I should, like, I dunno…write a book or something. Why not. It’s kinda what I do.
Okay, so I’m being extemporaneous. Presuming that you can actually do that in a book. Whatever. I’m gonna do it either way.
So, here’s the thing. Approximately. A few years ago, it occurred to me to write Slackerhood. Kindasorta as a followup to News of the Stoopid, but not really. I mean: it might be similar, in that it’s a sort of firstperson account of various unsmart things. But that’s probably about where the similarities end. Because, you know, I already wrote NotS; I don’t really need to do it again. It’s not like it worked the first time anyway: Earth is still a planet of six billion ’tards. Though, in fact, it’s now a planet of six point five. But that’s incidental.
So. I’ve written NotS. Maybe you’ve read it. Good for you; I dig getting paid for this shit. More recently, I’ve written Paroxysm, which is fairly well removed from NotS in a lot of ways: it was a longish novel about zombies, which are not to be confused entirely with six and a half billion ’tards. For reference.
And now, here we are. And here’s this thing. Slackerhood.
Let’s cover the backstory on this real quick.
I coined the word pretty much to mean that weird, almost paratransitional state between teenhood and adulthood. You know the one. It’s where GenerationX lives on Dad’s sofa until the age of forty. Because it’s the twenty-first century and no one ever really grows up anymore.
Okay: that’s not true; most people grow up; but a lot of us remain for ever in slackerhood. Because, to be honest, we can. If it works, why go to all the trouble of being a normal grownup, after all.
So, that’s the basic meaning of the word. Being old enough to buy cigarettes, and irresponsible enough to smoke them.
Not that cigarettes are as deadly and evil as the grownups want you to fall for, of course; we’ll get to that later on in the book. Ooh: a narrative hook.
Having coined the word, and having decided to write a book defining the word, I grabbed the DotCom. Because: duh. I may be a slacker, but I get how things work. Not that work is always the best word when it comes to my DotComs.
Now, of course, we have this new issue. I’m gonna write a book. So I grabbed the site because: duh. Now there’s Hunter: the crazychick who lives with me [crazychicks may be integral to slackerhood]. She has this goofy question for me. If I’ve got NewsoftheStoopid.com, and it’s a standalone site with a loose relation to News of the Stoopid as a book, then what’s supposed to happen over at slackerhood.com….
Um…I dunno. I just bought the DotCom because: duh.
That, by general consensus, was a stupid reason. If I’m gonna have the site, I should do something substantial with it. Because, obviously, I’d want to put a lot of time and effort into something called slackerhood.com. Let’s be real: it took me five years to get round to writing the damned book.
Because: duh. It’s a bit dumb to write a book about being a professional slacker. I mean: there’s no way to do it. You can talk about doing it, because that lacks all species of progress. But actually doing it defeats the purpose of being it. Y’know?
Maybe not. Since you’re still reading the intro here.
So anyway: here’s how it all works out. I’m writing the book, even though it’s a functional paradox. Then, as I write the book, I copy it over to slackerhood.com for people to read. Which begs its own stupid questions; but I can answer those.
A website is free. Kinda. It’s free for you, anyway. For me, it’s an annual renewal of the DotCom, the serverspace, bandwidth, and whatever. But that’s okay; I’ve got an angle. Because the site has something the book can’t have. Yet. For the next five to ten years. The site’s got hyperlinks.
And that’s good. Because I can mention my main site at gremlin.net and, on slackerhood.com, make that a real link. I suppose that’s a bit of a given, though.
Moreover, slackerhood.com can have adverts from google.com. And here’s where that becomes its own amusement.
Based on the contract with google.com, you can’t have their adverts and tell people to click on them. Because: duh. Because then you might go click on them, giving me a nickel in advert revenue, costing the advertiser in question that nickel [plus whatever google.com are personally making per click], and potentially not actually being interested in whatever was being advertised before you clicked on the thing. And we wouldn’t want that, because, hey: it’s a nickel. Worldending shit, you know.
Anyway: google.com eventually decided to allow the little This Site Monetised by Google AdSense icon; I guess you’re supposed to figure out what that might mean all by yourself.
So. If you’re reading this online: don’t click on anything unless you’re interested in it. I guess. Not that it’s up to me; you’re the one with the mouse.
If you’re reading this as the printed novel: cool; I already got paid. You don’t have to not click on anything ever again. Unless you wanna.
None of which exactly answers the overall question: what’s the book about.
Actually, I’m not entirely sure yet. I write books in linear order, and then make every effort to ignore them after the fact; I’m not into reading them through and doing editorial surgery; if I write something into a book, it’ll probably stay there.
So, as of this instant, I know roughly about as much about this book as you do. Less, if you’re far in the future, reading it because someone who will have already have had read…if someone’s read it and told you to go do that too. See? No revisions. Damnit.
What’s the book about. It’s about six inches by nine. Unless it’s on a computer; then it relies on your screenmode. I dunno what it’s about.
I suppose—and this is one of those ironic ways in which it actually does differ from NotS—it’s a sort of autobiography. Kinda. In the sense that, to a large degree, it’s likely to be a bunch of examples by anecdotal evidence. Which, as we’re all supposed to know, is for shit. Because people misremember things differently.
Therefore, however true an account of various events I might think this book really is, it’s at best based on a true story. Like wikipedia.org. But different.
Or, if you like, like FoxNews or CNN or bbc.co.uk or whatever source puts its own spin on everything to fluff simple facts up into epic sagas of bullshit.
One important thing. My anecdotal evidence necessarily starts on or after the date upon which I first entered slackerhood. Because: duh. Also because I tend to get a kick outta people trying to guess where in hell I’m from. Given the number of exgirlthings who have concluded that I’m the antichrist, a popular hunch is in fact Somewhere in Hell. Runnersup include a few Englishspeaking countries. We can lump the US into that list for the sake of simplicity.
Another important thing. While I’ve got a pretty good idea precisely when slackerhood began, for me, and could start the story at precisely that instant, it should never be assumed that, even if I bother to finish this book, I’ve left slackerhood and arrived at adulthood.
I have strong doubts that I’ll ever get there at all. Because: duh. I write books. That’s not, like, work, is it?
Whatever you guess the answer to that is, you’ll be wrong.