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Net Split or, the Fathomless Heartbreak of Online Itself

by MC Frontalot

supported by
Laurence Warner
Laurence Warner thumbnail
Laurence Warner Couldn't have made "BURNER" without the Nerdcore genre this man started. Love this O.G.'s exasperated take on the modern internet, and hope he hasn't given it up entirely! Favorite track: Internet Sucks.
Matt aka Stormageddon
Matt aka Stormageddon thumbnail
Matt aka Stormageddon MC Frontalot has done it again. Breaking up with the internet never sounded so good. Front has distilled the very essence of what it's like growing up with the internet and growing apart from the wonderment. Also the hooks... GOOD GOD DAMN these hooks. So catchy. They will be in your head forever and a day. A must have album. Favorite track: Memes Are Stupid (feat. Int80).
Scooter
Scooter thumbnail
Scooter Okay, just lost my shit cracking up at the Internet Police skit while on a subway platform in Osaka, people turning to see what's wrong with me. Also, the album is tight, but that will forever be the memory that floats to the top when I put this on. 😂
more... more...
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1.
Sometimes I wish I loved you Sometimes I don’t know what to do Sometimes I look back on our earliest love affairs: I had so many hairs, and you were made of everyone everywhere. Or so I imagined! Actually, just a bunch of me-types, typing into MUD games, geeking on the weeknights, hunting drug recipe text files with a Gopher client. (You’re supposed to be studying, oh no, but you’re so defiant.) It was giant Usenet porn, over the dialup, over the rickety PBX which might go silent. Internet was precious to me, and it remains so. But it isn’t like in early days. The achy pains grow ever more insistent, they get inside my melon. They tell me pretty subtly (I mean, besides the yelling) that I don’t love you any more, internet. You used to be a safe home for my nerd heart and my intellect. Now you’ve got so much hate that you’ve just got to interject. Now you’ve got too many chefs up in your kitchenette. Sometimes I’m overjoyed this thing got democratized. Anybody with a pocket phone can lend a voice against those who talk the lies. Don’t need to know how the packets work or any server’s status, just click the big user-friendly button that fills my heart with gladness. And stop pressing the one that posts your unrelenting wackness. Yeah, I know how to mute and unfriend (even got some practice), but how exactly is one supposed to mute the fact that a tenth of our netizens when offered the chance to shit on anything pull down pants without hesitance, without any sense of justice, pathos, kindness, or decency? Now having to listen to assholes is half of what online means to me. And it seems to be this isn’t brand new. Some people have always sucked. More trolls per capita, probably: 1989 CompuServe. But! These days, it’s like all the worst people on earth formed a club just to light ugliness up and take one drag and proceed to stub it out in my eye by way of my once-beloved internet. Could a solution lurk that hasn’t been discovered in it yet?
2.
Memes are dumb Memes are dumb Memes are dumb If you’ve got something to say, say something [MCF] I say memes are dumb, not like idiots would post them, but like I experience my own giddiness the most when fodder for the flow’s penned and then exclaimed out. When I say dumb, I mean like I could take the same mouth that I yap with and mute it like a commercial. None of what I meant to communicate achieves dispersal. And that’s what you’ve done, every dickbutt that you shitpost, sewn your own trap shut, a riddle you didn’t get close. Just another echo of an image that you’ve seen in another permutation on that same rectangle screen, just a little more obscene or droll, according to your self-expression. And still it’s dumb, affording you this hellish lesson... [Int80] int0x80, memes curator, a veteran and seasoned, but saddened that my rap just happens to be the voice of reason. "Memes are dumb?" That isn't mute, it's acute act of treason. Much of us anonymous, and believe it we are legion. Multiple in content, this "trouble" isn't gone yet, maybe ‘cause these references are so cultural in context. Hey stranger, is your echo chamber commentary laughed off? Look at the bigger picture of these contemporary snapshots. Behold the inevitable sentence structure that we muster. These dank memes change themes, grouping others into clusters. I thought as someone famous you'd like innovative language. Sorry to deny your pull request for retroactive changes. [MCF] The captioning macro captures every residual stammer. Maybe you’re busy inventing a new semi-visual grammar. Maybe I’m too old to understand how talk works but I’ve squeezed a living out of it on internet like rock squirts. And I’m not sure I’m ready to surrender to the crowd-sourced crafting of every cultural fender bender. Dank is a good descriptor for wet caves and your reefer, and unattributed, yeah, if you’re going to stay such a griefer. If the thing of the moment captures your sentiment perfectly and drawing a moustache on it is enhancing it worthily, then don’t let me tell you exactly how to shut up. All your internet buddies think that you’re a cutup.
3.
You don't want to catalog all the times you had it all figured out and sorted in to its optimal position, add the optional missive in: “Here it is, I you hope you like it! Hope there's somebody listening!” Then what but your sight alighted on the side, it said discuss. Shiny pixels, click the plus. Many comments, what a fuss! You’re nothing but a catalyst to sage discussion among learned peers, about to find some here. Peruse a couple and the floor disappears. You get despised and disparaged. Is this normal? Let it go. A single toe dipped in the fester-hole subjects to undertow, as if to know your worth itself became debatable, as if anything could be wonderful enough to be unhateable. Never read the comments, never read ‘em, never Never read the comments, you don’t need ‘em, never Never read the comments, never read ‘em, never Never read the comments, never read the comments Original poster’s mom should get AIDS and then kill herself (If that isn’t still enough impact on her bill of health, poisonous vulgar slurs protruding in and out) because of whatever original poster posted about, and also because of how original poster said it, and who original poster is (let’s just admit that): a particular type of whatever they are. Setting the bar as low as we do, they duck it by far. That anyone smart could suffer a thought that you’re not garbage is reason enough we don’t move on to the harder targets. Now that you’re tarnished, our point has been made vivid: we’re the comment section, it’s our internet, you’re in it. Never read the comments, never read ‘em, never Never read the comments, you don’t need ‘em, never Never read the comments, never read ‘em, never Never read the comments, never read the comments Guess I might have had enough of these posted fisticuffs to discuss with the posters their and my shared neurosis. Pardon my halitosis of ideology and expression, but I’ll admit I’m disgusted a little bit by your aggression. My confession’s intangible. Write it instead to memory. I hold myself to the highest ideals, yet I’m sometimes settling. I read them if they write them (I wil). Can’t always recommend it. I hope you don’t have a bad batch and you get upended. Hope you don’t vent it back at your dearest of dear-held intimates. That was just some internet. Don’t be inconsiderate. Don’t get in the thick of it. You don’t got to read them! Robots will keep them archived for you but you’ll never need them. Never read the comments, never read ‘em, never Never read the comments, you don’t need ‘em, never Never read the comments, instead delete ‘em Never read the comments, never read the comments
4.
Before you look at me like I’m a neo-Luddite, all screens point at me at once in a real floodlight. Ideally sunlight would bathe me more often between now and a million internets and a coffin. Can’t soften up my viewpoint: modern love is the realm and computron is the true coin. And that’s it for you, boy. You’re forty-two and the coif fled. Better find true love immediately, as you’ve oft said. So you figure the thing out, pick out a password, look in your digital photographs folder over the last third of your life. Is anything plausibly still hot? What kind of hope about love have you impossibly still got lodged in your nerd mind? Don’t you remember biology, all of the sad ones that the herd find difficult to cope with left the group and weren’t eloped with. Before you look at me I could tell, you could be All that I have ever wanted Cant trick you perfect. Nevertheless! Ever since Guttenberg and Rosanna Arquette’s mise-en-scène, brandishing the sheaf of dot-matrix, your belief in top basics got stasis. You take ways that you might not be forgivable, reveal them. List your investment in every real un- shakable truth that you’ve ever pondered. That profile text seems far off. You never wander. You write what you’ve seen people write, like: you feel extreme nostalgia for Excitebike; you read this book once and you quite liked it; screens keep you company bright nights like these. There’s a reply! This thing is pinging at you. Look at his eyes: both of them singing at you. He’s in disguise as you, except beautiful. Offers his services. Whispers he’s dutiful. Wait, it’s the dating app. It made a map of your whole identity, but with all of the things that your soul intends to be punched up and expressed now unequivocally. Plus, it fixed your chin, and the whole thing’s riveting. It’s leveraging a neural network on your behalf. Check the projected effectiveness there on the graph. If you let go, it’ll send notes to other romance-seeking persons, or rather to the prettier, funnier, geekier versions of those humans that the system surely improved. Your algorithm is better at flirting than you. Their algorithms are better at flirting back. Your virtual face, already out on a date with your top match. Each of your virtual fleshes intertwine, and even though you’re not participating, this is fine. It’s kind of ideal as your dating endgame: bot’s got your heart simulating on the mainframe, keeps it beating in your name.
5.
Don’t know how to turn the box off I don’t know how to turn it off. I don’t know if I want to. And I don’t know if I learned enough to be standing on a soap box, telling everyone how to live. Everybody’s got a critique that they’ve got to give, and mine is only as regards my own habitual dissemination of the celebration ritual. “Online is so great, let’s all go there! We’ll be there together, even though it’s nowhere!” And some scaredy-cats are going to log off but I’ll tell them: muster bravery, be not soft. Be not often (nor ever) in absentia, and if you get in trouble while you’re logged on, do not mention the rapper who told you to never to touch the power switch. I eschew all weaknesses such as cowardice (I’ll evince them often but I don’t admit). If you’re streaming this record then you’re already it Don’t know how to turn the box off Don’t know how to turn, to turn, to turn Wake up updating feeds and I’m bleeding followers, though not for want of politesse. Who is egregious? All of us, oh. Wander onto the avenue, screen at eye level, camera in the high bezel. See me seeking my devil. See me stumble, I’ll mumble a couple of repetitions of the current obscurities. Hurry, this transmission is up! Beat those hearts and those thumbs into submission. ‘Cause I’m aware of all internet traditions. Ha. Ha. I laugh in recognition, not joy (an emotion I’ve outsourced my ability to deploy). Think my unlimited toy is in need of a feeding. Venture back home to the bigger displays and plug in as needed. I figure I’ll stay seated for the rest of the day now. There’s no way to relax. It’ll say how on the forum. Okay, wow. There’s one technique, and nobody’s verified it: flick the power switches off. But that won’t work, I’ve tried it.
6.
[Quelle Chris] The system is down. Everything’s stuck in the internet now. Call the pharmacist Morpheus, hope his prescription is loud. The metal mentalist each move predicted to your interest. Clouds hold our sentiments like nimbus on a journey to the wicked west. Every second I catch another message, MMS, DM, voicemail, email. Too many cooks in the kitchen mixing details. The hotpot is bubbling over and the kettle’s blowing out chemtrails. It’s a more eat more mentality. Ozy and the wall of a million idiot boxes. Doesn’t have the same ring as a chocolate factory. So log in till your brain logs out. Perfect blue on a sanity drought. Cause what’s a you without a username. The Who’s Who of who’s to blame is in my timeline and my mind is going blind trying to peruse the pain. How many op-eds can I gobble, swallow, bottle and shake before my levee breaks under the heavy weight of D-D-o-S All heads saturated by internets Get progressively worse at thought Imagine it the other way around? It’s not D-D-o-S All heads saturated by internets Get progressively overwhelmed Are you the service or are you the clientele? [MCF] All sysops on deck. This is an awesome wreck. This is one of the best “too much internets” we’ve seen yet. Elect to force-quit deceptive packets talking. And I’m bottlenecked by horseshit, the truth can’t even login. My noggin’s under attack, and it’s weak, and it’s fraught. Chief SRE in charge of me is completely distraught, muttering, “What am I gonna do? I had one job: keep Front’s clown lobes from succumbing to the fun mob, keep the dumb throb of the input and resultant inaction from gaining the traction it could.” And Front has withstood a lot of stressers & booters, but what can you do, it’s a really big mess o’ computers and Smartbulbs and Fitbits and disinformations. I fail to figure which is which amidst this inundation. A topic gets broachable: consider cut lines. (Never!) Consider negotiable: mission critical uptimes. D-D-o-S All heads saturated by internets Get progressively overwhelmed And oh yes, we’re nearly over now D-D-o-S All heads saturated by internets Get progressively worse at thinking Let that thought be the last to sink in
7.
[MCF] Yo I'm a neckbeard when I don’t shave my neck and you might even catch me vaping in fedoras. Next, you females expect me to let you on my internets. Look at me, I'm chivalrous. Step up, lose your innocence. Get abused into bitterness and log off. Think I’m getting piggy? Well, you’re swilling from the wrong trough. Think I’ve gone soft? My masculinity towers! I can sit and type shit like this for hours without a hint of introspection or fatigue. You can make a sandwich for me, otherwise breed and incubate my seed. These are your two mainstays. Suck it up, you’re internetting while having vajayjays. (And that was your decision, to show up with those) Why are you internetting While you’re female? Why are you on the line at all [Starr Busby] Boy, you’d better get yourself together It ain’t 2007 Your back is up against the wall [Miss Eaves] Oh shit, tripped over a dick pic as I'm skipping through the triple dubs. Every dude wanna show his little nub and call me fat and ugly? What the fuck? Um? I’m just trying to live. A femme with opinions: they’re threatened so they threaten. These mediocre men! They’re in my biz, always trolling. And… I’m stuck in a spiderweb ‘cause I dared to crawl through the internet. [“Show us your tits”] I’m not impressed, and I got a bit I want off my chest. And yes, I don’t exist for your erection ‘cause all of you is a dick. Drunk on male tears, don’t fuck with me. Throwing bows, fucking up the patriarchy. [MCF] Why are you internetting While you’re female? Why are you on the line at all? [Starr Busby] Boy, you’re always creeping in my comments Uninvited, anonymous Going to get you uninstalled [Lex the Lexicon Artist] Once upon a time in 2009 I opened up Premiere Pro, took a couple of lines from the Scout in TF2 and matched them up to a beat. I go to sleep and wake up to a thousand subscribers… Sweet. From there it only escalated and I amassed a vast army of edgelords as fans of my craft. And they all thought I was a man ‘cause “there’s no women on the internet,” a classic adage started for laughs that led to ignorance. I made more tracks for mic spammers to use and YouTube Poops that hit a few million views. But when I chose to show my true colors, I knew I would lose. Some fans turned their backs upon me in a whirlwind of sexist abuse. Yet all those videos remain on the tubes, and I have superfans who badger me to make something new. Maybe I’ll do it for the cool people. Maybe. Perhaps. But if you want some more Enigma, maybe you could listen to me rap. [E-Turn] Hey Chad, your ignorance is blatant. You got a complex and you can’t seem to face it. Instead of trolling on my posts, you should retrace it, man. Get off Facebook, go to bed, yo here’s a blanket statement, opinion, and a fact check from Snopes. Acting like you’re educated on the matter, but nope. See you jumping on a thread and steady watching you choke. Post some politics, you tell me to get back on the boat. Yo, I cringe knowing they allowed you to vote. Demeanor grosser than the scum in between your toes. He-man woman-hater, and your favorite word is “woke,” selfie mirror flexing in the cloud of vape smoke. Quoting Joe Rogan, posting how you’re #blessed, the next day online talking trash about your ex getting in your feelings ‘cause she denied your request. Blahblahblah bro, bro, bro you’re a mess. [MCF] Well, actually! Not all of us act as you say. Be exact! You’re sounding irrational. Facts are the way. Ladies, thanks for sharing all your memoirs and all your little femme scars that would’ve been far likelier ignored if endured by men online. Simply be us, you’ll have an easier time. Or log off! Why are you here? I won’t follow you. I get to be worse than any of you, if not all of you.
8.
I remember back in the previous millennium when, um, nerds were sighted, it was “Ready? Get ‘em!” You’d hide it if you could, but none of us were able. Maybe congregate together and discuss the label. Maybe form a roundtable of the meek folk, even chuckle at what we deemed an elite joke: the elevation of our intellects and our low status intersecting in sadness. It was so bad, it was awful, I was there, I remember it. I was present at the founding of the syndicate, a pleasant moment of comradery when we swore we’d shape the world to how it ought to be. We’d make everything perfect, tempt the planet with heavenly circuits, work it till we’re what the world is in need of. Thought there was only good nerds at the meet-up. You don’t need to be bad nerd Step away from the dark side You don’t need to be bad nerd You can muster some pride you don’t have to be bad Our conspiracy spread rapidly. None of the cool kids knew what was happening. A-list: Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi. Want your geek satisfactions? Pay Me. Make it free, then charge them when the bill comes. Yo, internet, where’d you get your skills from? How’d you hide in every pocket, every step of the way maintaining an open socket, worming into their psyches, giving them weird nerd urges however unlikely, ever so slightly instilling nerd rage into the unwilling? Bad nerds ascending with no ceiling, kind of like we always did: the opposite of chilling. Cannot stand a slight, demands a killing. It’s bad for that to be fulfilling. Bad nerds, hacking the election and the top ten, didn’t even stop then. Make ‘em gargle on your hot phlegm. Might even SWAT your friends. Show your raw contempt for anyone who isn’t nerd at all. That’s when you lost the plot, you got enthralled by power for its own sake. Up in my geekery tower, seeking my own break from fucking getting hassled. Why you got to make nerd mean asshole? Why you got to make internet cruel? Turn part of it into a murderous idiot school. Turn the rest of it into paranoia fuel. Wreck the normies, they’re annoying you. But what you’re wrecking is the clique you represent You don’t need to be bad. Ain’t too late to repent.
9.
10.
It was just like a scene in an intrigue film and I’m still not convinced that it wasn’t for real. This isn’t intended for me, I don’t think. It’s a missive from the edge of despair, I mean brink of total desperation. The communication therein says her hopes for survival are slim, and she’s writing to the Front, though we’ve yet to meet, with a confidential matter ‘cause she’s heard I’m discreet. And the urgency of her request for my aid is matched by the depth of the trust she displayed. “Don’t betray me like our oil minister did (staged a coup). And I’m about to flee Nigeria soon but I’ll never make it out,” she says, with twenty million three hundred twenty thousand US dollars that are still in her possession. She embezzled them, I guess. Look, I don’t really know her so uh... that’s none of my business. She’s the LADY MARYAM ABACHA, deposed. These days, can’t even get her caps-lock key unfroze. But yo, something about a widow in distress (with 20 million dollars hidden in a metal chest) softened up the Frontalot’s heart, no doubt, so I hit the reply button, tell her I can help her out. She writes me back: DEAR FRONTALOT, UNITED STATES... she acts so thankful. A bank full of money awaits! And I hate delays so I’m quick to turn around with my full name and the number to my checking account and the scan of my license to drive an automobile and my passport number, proving Frontalot’s for real! Then I’ll meet the money in Stockholm. Ain’t gonna walk home. Think I’ll retire to the south of Spain and sip gazpacho. Not so quick, there’s a little problem: LADY A apparently had difficulty running all them numbers I give her. But look, the fake ID’s my only one, and that’s a real passport — I got it off usenet and checked, I’m not dumb. I’m not some idiot who’s about to lose your money for you quicker than I’m getting it. And of course my bank balance is negative; whose isn’t? That’s why I need your 20% money laundering commission. And I’m wishing I could talk about this further with you but I can’t. I just got an email from DR. UBUGU of Chad. He’s got a hundred and seventy-seven million in a bag. I feel I got to help him ‘cause his story is so sad.
11.
I hate your blog. It's incredibly terrible and bad. I hate your blog. You own a dog, and you feed it. You post about it. I get to read it. Plus: five paragraphs on the socks you bought and your thoughts on whether Nicole Ritchie's hot or not. You got no reason to be typing, yet you persist. Hit each key with your fist till you punch out your top ten list of all the things that ever happened in your life. Number one: met Michael Jackson's second wife. Number two: got Curly on the Which Stooge Are You Poll, as the GIF proves. Click for the link-through! Three: saw puppy pictures on a web page, kittens in a nest egg. The idea gestated: Why not open up your own? So you bought the account and yet I hope you don't put the payments in on it every month like they want, 'cause then you'll disappear off the internet, haunt just the Wayback Machine like a ghost. And I won't be like, "How come you don't post??" I promise I won't. I hate your blog. Your recipe for vegan eggnog is stupid. I hissed and I booed it, and then eschewed it, never made it once. Yes, your blog roll is a confederacy of dunces. It abuts less interesting links in your posts. Hamsters that dance! I'm not engrossed. I'm not opposed to your collection of All Your Base pics, but they're longer in the denture than a ninja flipping out doing face kicks. I'll phrase this nice: if it's hard to get to bed, your web site will suffice to entice me to slumber. I mumble impoliticly, "I tried not to click 'read more' but you tricked me!" Want to stick the whole computer in the trash can instead of reading about the constipation lately and your ass plans that you seem to contemplate. You thought I would rate your page "awesome" and "great"? [Quelle Chris] How could you hate my blog? It’s got everything. Have you seen the title with free glitter bling? Inspirational quotes about anything? Dank memes and links to the best gaming streams? ZIPs with clips of kick-ass movie scenes? GIFs and riffs, my opinion is super keen. A proud Trump voter, a big gun owner, fake trick blower on my John Deere mower. I’m real likeable and unforgettable, and if I use your photo I’ll never credit you. I hate Instagram, Snap, and Reddit too. My blog’s got a super loud embedded tune: Stupefied by Disturbed on repeat. I know each word. And that’s me, come and see, I know you’ll love it. Stop being a normie and join the troll republic. [MCF] I hate your blog. You ain’t logged in in a month and a half, and I, for one, am aghast. I mean I’m fast on the way to removing it from bookmarks. If I took part in vanity I might be trying to look smart by not checking eight times a day. Your blog is so despair-inducing I can’t bear to look away. Oh, well! Got to do what your muse compels. Guess I’ll try to go despise a blog by someone else.
12.
Just got hard-pressed underneath my desk. No jest! It’s time Frontalot confessed: at the best of times, got the worst of rhymes. And I don’t think I’m the first to find my life devoted less to lyrics than it is to my struggle for pyrrhic victory in the race to be teh intarweb’s number one devotee of smutty little things that occur onscreen (risqué to — hey! — quintuple-x obscene): MILFs who shave themselves so cleanly; twins in positions unseemly. My spleen ain’t the part that gets vented. I grabbed a hold and fapped like I meant it. Distended, probably oughta leave it alone, spend more time stroking on the microphone. Got a boatload of midgets and they’re in command of a full-grown woman on her knees and hands. Got a long hard donkey and a farm girl too and the braying’s so dismaying when he starts to spoo. Got to click close, put it away ‘cause the internet is f-i-l-t-h-y. Lurking in #pass chans on the IRC, got DCC’d unexpectedly with an 80-minute XviD: Nuns In Heat Part III: Bad Habits. I’m so l337 that I had that one already. Skipped to the part with the fishnet teddy. Whipped it out, but to my chagrin, one toss from a win when the boss walked in, said, “Nuh-uh Front, that terminal ain’t for a latex crucifix spanking a taint in big 32-bit color while them rosary beads get yanked out the cruller.” I said, “You can’t fire me; I quit!” Opened up the case, yanked out the hard disk. Absconded, all with the data in hand: thirty-one years of Hustler scans; plans for how to construct a love swing; alt.binaries.everything archived since spring of ‘92; receipt for my RealDoll’s stripper shoes; tools for an online poll I ran (vote once, Tubgirl or Goatse Man); glands galore, explore for hours; diaper play and roman showers; glory hole video, deep as it gets; MPEGs of an heiress that she ought regret, cap’d on cam from a hijacked feed. Half a terabyte, so whatcha need? Got grannies in the front, trannies in the back, red on brown on blond on black, ganged up, tied up, all alone: every delectation to which I’m prone. Got the Japanese schoolgirl tentacle love. Got the furries in a flurry, they been yiffing it up. Got a Craig’s List poster trading poo for pee. Got a deep dark dungeon full of hot bi Swedes. Got to click close, put it away ‘cause the internet is f-i-l-t-h-y. The backslash on my keyboard’s stuck. Mouse wheel don’t turn ‘cause it’s all gummed up.

about

The seventh MC Frontalot album is a break-up record about internet. Will Front and internet stop seeing each other? Or will they keep at it, locked into an ever-deepening shame spiral? That second thing seems more likely!

credits

released March 8, 2019

Produced by Damian Hess, Brendan B. Brown, and Baddd Spellah

Contents (C)2019 by MC Frontalot for Level Up Records & Tapes
Published by Nerdcore Fervor Conglomerated (ASCAP)

Recorded at Twenty-Five Efforts, Brooklyn, and Montauk Mantis, Northport.
Mastered by Alex Théorét at Turtle Tone, NY
Cover art by David Malki

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World's 579th Greatest Rapper

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