haircuts and three-piece suits. You approach the ladder but they have cordoned it off with their bodies and have done so with foreboding swiftness. Nonetheless, you approach them and type out a plea:
your in the way can you move
A moment later, one of these well-dressed Moorish gentlemen deigns to reply.
sorry, the pools closed.
Another expands on this:
It has AIDS.
Yet another provides explanatory synthesis:
the pools got aids. Its closed due to aids.
And then you realize you are surrounded by dozens of black men in black suits with black ties and magnificent black Afros. And then they begin to chant what appears to be absolute nonsense.
lololololololololol
pwned
lololollllloolol lol AIDS
WHERES MY IPOD?!?!
were going back to potatos to get my fucking power wrist
/b/ up hoes down
free mumia lol
AIDS AIDS AIDS
lol pwnd
guys I really am black
no I am
ILL SUCK YOUR COCK
be an hero
Then, beyond the crowd, towards the upper edge of your screen, you happen to glance at the statue of a duck that has been present ever since the beginning of your online world of choice, your precious Habbo Hotel. But the duck is different. A man is standing behind it in such a way as to make his Afro appear to be the ducks Afro. For all intents and purposes, the duck now has an Afro. It is an Afro Duck and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop this from being the case.
Who are these people, you might ask? A better question is, who the fuck are you? You could be a 14-year-old girl looking to make friends her age, or a pedophile looking to make friends her age. We dont know. We dont care. We would never have let you get in that pool no matter who you are or what your intentions happen to be. And when the moderators ban us we will change or mask our IPs and at any rate hundreds more of us will be arriving soon. We are Anonymous, and we are here to help, or to hinder, or whatever. At any rate, the guy who just called you a faggot is not only a homosexual, but was even searing a Chilean sea bass with his boyfriend at the time that he denounced you for your faggotry, and did so on a Macbook. And the one who yelled a nonsensical stream of video game references at you, or at everyone, or at nobody? Shes now working at the State Department. And shes still Anonymous. And half of the people who were once best described as being void of human restraints, such as pity and mercy are spending their evenings on such things as providing secure communications technology to populations subject to dictatorship, are still void of human restraints even as they work for the betterment of others, and see no contradiction in any of this. And nor should you.
***
There comes a point, apparently, at which the environment changes so drastically that it becomes impossible to predict what will happen over the next few months, much less a few years, and meanwhile the change of environment has led naturally to further changes and suddenly one is dealing with something that is better described as a flow than a situation. At such a time as this, plans are best replaced with contingencies and forecasts are best supplemented with uncertainty. These are the circumstances by which the Anonymous entity originated by accident, expanded in strength through a running gag, and then emerged as a geopolitical dynamic via a combination of accident, running gag, and the conscious intervention of various parties with varying agendas - a process that would have either been impossible or prohibitive even ten years ago but which, having now met the conditions by which it might arise, will repeat itself in some iteration or another over and over again, causing some unknown degree of upheaval until it is replaced with some new and even more erratic dynamic. Although such things as these were predicted long ago, they remain little understood and only rarely studied, at least until recent events began to force such an education on certain parties, particularly the federal sort.
That Anonymous and the dynamics that fuel such a thing were not sufficiently understood by those governments that have now been forced to deal with them is telling, and should be of particular concern to those who still support the institution of the nation-state. That such an entity can evolve in such a way as to expand its effective targets from online games to governments in less than five years without raising sufficient alarm from the media at large should be of concern to anyone who would prefer that threats be detected in advance rather only after they have begun to manifest. Anonymous and related subject matter demand serious study not simply because of their present activities, but rather due to what those activities portend for the chaotic future into which are now heading. The successful attacks on any number of systems, carried out as they have been by Anonymous and associated parties at this very early point in an age of accelerated change, is the best possible argument for comprehensive reform of the general system into which human affairs are currently organized. That the system is largely incapable of reforming itself is the best possible argument for pursuing such changes from outside of the system - a possibility that has lately come to be seen as necessary and even a matter of duty by many who thought otherwise just a few years ago. A massive and multidirectional revolution has broken out across the globe, and this shall continue well after the point at which Anonymous is overshadowed by whatever comes next.
***
Any depiction of Anonymous as anything at all will be challenged, often correctly, by participants and observers alike. It is better, then, to get a sense of what Anonymous is and what it means by way of a thorough examination of its behavior as an entity, the manner in which this behavior has changed, and the speed at which such changes come about. Even then, assessing the movements future is a difficult chore. Anonymous is, after all, an ebb and flow of relationships, devoid of formal structure and subject to the collective will of those who participate in its work and play. Likewise, Anonymous may be rightfully seen as the compilation of the actions that are taken in its name.
***
In July of 2007, the Los Angeles Fox News affiliate ran a story on a nefarious group of computer hackers - promoted elsewhere in the segment to hackers on steroids - who had been treating the web like a real-life video game: sacking websites, invading MySpace accounts, disrupting innocent peoples lives, these being the kinds of things that one does in an average video game, apparently. Destroy. Die. Attack, ran the menacing red letters that began the segment, in which the three imperatives are oddly described as threats in accordance with the same brand of conceptual free association for which the report has become legendary. An actual threat, by the English language reckoning, is soon played: an answering machine message in which some adolescent caller proclaims that he will slit the throat of some unspecified target. It is noted, or at least alleged, that Anonymous has even threatened to bomb sports stadiums, this being a reference to a message board thread in which the topic was frightening terrorist scenarios and which prompted an arrest by the Department of Homeland Security after someone wrote a clearly fictional account of several football stadiums being blown up by terrorists (Tom Clancy, meanwhile, is still at large). I believe theyre domestic terrorists, says a woman interviewed for the story, her assertion supported by subsequent stock footage of an exploding van.
Their name comes from their secret website, the narrator continues, in reference to what had long before developed into one of the most popular and best-known sites on the web, the 4chan imageboard. It requires anyone posting on the site to remain anonymous, he adds, in reference to a requirement that never existed at 4chan. MySpace users are among their favorite targets, he continues, with unexpected accuracy. And then the viewer is introduced to a fellow whose profile was taken over thanks to a list of MySpace passwords acquired by Anonymous a few months before; gay sex pictures were posted on his page, allegedly prompting his girlfriend to break up with him. She thought I was cheating on her with other guys, the fellow tells Fox.
A self-proclaimed hacker, rendered the regular sort of anonymous for the purpose of the interview, explains that the agena of Anonymous hinges on sowing chaos and discord in pursuit of lulz, a term our narrator explains to be a corruption of LOL - laugh out loud before going on to note that Anonymous gets big lulz from pulling random pranks - for example, messing with online childrens games like Habbo Hotel, an example that Fox somehow neglects to illustrate with footage of exploding vehicles. Truly epic lulz, he goes on, come from raids and invasions... like their nationwide campaign to spoil the new Harry Potter book ending. It should be noted that the sinister background music which has played since the beginning of the segment continues through this particular revelation.