#kontextmaschine

[mitigatedchaos]

Kontextmaschine is Dead

(~1,000 words, 5m)

Noted blogger @kontextmaschine is presumed dead, following the discovery that the sole resident at his most likely residence was found deceased during a wellness check initiated by concerned Redditors.

Prior to his last post on Aug 22, which indicated a serious health problem, he reported taking over twice the dose of creatine he had been taking at the beginning of his lengthy post-COVID health saga, in which he also reported becoming bisexual, having "zero" anxiety, gaining 3D vision after years of not having it, becoming incredibly convincing, and having to learn to walk and use his muscles properly again. At the time, he felt he was becoming trimmer and physically stronger, and reported engaging in a long project of yard work, although photos from the inside of his house generally looked somewhat messy.

A Tumblr user who met him briefly in person after the beginning of the health saga but before these most recent events reported that he was friendly, charismatic, hospitable, and clean, but "physically, a mess," with motor control issues on one side of his body.

Topics of discussion were similar to the content of kontextmaschine's blog, such as differences in east and west coast government in America, said to be "totally on brand," but it was said that the prolific poster seemed "less self-grandiose" in person.

Redditors theorize that the decline of kontextmaschine's health following his first self-report of COVID-19 infection may have been due to undiagnosed brain cancer, which could be more consistent with observed changes in behavior than the after-effects of a viral infection, given that most reports of "long covid" are about effects like fatigue, and not total loss of anxiety or alteration of sexual orientation.

Despite multiple suggestions, from both anonymous and pseudonymous users, kontextmaschine refused to seek professional medical care for his condition.

Regarding the mourning of public figures, in 2018, a period of increased Progressive sensitivity during the Trump Administration, kontextmaschine wrote,

through the years realized that through whatever blind groping the ‘90s-ass “edgelords” were desperately trying to save us from this, through proper gatekeeping and filtering at first I’d thought it was gratuitous and supported it being relaxed, maybe not shaming everyone who publicly mourned a suicide, mea culpa, mea culpa, I have debts to pay

In 2019, he added:

That was how we kept the internet culture from growing mawkish and cry-bullyish: basically, if you were so weak as to get weepy over corpsemeat you got cancelled, the shame would follow you forever and you’d never be allowed to forget it.

Given his writing, it is likely that kontextmaschine would not have supported excessive public mourning over his death, though in 2017, following the theft of his motorcycle, when the popular blogger @argumate jokingly criticized him by writing, "no references to pinball, no insight into historical Americana, this isn’t the kontext I signed up for," kontextmaschine wrote,

“when bad shit happens people mock me accurately” is the community I’ve been looking for my whole life so

Like argumate, perhaps the most famous of the rationalist-adjacent bloggers on Tumblr, screenshots of kontextmaschine's Tumblr posts would end up on outside websites.

Kontextmaschine was generally considered an interesting, if controversial writer. One Tumblr user characterized him as a member of the "obnoxious Tumblr right," though another user asked, "wait, how is kontextmaschine is right wing?" After another user claimed that the nuclear bombing of Oregon would be a net improvement in the world due to kontextmaschine's residence in Portland, tumblr user @random-thought-depository wrote a 2,400 word theory post arguing that kontextmaschine's philosophy was a means to coordinate to join a future political coalition favoring the formation of a more brutal and oppressive hierarchy in pursuit of his own advantage.

Though kontextmaschine's ideology advocates that humanity should adopt "r-selection," meaning more offspring with less investment in each (or youth, sex, and death), this blog dissented against the coalition theory, arguing that motorcycles, kung fu, women, Hollywood, and not having to report to HR are all traditionally cool, and the causality of the kontextmaschine ideology could easily run the other way.

Though he had a period of identifying as female in his youth, appropriately LGBTQ for a Tumblr user, his 2011 statement of principles, including "the lesser yields to the greater" and "suffering is the mark of a wrong person," and general body of work, could be described as a strain of right-wing thought, though not of the traditionalist Christian or rational technocratic varieties.

Prior to the post-covid health saga, kontextmaschine's health posting was primarily about his bipolar disorder, with both manic and depressive phases.

Kontextmaschine maintained generally friendly relations with other bloggers in his sphere of discourse, sometimes debating but rarely aggressive, except in response to anonymous hatemail. In response to one particular piece of hatemail, kontextmaschine stated that as a writer, of course his primary form of influence would be his posts.

In a post chain reblogged by dozens of Tumblr users, multiple Tumblr users wrote that they enjoyed his writing and are disappointed by his death, describing him as a unique thinker that will not be easily replaced. Several felt that there was not much they could have done, as after returning from his covid infection, he was not taking medical advice.

One Tumblr user wrote, "rip. Inspirational manic poster," while long-time and prolific poster argumate described him as, "one of the bloggers of all time."

Internet users speculate that Kontextmaschine is survived by his outdoor cat, Badger, about whom he posted frequently. He may also be survived by other members of his family, with whom he apparently did not live, and rarely spoke about.

It is recommended that enthusiasts of kontextmaschine's blog make backups of his writing for archival purposes.

[against-forms-recognizable]

@kontextmaschine has been confirmed deceased after someone called for a welfare check following him going MIA for a week. Rest easy, fellow traveler.

H/t @selentelechia on Twitter:

[bambamramfan]

Also if you want to read "the good stuff" of km today, remember the am-hist tag exists. https://kontextmaschine.tumblr.com/tagged/amhist

[andmaybegayer]

If I had a nickel for every mutual who posted about their shitting situation and then died from a long-term illness I'd have two nickels. What the hell. How. How is that possible.

[baconmancr]

I'm hearing that @kontextmaschine seems to have passed. RIP dear mutual, you will be missed.

[infraredarmy]

Wait I just put together that it was the tumor that made kontextmaschine bisexual. They should've studied his body. A tragedy for science ToT

[apricops]

rip :(

[kontextmaschine]

So I guess my take-away from ::gestures:: all this is that after I graduated college I was not in fact a final-stage imago, I had to moult through several instars before, mediated by Covid, I pupated.

[spankymerve]

It's very weird that someone I follow on this hellsite just died. I didn't know the guy at all; I just read his posts and often found them amusing. RIP, dude.

[mourning-again-in-america]

Part of the vibeshift that I think KM gets at that I've been seeing growing in strength (from Mattygs & tumblrites & others) as a rejection of what Clarence Thomas has called "victimology" is "Being able to extract material gains for yourself through adversity and using them to succeed in your aspirations is a skill that needs to be learned, that 'playing victim' will not help you with."

There's been very very good critiques of that argument in the past 30 years, but unfortunately, the popularization of said critiques has led only to the metastasization of what Thomas called 'victimology' in the 90's (mb earlier!).

That being said, too often said argument is used as a bludgeon, to force so-called 'necessary' pain on unwilling subjects that for various reasons, cannot escape or otherwise object in ways that lead to prompt ceasing of the unnecessary (and hopefully too, the necessary, for it is hard to explain oneself when suffering), reconciliation, and comfortable agreement to alternatives between the two parties, recognizing each other as equals. Too often is the argument used to justify those who wish to play Pharaoh on the powerless under their command and control. These things do not develop the skill either.

I hope a good synthesis can emerge, but I fear its folk version, too. Always be on the lookout, always critique. That is one of your great abilities as such a thinking being as yourself.

[meta-plastic]

just curious, but do you know which strain of covid your friend and their housemate got? could you go into more detail about their symptoms post-covid? i’m intrigued

(This is in regards to a reply I left on an obit post for @kontextmaschine.)

Very unclear but it was one of the early ones - I don't recall for sure if it was late 2020 or early 2021. Pre-vaccination, notably.

I'm being vague about the situation because it's not properly my story to tell, but I'll give what I remember. My friend had some health issues afterward but I noticed that his writing improved both in quality and quantity, and I brought this up and he was like "... yeah, I've had a stronger impulse to write since then." So like... mild hypergraphia, cool beans.

His roommate, on the other hand, went from being... regular autistic, I think?... to extreme incoherence and complicated support needs. At some point in this medical mystery it became apparent that they weren't able to sleep deeply or for more than brief intervals at all. The symptom pattern my friend described was congruent with what I know of fatal insomnia, which is a prion disease that takes 1-2 years to kill its victims via sleep deprivation, very rare even for a prion disease. Etiology of how these symptoms arose from covid is unclear, but if protein misfolding can knock out that part of the autonomic system, a virus can too. Eventually the roommate became violent and had to go elsewhere. A rough situation for sure.

I wish Oliver Sacks was still around to comment on these things. He had a lot of experience with weird neurological sequelae of novel pandemic viruses, specifically (see 'Awakenings' re: the patients who developed encephalitis lethargica/atypical Parkinsonism from the 1918 flu!)

[mitigatedchaos]

The obituary of Kontextmaschine has escaped from this little corner of Tumblr.

- #he sounds awful! #weird story - #did not know this person existed - #damn rip to that guy - #what a weird dude. rip #fantastic eulogy thank you

Tumblr users seem to have decided the dude was a character, as it goes, and the obituary is interesting reading, and a novelty for being written on tumblr, for tumblr, about a dude on tumblr.

I admit to thinking, just for a moment, that it would have been interesting to get his take on it. Just for a moment, which is usually how these things go.

[confield]

who the fuck is kontextmaschine?

[baconmancr]

So one of my tweets kinda blew up. :v

[apricops]

does anyone have a link to that kontextmaschine post about the slave labor pizza place?

[kontextmaschine]

Huh, that post is the type the old personality used to make more, I noticed as writing it. And poking around in the background, just like "someone is wrong on the internet", "people do not fully appreciate all the history that prefigured and informs contemporary issues" is the kind of thing whose felt imperative of addressing seems to correspond to anxiety levels.

So, there's your explanation for that, "that creator isn't producing your favorite kind of content anymore" was 100% a "his mental issues have cleared and he's in a better place" thing.