17776 makes me feel shit every time I read it so I’m gonna ramble a lil bit

Ok so like Jon I have a fascination with obscurity.

One of my favorite internet things is to zoom all the way out on google maps until I can see the whole US, close my eyes, and start tapping my phone screen as fast as I can to zoom in. I do this for about 10 or 20 seconds and when I open my eyes I’m as zoomed in as I can get. Looking at trees and shit most likely.

I zoom out a bit and find the closest possible town or landmark or anything and I spend as much time as it takes, upwards of an hour or two, finding anything noteworthy I can about that place.

And there’s always something

And I love that feeling of feeling like I’m the only person in the world knowing that piece of knowledge right then, and getting to be the one who can share it.

In this world where everyone seems to know everything it feels so special to find something that’s been forgotten. Something like I remember this one really small town that I found I believe in New Mexico. This town had been the site of several huge events in the old west. And they had had this really famous sheriff who had his own Wikipedia page and everything.

And you know my favorite thing about 17776 is that it takes shit like that and puts it in the forefront. I’ve never found another piece of art that quite nails that for me the same way. I mean every inch of this story is teeming with that sweet quality that lands between serendipity and obscurity and I just love it so much.

And I also find it very appropriate that 17776 immediately found obscurity itself. Yeah it was pretty big when it was released, especially given its format but I mean hey look at this sub. There were only 500 of us to begin with and none of us have been here in forever.

But that’s not a bad thing

I actually think it’s really beautiful. Because now I can toss this long ass shitramble out into the void and in a way it’s like I get to participate in that feeling of serendipity and obscurity that Jon evokes in 17776.

And to anyone who reads this and downvotes it (as they should) that’s a connection they’ll have had with me that wouldn’t have existed otherwise and couldn’t have existed if not for such an unfathomably large number of other circumstances yada yada yada yeah yeah yawn but that’s the kind of shit this makes me think of.

And it really makes me appreciate life when I realize that something as mysterious and beautiful as the depths and consequences of human interaction is a clichè platitude.

I don’t know man I’m not really saying anything groundbreaking but this is how this story makes me feel so I might as well document it

Submitted May 28, 2018 at 12:42PM by nearnerfromo https://ift.tt/2Jbm7lG