A MAZE WITHIN ANOTHER MAZE
Has Anonymous been over-hyped? Author probes behind the scenes
Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy Gabriella Coleman Verso
The Internet was not designed to be understood. That’s not to say the Internet can’t be a tool for understanding: If used carefully, the Internet could live up to its reputation as the great democratizer, ensuring that everyone, anywhere, with a strong Wi-Fi connection, could achieve greatness.
Gabriella Coleman’s new book — Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Story of Anonymous — is an entry into a relatively new canon: literature seeking to understand and explain the constantly shifting idea of what the Internet is, and who we are as its users.
As a cultural anthropologist, Coleman holds the Wolfe chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. She has made Anonymous — a collective of people who congregate online for various purposes, from socializing to organizing activist movements to elaborate pranks — her subject for the past six years, going deep into what she describes as a maze that only generates more mazes.
The progressive view of Internet-as-great-democratizer is just one version of what the Internet could be. The Internet’s other greatest potential is as a tool for immense cruelty.
With Anonymous, Coleman has taken on the ego of an increasingly visible and misunderstood Internet-based subculture. It would seem to be an organization with no hierarchies, or an ideology with no principles, or a mentality with no humanity.
Anonymous is defined on the principle of absolute openness: Anyone who wants to be part of Anonymous automatically is — which has a flattening effect for those of us watching as casual onlookers.
“Everyone and no one,” as a membership policy is radically democratic. And endlessly frustrating. Coleman identifies us — and herself — as an audience to the performance Anonymous is putting on, one that is not really meant to be understood but merely viewed from a safe distance.
The book is expertly written, easy to read without sacrificing any complexity — a necessary first step in what will be an increasingly important sociological canon.