This evening I went on an expedition into the back corners of the Internet, where I found a brood of Subgenii in their native habitat: an IRC channel that stretched into basements all over the US. I thought I'd share my findings with you all.
Communication
I attempted communication with the beasts, but their underdeveloped linguistic abilities limited the range of ideas I was able to convey. They communicate in blurps and buzz noises. They enjoy bleating back and forth about hundreds of subjects that have no actual correlation to each other.
Social Structure
The Subgenius colony is governed very loosely, but there is one absolute law that I observed: the Alpha is whichever Subgenius is most weird at any given moment. In the space of five minutes, the Alpha position might change as much as 600 times, even when there are only two individual animals awake (Subgenii sleep a lot). Every action and statement is a battle for Alpha rank, and as a result the colony feels like Thunderdome, with worse acting.
Conclusions
Although the wild Subgenius is an evolutionary cousin to the Discordian, the differences between the two species are surprising. For example, not the Discordian has retained the Not Stupid with Money gene while that has been lost by the Subgenius (as evidenced by the Subgenius' lack of $30), but the Subgenius has evolved an astonishing similarity to a completely unrelated species, the West California Valley Girl. This is why a Subgenius would make an excellent cheerleader, if one could train it to stop eating the pom-poms. Overall, the Subgenius species has evolved itself into a hole.
Although, it may be that the Subgenius is only playing stupid. I did uncover evidence on my expedition that points to the rash of idiots popping up here on PD over the past few years actually being covert Subgenius agents attempting to infiltrate, understand, and co-opt the PD community. But that's inconclusive.
Anyway, that's what I learned today.
:lulz:
Yes -- Or possibly the outlandish behavior seems to be an attempt at getting their money back. On particular subgenius seems to have paid twice and was quite adamant about receiving reimbursement.
I've been doing extended research and have so far uncovered:
a) subgenii are very proud at having lost $30
b) subgenii are very afraid of mimes, although I feel it might be that they only say this to trick you into asking why, so that they may play their 2,000 mime jokes to the IRC channel
c) subgenii apparently rather enjoy Second Life, despite it not requiring $30 for entry.
An update.
After extra extended monitoring, I have determined that the typical behavior is just more of the same old shit. Besides for copious namedropping, it's all word puns and waiting to die.
I do think that our excursion today was probably the most interesting thing to have happened there in a while, and that those mime jokes have been in deep freeze for quite a while awaiting for just such a moment. Consider it akin to sharing a fine bottle of wine with us.
So, perhaps mimes truly are part of the diplomacy accords.
IS this all subgenii, or just that group? I shudder to think how people who have only met myspace discordians must assume this group acts.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 22, 2010, 10:33:15 AM
IS this all subgenii, or just that group? I shudder to think how people who have only met myspace discordians must assume this group acts.
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=25234.0 (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=25234.0) ?
I think they've been stunted by their environment. I know a few SubGs in real life and they're nothing like that (well... they're all over 30). And the Cyclone of Slack was nothing like that...
...although we did run into 2 very young subbie street kids outside who didn't have the $8 to get into the show (and hadn't head about the Cyclone until they noticed BOB on the flier while walking by), who wanted to bum $ from all the Discordians going to see the show.
The guys there are pretty alright, and ultimately it doesn't have a substantially different feel from #discord.
Quote from: Idem on May 23, 2010, 12:24:48 AM
The guys there are pretty alright, and ultimately it doesn't have a substantially different feel from #discord.
I'd agree, every microcosm has its own little quirks, but overall, it seemed like they were mostly being silly for our benefit, not unlike how #discord welcomes wacky people anyway.
Still... $30? ;)