________  ________  ________
   2018-09-09                                   /        \/        \/    /   \
                                               /       __/         /_       _/
   This is kind of half-formed but I  wanted  /        _/         /         /
to get it out in  the open so I don't forget  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
about it. Where the cyberpunk genre could be    /        \/        \/    /   \
described  as   "the  future  of   the  80s,   /        _/         /_       _/
imagined", baudpunk would be "the present of  /-        /        _/         /
the  90s,   exaggerated".   Of  course,  the  \________/\________/\___/____/
present of  the 90s is technically  the past
but let's not overcomplicate things.

   Baudpunk is  fiction  based in  retro-reality  cyberculture;  CRTs, sneaker
nets, payphones and text zines. Baudpunk is a local crew with a global  reach,
baudpunk  is  the computer  shit  your  parent's  don't  know  about  and  the
government is afraid of.

   Some baudpunk media to get you started:


      Viewing

      Hackers  (1995) - This is, in my opinion, the quintessential baudpunk
   film. Colorful and quirky joining forces to overcome an equally colorful
   and quirky  hacker villain. Computer/hacker culture  in this film exists
   in a punk-rock space with bumbling adults  completely oblivious  to  the
   world beneath the surface. Hacking, phreaking, pranking, cool locations,
   rad tech and a bumping soundtrack. This is baudpunk!

      Takedown (2000) - What little attention  I remember this film getting
   was  mostly negative due to the  factual inaccuracies in it and the book
   it was based on but,  you know, anything  that's "based on a true story"
   should be taken  with  a grain of salt. Of course if it's written by one
   of the parties involved it's going to be slanted in their favor. If  you
   dump  out all the real  life drama and just approach  this as a  work of
   fiction it's a pretty good baudpunk film about feud between two hackers.
   A bit  more grounded in  reality than Hackers but, here's a fun factoid:
   in some regions this movie was marketed as "Hackers 2".

      The Scene  (2004) - Maybe this should  go  under "reading"? The Scene
   follows the members of a piracy group and is told through webcam footage
   and screen recordings of IRC channels and instant  messenger sessions. I
   remember it  being really engrossing and quite  an interesting idea  but
   I'm not sure how it'd hold up today, I might revisit it and report back.

      BBS:  The Documentary (2005) - This was an eight episode series which
   is  definitely worth watching through if you have any interest in BBS or
   the  pre/early  internet,  but  the  two episodes  that  cover  baudpunk
   concepts are episode 2: SysOps and Users, which covers the BBS community
   and episode 6:  HPAC,  which  covers the  BBS  "underground" of hacking,
   phreaking,  anarchy  and  cracking. There are  probably  a  few  similar
   documentaries out there but I've never seen one that really dug into the
   people  and  community  behind  the  BBS  scene  as  well  as  BBS:  The
   Documentary does.


      Reading

      Commodork:  Sordid Tales  from a BBS Junkie (Rob  O'Hara, 2006) -  An
   autobiographical  account  of  Rob  O'Hara's  life   growing  up  as   a
   BBS/computer nerd. It's  a  personal  account  but  deeply relatable  to
   anyone who was around in those days and likely fascinating to anyone who
   wasn't but is curious about life online before the internet. Since it is
   a (perhaps exaggerated)  account of true events, along the same lines as
   BBS:  The Documentary, it's technically not baudpunk but it is a  really
   good study on what  life was  like in those BBS/early  Internet days and
   the  evolving  cyberculture  of  the  time  provides   a  really  strong
   oundation on which baudpunk fiction can be built.

      Wizzywig (Ed Piskor,  2012)  -  Ed  Piskor's  baudpunk graphic  novel
   combines  parts of the  lives  of iconic  phreaks and  hackers  into the
   fictional tale of Kevin "Boingthump" Phenicle, following his life from a
   crafty inner-city kid to  a wanted techno-fugitive and beyond.  About as
   baudpunk a comic as  I've found and, although it can seem a little silly
   when  you recognise the  anecdotes of real people being  re-written into
   the story, it's still a pretty good read.

      The Hacker Crackdown (Bruce Sterling, 1992) - Y'all fuckin' know this
   one. Bruce Sterling's  account of the  early '90s  "Operation  Sundevil"
   raids on hacker groups and anyone tangentially related to them.


      Listening

      Introducing Neals (ytcracker, 2014) - This is more a modern tale than
   baudpunk, really, but has a lot of throwback references and can kinda be
   tied back to the baudpunk concept. Introducing Neals is a "nerdcore hip-
   hopera" cautionary tale  of an all  too believable  near- future where a
   corporo-government stranglehold on the internet sees encryption outlawed
   and piracy punishable with prison time.



EOF