Kibology is probably the last-born religion of mankind since it's only 4 years old. It's one of the strangest too, since its adepts are growing continuously whereas the God himself, Kibo, after some years of active sermoning, has faded out. In a certain way, Kibo is dead now, but then again he is not. Kibo is James Parry, 28 years old, and he currently lives in Boston.
Worship is a perplexing matter. Present in every type of society, it produces short-lived trends or critical events that change the course of history. Worship bears many different forms and shapes, and it turns up under disguise in places you wouldn't expect it to draw near. But the facts remain: at all times, people adored to adore.
Kibology is just an example of the funny, sprightly facet of worship. It's a net religion, a tongue-in-cheek online cult. Moreover, it started as a joke, a college type of joke: James Parry, a student in graphic design, was entertaining himself with a computer program that would track down any occurrence of a given string in the Usenet newsgroups. For no particularly reason, he settled his mind on `Kibo'. Each time he'd find the word, he would reply some witty nonsense to the original poster, stressing his all-seeing divinity. After some time, people from everywhere started to prattle about the almighty Usenet `ghost', and Kibo became a legend. The prank went so far that at a certain point, the amount of people discussing Kibo on the net was equal to those discussing Christianity, New-Age or Islam.
In the ancient times, worship was essentially a religious thing. Aimed towards a variety of ludicrous gods, it brought forth a colourful cultural scene with lots of mystics and rituals. Today, after a long period of Judaeo-Christian self-restrain, things got all pretty messed up again. Worship has become a part of the way we live, the way we talk, the way we dress... We can equally worship online characters like Kibo as rock-gods, soap operas, comic heroes, showbiz stars, tv ads, guns, sunglasses, computers, vinyl, guerilleros, Barbie dolls, you name it...
For sure, worship wasn't always the frivolous matter that it may seem today. Amongst geo-political factors that led to world war II, here was the blind faith of an entire nation into just one man. During these times, worship meant `Sieg Heil'... waste and gloominess, `nacht und nebel'... And men and women had to live in the aftermath of this ill- behaved fascination.
During this period, leisure was still an underdeveloped notion, but film transpired soon as the highest form of popular entertainment. The notion of stardom came to be. People from everywhere could share a loose and non-committing feeling of empathy towards figures known world-wide. It was the first time in history that figures outside the religious, political or military sphere could gather the massive acclaim of say, a king, the pope or Napoleon. These were glorious days for Vivien Leigh, Ava Gardner, Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, Buster Keaton, Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles and many others... It was through film that popular culture as we know today came to birth. The folklore of film - pop-corn, fan clubs, dedicated autographs - gathered everybody together in the sense that there was no discrimination between social casts. Movies were made for all, as it was accessible to everybody.
Hollywood, according to Camille Paglia, a hip female US critic, made the biggest cultural contribution to the twentieth century. Not only did it make a point about art being shared by all people, but foremost, it showed that new media should be considered as separate art-forms, laying the roots for modern storytelling. At the time, European cinematographers still depicted sceneries as if they came out of a play or a novel, obsessively struck with the notion of High Art. Americans invented the alphabet of myth manufacture and developed a multi- layered language proper to cinema.
America, with myths so blown up, so far out it's hardly believable they actually conquered the world, but hell, they sure did... Robots, Marlon Brando, red alert, outer space exploration, and Elvis of course... With fans in nearly every country on earth, Elvis impersonated foremost America. Elvis was America. And America stood for his golden voice: Elvis, a countryboy graced by the hand of God. A born King.
One day, President Nixon requested His Majesty to perform for the White
House. Presley's manager and a White House counsellor were discussing the
matter on the phone. Presley's manager did a little quick figuring and
then told the White House counsellor that Elvis would consider it an honour.
For the president, Elvis's fee, beyond travelling expenses and accommodations
for his back-up group, would be 25.000$.
The White House counsellor gasped: " `Mister, nobody gets paid for
playing for the President.' "
"`Well, I don't know about that, son,' said the man, ` but there's
one thing I do know. Nobody asks Elvis Presley to play for nothin'.' "
A crowded concert hall. Elvis preparing to show up. Girls screaming
for their beloved star. He will make the gestures everybody `s waiting
for. He'll smile. He'll charm his audience. He shall overcome, for it
is written in the stars. He has no other choice, anyway. He is Elvis.
Greil Marcus, a cultural analyst, wrote about the exaltation Elvis Presley
must have felt in front of a huge Northern Californian audience, at
the wake of his success:
"The dreams are coming true; that drive and secret ambition can afford to open up. He knows now that his mother was right, and he is safe <...> What was it his mother told him? That he was just as good as anybody? Or did she whisper, late at night when no one else was there to hear, that her boy could never lose? "
Behind the myths, the hidden truths. Realities we'll never know...
Recently, I stepped in a snack in Brussels' centre town at noon. When I came in, I found a couple of employees in a visible state of excitement: the singer of Vaya Con Dios has just been here. `Wow', said one of them, `I can really dig her, she's really cool and she got these nice songs...'. A second employee, say Anne, said, `well, I don't know for her, but if Nana Mouskouri ever gets in here, you'll have to call me right away.' And then a third employee, say Corinne, said: `Don't worry, we'll bring her to your place!' And they all went laughing...
OK, so Anne is a fan of Nana Mouskouri. But isn't it the idea of Nana Mouskouri walking in the life of Anne that is at stake here. The idea that Nana Mouskouri could come to the place where Anne has been working for so many years? And the fact that it could happen anyday? In a very subtle and sensitive manner, Corinne had it all through, and she pushed the idea even further. Granted that the all-important Nana Moskouri could come and eat a sandwich in this unimportant snack, then why couldn't she land in Anne's little sub-urban flat.
Stars, taken alone, are nothing. It's the idea of interacting with them that makes us thrill. We watch them dancing or acting or singing... Sometimes we'd like to push our one-way relation to them just a little bit further. Meet the celebrity to say how much we like him. Get an autograph. Shake a hand. Maybe a kiss too. Most of the times, we know they're just regular, sandwich-eating persons. But sometimes, things get loose. The longing to interact with famous people is what killed John Lennon. And it is the reason why you'll never see Michael Jackson or Madonna going for a walk without their bodyguards. It's not by chance that we call famous persons `stars', like celestial bodies. Behind the sensation implied in meeting a star, getting an autograph etc..., there is our faith in our good fortune. The secret passage in the tunnel of our everyday life. The contingency of cross- roads. The will for a brighter tomorrow is here, within us. Aren't we all small people with big dreams?
Things can get interesting when people react to these assembled myths, twisting them around, making something else out of them. Cult movies, bad taste culture, conspiration theory, they're all an offspring of this rebellious attitude. Here's an example: The BLO is the Barbie Liberation Organisation. It's a group of feminists struggling against the gender biased toys that companies make for... you know, kids. They go shoplifting and apply reverse engineering on the dolls in their lab: they invert Barbie's voice chip with Ken's, and vice versa. Then the dolls are put back in the shops. Eventually, customers will discover that their Barbie is making sounds of a warrior, while G.I. Joe will be gently saying `let's go shopping'.
Like Kibo, the BLO is a twisted prank, but they're not just being sarcastic, they manipulate media in order to spread a political message. They've altered only 300 dolls yet, but their swindle has crossed the oceans. A home-made video, shown in underground film festivals and available on the net as a digitised movie file, is describing their views on education and even explains how you could to the same voice chip transplant on your children's dolls.
Elusive as they may seem, new trends carry a large amount of the public's empathy and longing for cultural supremacy. A current trend in worship is the future fuzziness - the paradigm of man-god-machine - and the refusal of real people as object of cult. Netfreaks have invented a net god. In techno underground scenes, it's the machines that are worshipped, not the musicians. And Trekkies go to restaurants where they can order their meal in Klingon .
In the neo-pagan capitalist consensus of the nineties, everybody's a freak. Technology is convenient and available, the power of individuals rises. Cultural moments are succeeding each other in every field. The emotion and outburst of energy accompanying almost every mass culture phenomenon of today are speaking for themselves. Never have people been so eager to take an active part in the elaboration of myths. They probably know better...
