Daily Karkat

Anyone who has been on the web for more than a few years can tell you that there is a lot of subtext to text-only communication. We had to develop this subtext because it’s difficult to convey emotions without the use of audible speech. As silly as it sounds, the difference between “:3″ and “;3″ is huge and should be noted for anyone trying to understand how people on the internet ‘speak’ to each other.

Homestuck got that. The late 2000s/early 2010s were brimming with a bunch of corporate attempts at storytelling that tried to relate to kids with onslaughts of l33tspeak and dropping hundreds of instances of “omg” all over the place. Kids and teens aren’t stupid, they can very easily tell something is inauthentic. 

We can talk about the plot, simple even in its complexity. We can talk about the aesthetic appeal of the comic. We can talk about the cosplaying community, the music, the interactive panels, the plot twists, the drama, everything. All of this contributes to HS being an incredible piece of work, but it would not have been the same if the characters spoke in speech bubbles or audibly. 

It’s time to activate it…

Bites The Dust! now this entire post will be reversed!

This is ridiculous.

On the subject of Dril’s identity, wikipedia says:

Jacob Bakkila, one of the writers behind the similarly absurd and popular Horse_ebooks Twitter account, claimed to have been hired for a project by the person behind dril.[5] According to Bakkila, dril’s author is a graphic designer who lives somewhere in the New York metropolitan tri-state area.[5] John Herrman and Katie Notopoulos at BuzzFeed speculated that dril may be a collaborative project or that Bakkila himself was behind dril.[5] Bakkila denied the rumor that he was dril, but said dril was “a friend” and that dril had contributed to the Horse_ebooks sequel, Bear Stearns Bravo.[6]

At some point, people apparently made a connection between Dril and somebody called Paul Dochney, at least partially due to a linkedin page which shows Dochney’s contributions to Bear Stearns Bravo. Apparently there were further connections as well, to do with old accounts and comparisons of artwork, etc. I’m not up to scratch on the precise details of that, but an old tumblr reblog from 2014 from somebody claiming to know Dril also lists his name as being “Paul”. Why is this relevant to Hiveswap, you ask? Here’s part of the Hiveswap credits:

In addition to this, it’s worth noting that one of the 205 twitter accounts that @dril follows is Cohen Edenfield, the lead writer of Hiveswap.

Also, I spoke to somebody who did audio effects work for Hiveswap shortly after the Act 1 release, and while they seemed to not be entirely privy to the details they also brought up a connection. Now that we know that Dril is working with Hussie for certain and is a contributor to the new SBaHJ book, I think it’s pretty much confirmed to be legit at this point.

I am writing this on February 20th, 2013. I do not know when, or if, I will ever post it. But since you’re reading it now, it can only mean one thing: the MSPA Prophet is dead, and it is now safe for me to tell the world how I knew when updates were coming.