Why cyberpunk activism? Why now?
You might be wondering why I’ve embraced cyberpunk and why at this moment. If you’re already here, you probably sense our world sleepwalking—and now diving headfirst—into dystopia. If not, let me explain.
Why cyberpunk? I never set out with that label, but my writing made it clear. My work-in-progress, And the Devil Died Screaming (you can read draft versions here), is pure cyberpunk—dystopian psychological fantasy laced with dark humor and satire, an abstract, futuristic warning of what awaits if we lose our way. What began as a devilish dialogue quickly grew into a politically driven narrative with real purpose. I’ve even generated AI art for it, imagining a graphic novel (or perhaps an AI film), though I’m delaying that for the first release.
I publish my drafts online to stay accountable and ensure they survive—even if my sites vanish, the Wayback Machine preserves them. Writing isn’t only about completing books. I’ve been online since the late ’90s, cutting my teeth in SEO hacking—black-hat tricks to outmaneuver big corporations in search rankings. They dumped money into algorithms; I reverse-engineered their secrets and claimed the top spots. After some neglect, I’m back at it.
AI is central to my process. You may recoil, but I’ve always been an early adopter, learning by playing with and hacking these tools. AI can supercharge growth-hacking, creative projects, and activism—I’ll share tactics here. I use AI to generate images and videos, partly to provoke trolls—their mockery only drives me on. I treat AI as a creative partner: I guide it, it interprets my vision, and together we produce surreal, abstract art. Trolls call it “amateur,” but I’m not chasing realism—where’s the fun in that?
In writing, AI helps too. I don’t let it author my stories (aside from certain SEO-focused posts I’ll detail later), but I rely on it as a grammar editor—vital after a spotty education in a cult—and a stylistic assistant when I need to rephrase or inject hypnotic, psychological punch. You’ll see this dialogue between original and alternative versions of And the Devil Died Screaming on my Substack.
Drawing on my background in digital marketing, behavioral influence, and persuasion psychology, I use these tools to analyze our world. AI itself is a research ally: ask it for an image of “American politics” and you’ll often get chilling far-right iconography—a composite of collective data. Such outputs could be examined through a Lacanian lens—the Imaginary, the Symbolic, the Real—as if they’re snapshots of our shared unconscious. I hope someone in academia is already exploring this.
In future posts, I’ll demonstrate how to wield these techniques for cyberpunk activism: spreading messages, gaming systems, evading surveillance online and off. Think of this site as a free social network—I invite you to join the conversation.
And why now? Because we face rampant censorship, content suppression, propaganda, misinformation and disinformation, psy-ops, cybercrime, the criminalization of protest, flawed recognition tech profiling us, AI forecasting our “future crimes,” and big tech colluding with corporations and far-right regimes—selling us a dream of liberation they never intended to deliver.
The world hasn’t merely sleepwalked into dystopia—it’s plunged straight in. That’s why cyberpunks, hacktivists, activists, creatives, and campaigners must unite and fight back before it’s too late.
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Hack the system and get your message heard:Â Become a Cyberpunk: Hacking the Behavioural Architectures of Coercion and Control
