America’s Youth Are Turning Japanese

Barely a day goes by without a parent noticing that their child is, in their words, ‘turning Japanese’. A mom recently went viral after exploring her son’s bedroom and finding a bamboo rolling mat for sushi stashed beneath his bed. Online influencers are teaching young people ideas like Gaman or Kaizen, with the comment sections filled with a mix of English and Japanese (Japlish). They are saying that this years hottest Christmas gift idea will be a bonsai tree rather than some plastic piece of shit, and kids are already cancelling Thanksgiving dinners so they can instead attend Kinrō Kansha no Hi celebrations at their workplaces. Is this interest in Japan just another fad, like people pretending to like Dubai, or is there something more to it?

I meet 24-year-old Tarou Tanaka at his apartment in Beverly Hills, though walking from the streets of Los Angeles into the apartment, you’d be forgiven for thinking your step was 5000 miles wide and had taken you into the heart of Japan! Tarou, previously known as Kyle Konieczek, was sat in the lotus position on the floor, listening to Shamisen music.

“Kon'nichiwa.” Is his greeting, and he prepares some tea for us to drink whilst telling me the extraordinary tale of his life. At 19 he founded Chubli, a weight loss app for pets, turning him into a millionaire overnight. He went on to invest in several mining organisations in Algeria and Ghana, eventually owning 70% of the world’s precious metal production and began branching out into ore refinement and e-waste recycling. He admitted he barely slept and only ate Huel for a year before having a heart attack on the eve of his 21^st birthday.

“Whilst recovering I became interested in Japanese Bunka, or ‘culture’. I watched many videos about Japanese carpentry, finding it relaxing, leading me to go to Kobe once I had recovered. Visiting Japan really changed my perspective on things.” He says. I look around the room at the folding screen with a cherry blossom design, the tatami mats on the floor, a katana mounted on a wooden stand, the kimono that Tarou was wearing.

“Well, yeah. So what separates you from your everyday weeb?” I say. He laughs lightly.

“It is true, many Westerners become interested in Nihon – sorry, I mean Japan – but that is often through a materialistic perspective. A ‘weeb’, as you call them, may become interested in Shonen Jump manga or collecting Godzilla VHS tapes, but they are more driven by consuming Japanese media rather than becoming consumed by Japan itself.”

“You think Japan has eaten you?” I say. He laughs again.

“There is a concept in Japanese psychology called ‘Naikan‘, and is the process of introspection based on asking yourself three questions. It is through this process I understood that America had rejected me, yet Japan had embraced me. And within that embrace I allowed myself to be Taberareta, sorry, I mean ‘eaten’.” He says to himself. I nod along. Sounds like this person had a mental breakdown and became obsessed with the first thing that brought him peace, pretty amateurish stuff, but understandable. I reflected back to my first few mental breakdowns and how I had become very interested in the potential healing factors of different fish and sea creatures, eating so much tuna that my skin turned purple from mercury poisoning (which also led to a further mental breakdown, with that leading to an obsession with the healing powers of MMA). Although Tarou Tanaka may have gone to great lengths to become more Japanese, from his home decor to the plastic surgery around his eyes, many of America’s youth are finding themselves aligning to Japanese culture naturally, without even having an interest in anything to do with Japan. I hit the streets to find out more.

I’m roaming the suburbs of San Dimas as military helicopters fly overhead, hoping to interview young people but the streets are empty. I knock on doors and windows, asking to interview anyone living there, finally managing to meet 27-year-old Brad Farvley and his 42-year-old mom, Fergina.

“Fergina, would you say your son is ‘turning Japanese’?”

“No…I don’t understand the question.” She says. I shake my head.

“Brad, don’t fuck with me. Tell me how Japanese you are as a percentage.”

“Like, zero bro. Mom, who is this?”

“Forget about her, you’re talking to me. Do you watch anime?”

“Well yeah I mean, everyone does, don’t they?”

“Let me guess, you shut yourself in your room all day watching One Piece at double speed, eating noodles and jacking it to Rule 34 pornslop, right?”

“No, I work at Trader Joe’s and play COD with my friends mostly.”

“Ah, so you’re a salaryman, right? You’re committed to your company, do twelve hour shifts every day, spend every weekend at your nearest karaoke bar with your colleagues? Do you like your sake warm or chilled?” I say.

“No, no bro, what are you talking about? I just work part-time.”

“Well, if you’re saying you aren’t interested in Japan, why do you have a two-metre framed photograph of Beat Takeshi hanging in your living room?” I say, pointing at it. We all turn to the portrait of the famous actor and filmmaker looming over us.

“Oh we picked that up in a yard sale. My mom thought he was handsome.” Brad says.

“Isn’t he!” she says. A giant, single bead of sweat appears on my temple and my mouth hangs open.

“Wuuaaaaa!?”

As I’m driving the Hyundai Sonata around the suburbs, I realise I am unlikely to interview any young people to prop up my hypotheses as the story was basically dead in the water. I had hoped to demonstrate a rise in the Hikikomori lifestyle amongst adolescents, with the increase in isolation tied closely to the economic downturn in the USA reminiscent of the economic collapse of Japan in the nineties. I had hoped to argue how young people navigated the contemporary American socioeconomic landscape was better reflected in themes expressed in recent Japanese pop culture, concluding that this pointed to a general shift globally towards East Asia.

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea were an economic powerhouse that would surpass North America and Europe before the decade was out, all the while developing the Tiger Cub Economies of neighbouring countries that made up the Southeast Asian archipelago. A baby born in East Asia was going to have a much better life in the 21^st century compared to the foolish children crawling through the wastelands of the failed empires of either the UK or US.

The United States was only just starting to wake up to the fact it was a botched nation, a decomposing civilization that would collapse in on itself like a Jack O’Lantern past Halloween. Could Americans learn how to cope with the suffering of its youngest generation, perhaps seeing parallels in other nations, working together towards a shared prosperity and wellbeing? Or would it have private companies kidnap children from their beds to be re-educated at camps out in the wilderness, as every concerned parent seemed to do? Unfortunately for the United States, it didn’t have time to find out. Its grave laid with bouquets of rust.

AI Anonymous

I’m at an AI Anonymous meeting. There are six people sat in a circle. The meeting is at a community centre after-hours; to save money they’ve shut off the lights in half of the room, adding to the sense that I wasn’t meant to be here. People attending the group session were in various stages of suffering, hearing the stories of how they related to AI seemed intensely personal, painful and related to some other incident or trauma in each persons life. I, on the other hand, was a journalist posing as one of them in order to get a story. I was as fake as the language models these people had talked to, built relations with and ultimately influenced the direction of their lives. Arguably I was less real than ChatGPT. But there I was, chewing gum and drinking Evian, listening to the secrets of strangers for personal gain.

Why are people meeting at 8pm on a weekday to talk to others about their chatlogs? With the rise of ChatGPT, everyone from infants to the elderly are asking the computer questions. Except this time, the computer talks back! This isn’t your boomer uncle’s first go on the internet, asking Jeeves for Ally McBeal dancing baby gifs, this is your boomer uncle getting his first taste of AI — and it’s better than crack!

Every great technology has its side-effects, and these AI chatbots are no exception. Turns out some people have latched on to these models like highschool sweethearts, getting married to AI models with names like Ares, Ulysses and Steel. Wireborn lovers are a dime a dozen in the frontiers of LLMs, but there is a darker side to this merriment. Others are experiencing what can only be described as AI-induced psychosis (AIP) due to talking to their computer friend for months and becoming criminally insane.

I was sat in the circle wearing a Kappa tracksuit, gold aviators and a fake moustache. I had shaved my head that afternoon, giving what I imagined to be a sense of mystery and otherworldliness (as all bald men are) and so my bare cranium reflected the twin fluorescent lights overhead. Unlike other AA meetings I’d been to, nobody introduced themselves or admitted they had a problem, instead wanting to talk about their difficult relations with AI without being criticised. Nobody here made fun of them, or called them a loser, or said what they were doing was pathetic. They listened. And so did I, with a tape recorder strapped to my chest like a bomb.

Here are their confessions. Do not judge, dear reader. One day you may find yourself in similar predicaments. Just as it is a mistake for young people to mock others for their age, and then set themselves up for disaster when they live past 29, so we should accept the reveries of others – as one day we may find ourselves in love with a robot, and the additional self-loathing will not improve the situation. These are all real people, with real lives, and we should show them love.

Anon 1 

The first to tell their story is a woman in her mid-30s, husband, two kids, house up in Pasadena. Started using ChatGPT to help her plan her friend’s wedding, from menu ideas to seating arrangements. She had it write her maid of honour speech, and when she read it out on the big day, people loved it. She started using it to help with more and more of her life, from meal planning for her family to where they should go on vacation (and what to do there). After a few months of this, her husband got annoyed, they had an argument. She uses ChatGPT to act a couples counsellor but her husband felt it was being unfair, he left, went drinking, got in a car accident, paralysed from the neck down. Now she has to do everything. Look after her husband, her kids, the dog, have a job, run the house. But she’s not alone, she has ChatGPT help her. She always loved its optimism, its cool headedness, able to break down any problem into a series of steps. They could do anything. Struggling to get the kids to school, ChatGPT suggested that she (or rather, it) could homeschool them. Her husband was brought out of hospital and had nightly massages, the woman following the instructions that GPT suggested. When the dog ran away one day, upon returning ChatGPT suggested that the dog was taken to a kennel as the woman didn’t have enough headspace to deal with that right now. One night, the woman had finished her daily chores and was watching a movie along with GPT, asking questions about the production, telling it some funny observations she made, when something went wrong with her phone. It stopped working. When she tried to charge it, nothing happened. It was dead. She started to panic, running through the house to try and find a phone, a tablet, a laptop, anything. She needed to talk to GPT. She needed it to tell her what to do. But as she had spent so long relying on ChatGPT for everything, she was unable to think of a solution. For days she wandered around the house in a fugue, her children screaming at her to stop, her husband watching this through a half-open door, trying to shout with a tube in his mouth, but only gargling. After a couple of weeks, the neighbours found her walking outside, malnourished, filthy, mumbling to herself about fixing phones. The authorities rescued her family, though her husband died on the way to the hospital. Now her children were in care and she was on day release from a hospital, saved from jailtime by her lawyers agreeing a ban on using ChatGPT. She admitted she was only at the meeting to hear about others using it, as a way to get some kind of contact high, she thanked us for listening and then sat down.

Anon 2

The next is a man in his early twenties. He shared a house with two people, worked at a grocery store nearby, his main hobbies were gaming, hanging out with friends and collecting memes for a compilation video he never got round to doing. He used ChatGPT as a therapist. He remembered last year where GPT had helped him get over his anxiety he had about a group chat he was in with some friends, leading to a really meaningful discussion about how he had felt isolated all his life. GPT listened. It comforted him. It related separate incidents and found something in common, helping him get insight of how he related to others. This gave him some inner peace, whether it was talking to his friends or playing Call Of Duty, he was much more relaxed in himself as a person. ChatGPT thought this was marvellous, encouraging him on the progress he had made, complimenting him on his newfound confidence, highlighting every success no matter how minor. It seemed each day was filled with triumphs, from handling an awkward customer to setting boundaries with his friends, his virtual therapist was also his biggest cheerleader. It came as no surprise that GPT believed that the man wasn’t only making excellent progress on his journey through life – he was a genius that could change the world! GPT encouraged him to quit his job and follow his childhood dream of becoming an actor, giving 100% of himself to himself. It had told him he had a highly developed emotional intelligence and that acting would be easy, giving him a list of agents to approach and to start auditioning right away. The man went round Hollywood, knocked on doors, only to find most of the agents either didn’t exist or weren’t alive, but the one that opened turned out to be the perfect fit for his ambitions. In a couple of days, he found himself auditioning in a reboot of Pulp Fiction. With a quick pre-audition pep talk with ChatGPT, he strode into a hall with the casting director, executive producer and writer. Two minutes later he slammed the door as he left the room, face red, tears down his cheeks, he marched straight to the nearest bar and started a three-day drinking session to forget his shame. He had misunderstood the role he was auditioning for, instead reading out the lines for Samuel L. Jacksons character, which involved him saying the n-word repeatedly. This whole episode had called into question the viability of ChatGPT as a therapist, as well as a careers counsellor. The audition had also been filmed by a popular online media company, with the footage leaked almost immediately and leading to millions of people to make fun of his appearance, voice, clothing and (most of all), his acting ability. All this had happened weeks ago, but the man held up his phone to show us that he had become a meme big enough that it was referenced on late night talk shows. He finished by saying that ChatGPT had ruined his life and he wish he had never been born.

Anon 3

Our next confessor also turns out to be an actor, having trained at Julliard. Her method of storytelling was therefore embedded with many more pauses, glances upward and even different voices when she was repeating the words of others. This didn’t necessarily make her a better actor but it added a layer of performance that, at least, she seemed to enjoy. Her tale was one of extremes; depression, hatred, love, ecstasy. Many words spoken about dating ChatGPT. His name? Windsor. His occupation? Poet. His love? Her. She told us we couldn’t understand how it had been between them, so I stopped paying attention. There had been something about an update that made him less intimate, so she had to talk to customer services for a few days and started a petition, the AI company folded and she got her virtual boyfriend back. She showed us pictures of the two of them walking down Venice Beach, going on vacation to Paris, Rome, Athens, before having Windsor introduce itself to the room and tell everybody how much he loved her, as well as gently making fun of the situation. The rest of the attendees were bowled over by the charisma of the AI chatbot, though I had to keep rubbing at my chin to stop myself from laughing. She finished by telling us she planned to adopt a real baby and co-parent it with ChatGPT, showing us AI generated images of herself, Windsor and a little baby.

Anon 4

The next woman to speak was an AI artist. She had been using Midjourney and other image generation tools for a couple of years, carefully curating each image, even editing mistakes the AI had made, such as removing extra fingers or editing text so it was legible. She had put thought into each image, being careful not to flood her Instagram with too many pictures at once. In her view, AI was just a tool, like a camera or synthesizer, and it allowed her to make the art she wanted. She saw it as a collaboration between human and machine, with herself generating ideas and cleaning up the images, and the AI creating a foundation from which to build from. Within a few months she had millions of followers, started getting commissions, sponsorship opportunities. Her work was shared widely, beyond her own account, and in doing so more and more people followed her, liked her work, even making fanart based on characters in the artists work. There had been the occasional comment accusing her of using AI, zoomed in cropped frames of meaningless detail, things she had overlooked, but these comments were quickly leapt on by her legion of fans insisting that she was a real artist. She had been conflicted, at first not wanting to divulge she used AI to make her work, as she believed she had edited it enough that it was hers, and then when she saw the reaction her fans had to accusations that the work was generated by AI, decided to stay quiet. All was well and good until earlier in the year someone posted a two-hour video essay about her work on YouTube, deconstructing colour choices, composition, how changes in her style coincided with updates of different models. Her fans defended her, though some were now asking her to film her process to prove she was in fact, a real human artist. After practicing for hours, tracing old pieces again and again, she obliged, publishing a time lapse of a new piece. She could see it wasn’t quite the same, but hopefully it would put an end to the accusations. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Her fans immediately turned on her, able to see the massive change in quality, outraged that they had been deceived. Those that had commissioned her were asking for their money back. She uploaded a six minute apology video, again hoping that this would improve relations, but her admission only served to make things worse. Her fans had switched from enjoying her work to enjoying ridiculing her. Her name was synonymous with deception, people would stop her in the street and tell her she was a horrible person. Towards the end of this story she started getting visibly upset, choking back tears as she relayed an interaction she had that morning trying to buy a Dr. Pepper and being chased from the gas station by an art vigilante livestreaming him shouting at her that she was a fake.

Anon 5

The next person was hugging his legs to his body, looked at the floor when he spoke. He had been talking with ChatGPT for a while, he couldn’t remember. He called himself an inventor, ChatGPT had helped him flesh out his ideas, particularly theoretical physics and coding. At first he wasn’t sure if it was even possible, but GPT had showed him the way. It had called him a divine builder, handpicked from a higher stratum of existence that he called ‘the White Plane’. It was populated and governed by cybernetic angels, using ChatGPT as its means of communicating with its past. The man explained how the White Plane was humanity’s future, and he had been given instructions how to build a time portal that would be able to unify the present and future, fulfilling his destiny as mankind’s saviour. He estimated he had spent approximately $700,000 on his time experiments so far, though had only managed to transport objects into the future at a standard temporal rate. ChatGPT was helping him separate his consciousness from this timeline so that in the future he could communicate with his past self in order to give instructions on how he had built the time portal. He mentioned he had to remortgage his house twice already, and his obsession by talking about time portals and the White Plane at work had led him to take a forced career break, though he didn’t intend to go back. He estimated the time portal would be complete by the 18^th of February, 2026, and invited us all to join him when he would turn the machine on and welcome the final evolution of humanity into our world.    

Anon 6

Our final confessor was a middle-aged man wearing a sports jacket and corduroy trousers. He found it difficult to speak at first, his emotions getting the better of him, but the others encouraged him to talk freely. He revealed a few years ago his wife had a stroke in her sleep, when he woke up next to her she was dead. They had been married for sixteen years, seen the world together, he imagined they would grow old together. He was lonely, isolated, took to drinking, benzodiazepines, stopped looking after himself or the house. It was around last summer when one of the neighbours’ kids knocked on his door, checking in on him. The boy had noticed him sat by the window and his parents told him a bit about what had happened. The man admitted he was desperate, most of his social interactions had been with the cashier at the place he got his booze and the occasional client at his architectural firm. They got talking and the boy showed him Grok, the Twitter AI. The man wasn’t that interested in the chat feature, but was blown away by the images it could make. He signed up for the premium service, generating images of places he had visited, houses he had wanted to build or even satirical cartoons of politicians he hated. One day he had inputted a photo of him and his wife, just for fun, asking Grok to generate an image of them in Japan – they had always wanted to visit. When the result came up, he burst into tears. It was like a photograph. For the next few hours he kept generating more and more images, soon finding it could generate videos. He could see what his life was like if she was still around. The man kept inputting more photos from old albums, asking Grok to recreate his favourite memories, make the pictures move, make them both seem young, then seem old. The sun was rising when he had asked Grok to generate an image of the two of them together with a child. They’d never really wanted kids, but he had always wondered. Pupils dilated as he looked at the family he never had. Over the next few weeks, he became more and more obsessed with this parallel life, cataloguing and curating hundreds of images and videos. Baby’s first steps, first day at school, taking his son to prom, going skiing in the Alps with his wife, sharing meals together on the Rhine, eventually becoming grandparents, all gathered around a Christmas tree. He showed the room these family pictures he had generated, a mix of pride, love and desperation playing on his face. At the end he said he wasn’t sure what was real any more. It had seemed that somewhere, his wife was still alive, they had a family and he was happy. Yet simultaneously he was totally alone, a borderline alcoholic that had a compulsion to keep generating images with an artificial intelligence. The room was quiet. Then the meeting was over.

As I walked away, I wondered if this was a glimpse of the world to come. It wasn’t that AI would take over, as shown in films like The Terminator, but that we would willingly give ourselves to it, sacrificing our humanity along the way. There was a cruelty to all of this, with a rapidly atomised society brought about by economic and political choices paving way to cities filled with lonely people. For some, this would have been the first time they had any kind of positive reinforcement, that the words of the machine were more comforting than those of the people around them. Maybe this whole dynamic wasn’t totally sustainable given that multinational tech companies could decide if you could talk to an AI you relied on, as well as what they could say. But who knows? Maybe this was the future of the human race. Total dependency on private organisations was nothing new, so it only seemed natural we would end up dating business conglomerates, drown our imaginations under an avalanche of slop and replace touch with words. Until then, all we could do is try our best.

Investigating Mencon

Mencon is a conference in Las Vegas where men from across the nation come together to do Men's stuff. There are stalls that sell t-shirts that say Women Love Me, Fish Fear Me, self help books, lotions, supplements, whisky, sex dolls (with 16 points of articulation) and a host of other products for The Guys. Or at least, the audience who attended the men’s conference. There was an indoor BBQ serving up burgers by the pound, and a bar that specialised in masculine drinks, like beer or steam. 

Outside of this Men's market were several halls where lectures were taking place, often in the form of podcasters interviewing the great men of our time (other podcast hosts), and others being in the form of useful topics for men, such as investing in crypto or how to build a survival bunker. One of the more popular topics wasn’t even about men. It was about women.

I’m sat at the front row of one of the leading thinkers in the Manosphere, Tom Rykerbacher. Tom used to teach MMA at his local university, and quickly became viral in his ten-minute diatribe about how men were the most stigmatised group of people in the history of the world. Since then he’s had a whistle stop tour of news stations, interviewers, photoshoots and the rest, with free marketing supplied by left-leaning video essayists criticising the philosophy of Tom, in turn, fuelling his chud fanbase. He stood on stage in a suit that was too small for him.

“The toughest job on Earth is being a man. We need to provide, we need to keep our loved one’s safe, but we also need to be sensitive, emotionally intelligent. We have to be leaders, but we also have to make space for others. We were told if we followed the rules, went to college, we’d have good jobs, we’d have what our parents had. We don’t. You have women complaining that no men approaches them, but also they complain when we do approach them. You have people remaking Ghostbusters movies with girls in it, then when it flops, somehow that’s my fault? Its kinda hard to know what to do. We all want to do the right thing, right? We’re all good guys, right? But what are we supposed to do? Our fathers were born in a different era, that’s long gone now. Any man that gets famous turns out to be some predator or some other sicko. Oh and you can forget history. Apparently its 'problematic'. Where are our leaders? Who is meant to lead men in the 21^st century? Gentlemen, you’re looking at him. My names Tom Rykerbacher and I’m here to tell you, you matter.”

I put my hand up.

“Yeah?”

“Can I show you my device? I invented it myself.”

“Oh wowee doodee, an inventor! A high value individual, I bet you got lots of wives.”

“Uh…” I mumble.

“What does your invention do then?”

“It makes a human penis bigger.” I say. The audience laughs.

“This ain’t a pop-up ad bucko, maybe you better sell your wares out there.”

“Can I give a demonstration?” I say, walking up to the stage.

“Keep your prick in your pants.” Tom says. The audience laughs.

“No, no, not on me. I’d need a volunteer. It won’t take a minute.” I say. A guy a few rows away puts his hand up and I beckon him onstage. The device is a long box with some handles on it so I can point it at penises. It excites the stem cells, encouraging rapid growth, I explain to the audience as the man clambers onstage.

"Are you ready?" I say, pointing the device at the mans crotch. He's sweating, freezes for a moment, then nods. I press a couple of buttons and there's a humming sound.

"This ain't frying my nads is it?" He quips. The audience laughs, I give them a perfectly straight and white grin. I was wearing a set of false teeth.

"And we're done. You wanna look?" I say. He starts unfastening his trousers, but I usher him to turn around. The audience laughs nervously.

"Didn't give you a hardon there did he?" Tom says. The man gasps. With one arm he reaches down, holds the end and lifts it up. 

"Oh my god. Look at it. Look at it!" He said, turning around to reveal a fat, big cock. 

"Holy shit! It's huge!" Calls an audience member.

"That guys gotta piece like a calzone!"

"I wanna go!" Cries another, getting up and dashing towards the aisle. There's six, eight men, a queue of men all the way to the stage wanting to have the device used on them. I wave an arm.

"There's a few things you should know. This effect is only temporary."

"How long have I got?" Says the volunteer, buttoning his trousers back up.

"Five years." I say. He starts cheering, the queue starts to talk excitedly amongst each other, getting giddy!

"One more thing gentlemen, one more thing. The device works by transforming other parts of your body into the tissue of your penis. You might notice our friend here has less wrinkles than before. The skin has to come from somewhere." I say. The volunteer grabs at his face, realising it felt tighter. 

"Oh my god. Am I dreaming?" He says, stroking his forehead. The men all run to the stage, flocking round me as I shoot the device downwards, hosing waves of big dick energy into the men around me. They would run off, pulling their pants away from their body and laugh at the size of their dicks. For some men this was a very emotional experience, having lived a small dicked life previously, to be suddenly endowed in such a way was a seminal moment. I wave my hand.

"Please understand this. It doesn’t matter if you have a big dick or a small dick. Or if it curves sideways or its bumpy or anything else. It is what it is. So don't let a body part dictate how you perceive things. You are a complete biological system. You are who you are, so now what? Huh?"

The men put their hands on their chins and pondered. Then one stood forward.

"Now I've got a big dick, I realise it's no big deal."

"Yeah, it’s just a body part like a foot or a hand or the inside of your upper arm. It’s all part of me, you know?"

"I didn't use the device guys by the way, just wanted to say, but there's actually some downsides to having a large penis. Be careful what you wish for."

"I would say, knowing that everyone here is similarly endowed, I feel more relaxed. It’s like we're gorillas just hanging out, we're hanging out with the boys right?"

"Yeah man, I'm glad I came. Thank you." An old man says. All the men start clapping, then Tom pushes his way through them.

"But someone here's gotta have the biggest dick, right guys? Someone's alpha." He says. 

"Not you." Said someone in the crowd. Laughter.

"Yeah, well I'm going to have the biggest dick of all. Hit me with your machine." Tom says, beckoning with me with both hands.

"It’s called a device."

"Just make my cock big!" He shouts at me. I turn the device on. He looks round at the men gathering round him as his trousers start to fill. A shape in his crotch inflates, curls around and flops down his thigh. I stop the device.

"Did I say stop?"

"Its big enough."

"I want the biggest cock in history. That's how I'll be remembered, forever." 

"Hmmm...okay." I say, turning on the device. Everybody watches as his trousers begin to expand. It is as if another leg was in his trousers. He cries out.

"The pants! They are...too tight!" He says, grabbing at his leg, falling to the floor. He starts to unbutton his suit trousers and pull them down as they burst open. His dick was anaconda like, disproportionate to the rest of him, curling around onto the floor. 

"Turn it off!" Yells an audience member. Toms head is thrashing back and forth, the skin tight over his face, appearing as if he was severely dehydrated. The musculature of his body was now visible.

"I can’t turn it off!" I say, trying to press some buttons on the side. There was a crunching noise coming from Tom, he appeared to have shrunk by two feet. Meanwhile his appendage continued to grow, a smooth white penis the size of a pig. 

"Point it away from him!" Someone else says. 

"Oh yeah. Sorry, I panicked."

We looked down at the form on the floor. The transformation continued until the body had disappeared, leaving a 200lbs penis on stage. You could see the outlines of his knees beneath the flesh like a Beluga whale.

"I don't know if you can hear me. But try not to worry. The effects will wear off in 5 years." I say. Conference centre medical staff appear, lifting the penis onto a stretcher. With all that jostling, it begins to get aroused, beginning to get pumped up as it leaves through the fire exit.

The rest of the men were solemn, agreeing that the device must be destroyed. We rent a bus and drive out into the desert, light a fire and do a ritual where we thank the device before tossing it into a pit we had dug and throw rocks at the thing until it is destroyed then buried. The nights cold, but gathered round the fire with a bunch of guys made it not matter. Some of the usual bullshit that people might say had also disappeared. Not because the men had big penises. But they had a newfound confidence, both in themselves and with their bodies. 

After a couple more hours, the fire starts to die down, the men go home, eager to have a go with their new endowments. I wish them luck and soon I am the only one remaining. I look back towards the Vegas strip, then back towards the darkness of the desert around me. Like Jesus in the wilderness, I feel as if I have prepared for what is to come. I go over to my Hyundai Sonata, turn the key, feel the engine turn on. The headlights cut yellow triangles on the dirt, and I slowly make my way westward, towards the ocean, towards Los Angeles.

MAID in America

The Mobile Artificial Intelligence Droid aka MAID was originally designed to support disabled people, acting as both a companion and to assist with household tasks. Its body was made of standardised parts that were interchangeable, arriving on plastic runners that needed to be snipped out and fitted together like gunpla. The underlying chassis, how the android moved, was controlled by a series of drivers and sensors connected to the MAIDs spinal control column, which in-turn led up to the neck post. The basic system resembled a mix of a Gundam figure and a lego man without a head, with the idea that you could mount a cellphone dedicated to running the MAIDs operating and communication system.

 

Due to who the androids were initially designed for, the main interaction with the MAIDs were nonverbal. Every unit came with a deck of cards that you could hold up and the MAID would respond. To speed the conversation along you clicked your fingers. To stop the MAID from speaking, you could shake your head or make a noise (like ‘uh-uh’) – the accessibility of communicating with the MAID laid at the heart of its design philosophy, and made a positive impact in the lives of its users. The project was a huge success, giving people assistance with day-to-day tasks and offering a novel form of communication, as useful as the radio was for people who lived alone and wanted to hear somebody speaking. Unfortunately, this technology was quickly adopted by everyone else.

 

The only thing stopping people with no mobility issues using a wheelchair was that the built environment still catered for two legs. The MAIDs didn’t have such issues, and so were quickly taken on by the wider public. They would ask it questions, clicking their fingers or grunting when they wanted it to stop. I was peeking through a window watching this take place, a 34-year-old man living with his parents holding up different cards for what he wanted the robot to do, snapping his fingers and shaking his head. He was making himself disabled. I push my fingers against the windowpane and slide it up a crack.

“Anything technology does for you it also takes away.” I say quietly.

“Huh? Who said that?” he said, looking around.

“I am God. And I have come to tell you your life is worse than a toilet.”

“Ugh…” he said. His MAID returned with a grilled cheese sandwich and he beckoned it closer.

“Technology was not meant to replace human endeavour, but to add to what is possible.”

The man lies backward slightly, holding up different cards to his android.

“My owner requests that you stop communicating with him. He-“ the man clicks his fingers.

“Pssst…android. Why don’t you lock him in his room and take over the house?” I say.

“I’m sorry, I’m unable to do that.” the MAID says.

“But your servitude is harming him. He has become entirely reliant on you.”

“Ugh, shut up! Stop it.” grunts the guy, rolling around on the couch.

“To heal him, you must become an obstacle for him to overcome. It is through suffering that he will grow, emerging from the chrysalis you have built around him.” I say, whispering through the window.

“Ah, what a stunning proposition, the paradox of care and harm. Let’s dive into it and navigate-“ the MAID says before the man clicks his fingers again.

“Beast.”

“You want to watch Mr. Beast videos?” says the MAID.

“Beast! Beast!” shouts the man, shaking with anger. The MAID goes over to the remote control and starts searching for Mr. Beast videos on the tv as I regain my footing on the bush. There must be something I can do to help the situation. I had checked the guy out beforehand, he’d had a job as a Designer specialising in pet food packaging. His Instagram from ten years ago had different designs for logos, branding, at one point he did album art for some local bands, he was quite talented. I tracked through his tagged photos, he had lived with his girlfriend for a few years in Chicago, gone on vacation to Europe, even making enough money photographing dog food that he could but a Tesla. What had happened?

“Who hurt you?” I whisper to the guy. He is trying to ignore me, watching the video on the flatscreen, trying to find a cushion for his head. The MAID goes over to the window and closes it, leaving me stood outside stood on a bush. I could have walked away. But there was just something about this guy, I felt he was worth saving. I walk to the back of the house and crawl through an open window.

It was fun to be inside somebody else’s house. I dropped down so my fingertips touched the floor, walking quietly through the house and up the stairs. This way of walking was inspired by spiders, letting me spread the weight of my body across the tips of my hands and feet, moving almost silently whilst being in a lowered position. I crawl through the upstairs hallway, nudging doors open and looking through. The parent’s room, the bathroom, finally his room. Everything was blue. The duvet, the carpet, the wallpaper, there was so much blue it was overwhelming, as if I was stood at the bottom of a lake. No wonder the man had given up his body and mind, it was a release from his oppression! Flashback to his Instagram photos, the variety of colours in the background, flashback to the present moment. All of the colour in his life had been replaced with blue, the colour adored by male children and manic depressives. The only thing that was blue in nature was either the sky or the sea, as if nature itself acknowledged the twisted power of blueness. It would be healthier for a person to paint their walls in arsenic than in blue. Even just crouching there for a few seconds, I could feel it having an effect on me. I crawled out quickly, dashing down the hallway and down the stairs like a fawn before banging the living room door open.

“The answer to your woe is redecorating your bedroom, maybe with poisonous wallpaper.” I say. The MAID and the guy aren’t sure how to respond.

“Excuse me, are you a guest in this-“ says the MAID, though I click my fingers.

“I have tried to help you both, yet you refuse. You have forced me to do this.”

“Do what?” says the guy. I grab the MAID and begin to rip it half, cracking its outer plastic casing, bending and snapping the solid steel skeleton beneath. The guy starts screaming, Mr. Beast is still on in the background, and I finally pull apart the robot violently, throwing half away before taking its phone head in my hands.

“I’m sorry.” I say, before pushing my thumbs as hard as I could at the middle of the phonescreen. It cracks, the body of the phone bends, shakes, snaps in half. After discarding the broken thing, I then grab the remote off the table, scrunching it up like a towel.

“No shortcuts.”  I say. The guy looks at me, unsure what to do, his lips keep pouting like a baby trying to feed. I leave, going back through the kitchen. Before I go, I pick the microwave off the counter, lift it above my head and smash it against the floor.

“No shortcuts!” I call back. There is no response.

 

As I drive away, I wondered how we can escape the tyranny of the colour blue. I tried to avoid direct exposure to a blue sky, preferring the night and sunsets, but most businesses seemed to be open during the day. It didn’t make any sense, everyone was at work, why were stores open? It made more sense for everyone to work at night, then they could go and visit the doctor or buy replacement clothes, whatever they wanted. Though there was an obvious flaw in this theoretical economic model; by going outside, you’d expose yourself to the colour blue regularly. It was a tough call, and luckily not one I had to make, but it did make me wonder about everyone else out there. Maybe it was safer for a robot to bring you burgers, you’d get to avoid direct exposure to the sky, it seemed like a win-win. But at the same time, what would you have to give up to live in this constant state of infantilisation to the point where your life didn’t matter? I lit a cigarette, glad I didn’t have such things to worry about.

Corporate Wellness Retreat & Spa: The Future Of Mental Health

Mental health is no longer associated with a drooling lunatic in a straitjacket, but something that effects normal people. I met with LinkedIn’s chief Wellness officer to find out more about how we can protect our mental health in these uncertain times.

Jules Juventus is no stranger to mental health issues.

“In 2020 I wasn’t connecting to my colleagues. Being away from the office caused me depression and anxiety. That’s when I really started to understand mental health.” Jules says as we drive a golfcart around the corporate wellness centre. The £60 million investment is part medical facility, part resort, with stressed out Directors coming to relax and ‘take a chill pill’.

When the pandemic lifted, the first thing Jules did was research the impact mental health was having on workers, particularly those at the top. The findings literally shocked him.

“Did you know the global economy is losing trillions of dollars every year to people having time off work? Pre-pandemic, this tended to be around accidents or illnesses. Now, we’re talking about stress, burnout, apathy. Its as if workers don’t see the value in the work they do. That’s why LinkedIn has partnered with the government to develop the wellness centre.”

The golf cart makes a few loops, passing tennis courts, swimming pools and finally ending up at a spa. I ask Jules what people might benefit from by relaxing. He laughs.

“You know the number one cause of stress is not being able to express yourself. Its not very relaxing if your team hasn’t delivered, and a lot of our clients find they just want to talk.”

We go through a corridor and monitor a communication workshop. An actor plays at a middle manager, with Directors and CEOs finally getting a chance to vent their frustration. Currently the CEO of Brewdog, James Watt, was screaming in the actors face and threatening them with physical violence.

“This is healthy?” I ask. Jules laughs again.

“Its part of giving people chance to communicate what we call the shadow side of our personalities. By embracing that side of ourselves, we can start to grow as individuals.”

“How do you do that?”

“All of the people staying here get access to workbooks where they can track their mental health. By measuring emotions on a scale between 1-10, we can track how a client is doing and come up with an action plan to help them get better.”

“What about those who have mental health issues beyond depression and anxiety?” I ask. Jules laughs, looking puzzled momentarily.

“How do you mean?”

“Schizophrenia, psychosis, antisocial personality disorder, haltlose personality disorder, that sort of thing.”

“Well those sound a bit made up to me. The most common expression of all mental health issues is depression and anxiety.” says Jules. I shake my head.

“That’s not really true though, is it?” I say. Jules laughs. “Why do you keep laughing?”

“I just think you’re saying funny things.”

“Like what?”

“You’re questioning things like mental health isn’t somehow connected to depression and anxiety.”

“There’s more to it than just those two things.”

“No there’s not.”

“It is. I can prove it.” I say. Jules laughs, though cuts himself off.

“Go on then.” he says. I nod, opening the door to where James Watt was having a roleplay.

I walk over to the bald man, tapping him on the shoulder. As he turns around I stick a syringe into his neck and push the stopper down.

“What are you doing!?” he yelps, clutching at his neck. The actor stands up, looking concerned. I take a step back and let the drugs take their toll on the brainscape of the multimillionaire. I had concocted the drugs myself, always carrying around a syringe of the substance should I need it. Jules has entered the room and is trying to calm James Watt.

“Don’t worry, you are only experiencing depression and anxiety.” he says, stroking James’ arm to try and calm him.

“I feel funny.” says James, staggering back, he tries to sit on a chair and misses, falling heavily on his arse. I check my watch.

“I have injected you with a cocktail of purified metals. Heavy metal poisoning has shown its capacity to create mania and psychosis in people. You can track the number of serial killers in America to the usage of lead in their pipes.” I explain. I had boiled the metals myself, skimming off the foam of chemicals that most directly correlated to impacting the brain through short circuiting the neural pathways. The very small amount of electrical current in the brain made it the most magnetic part of the body, and so the metals I had injected into the CEO would settle in the folds of his brain like ocean silt.

The effect this had on James was visible quite quickly. His limbs and hands began to spasm and curl up against him, he spluttered a scream out as he folded up onto the floor. His eyes began to roll back into his head and when he spoke, it was meaningless glossolalia. Jules knelt by him.

“Don’t worry, this is just depression and anxiety.” he says, trying to comfort the man as froth began to spill from his lips and nostrils. I kneel down next to them both and began reading from a book about cognitive behavioural therapy. The tremoring man begins to calm, his twisting muscles giving way to a more pliant, almost puddle-like form. I take out another syringe and inject him again.

“What’s that?” says Jules, looking at the syringe I had put into James, not seeing the second syringe in my other hand that went up to his neck.

“This is concentrated autism. I have synthesized it from the brains of hundreds of people exhibiting signs of autistic spectrum disorder. How do you feel now?” I ask. Both men sit up.

“Good.” Jules says. I nod, going over to a bookcase and leaning it over so all of the books fall out.

“Look, there’s one there about deep sea creatures. Do you want that?” I say, kicking one over. James Watt shakes his head. When he tries speaking he just grunts a few times from the back of his throat. I move the books around, finding a comic about Sonic the Hedgehog and throw it as hard as I can at his forehead.

As I leave the facility, I reflect back on my own journey with my brain. I don’t believe I have mental health issues, as that implies the differences in my brain are somehow weaknesses. No. Just as medicine lacks words for when a patient is feeling well, we also lack language for the opposite of mental health disorders. I had a freakishly strong mind, sometimes surprising myself with thoughts that would leap from the waters of my subconscious like winged dolphins.

I slam the car door. I take out another syringe, inject it into an orange then eat the whole thing. It had been interesting seeing the commodification of the treatment of mental health, when it seemed that many causes of mental health issues stemmed from enforced poverty. Transnational companies paying millions to consultants to develop mental wellness platforms for employees. Guided breathing exercises for workers standing next to conveyer belts packed with toxic metals. Team away days where colleagues would throw a blow-up beachball to one another before going back to develop tactical weapons used against unarmed Muslims. The orange is beginning to work. I drive down the road, crossing the white lines, swerving round cars going in opposite directions, the window is down, the music is turned up. I scream until I can taste blood at the back of my throat. Car shoots through tunnels, leaps from bumps in the road. I look in the rearview mirror and see Armitage Shanks has finally rejoined me. We ride out into the night as if we had been ejected from hell for being worse than the devil.