Extremely Online

“There really isn’t another place for writing like this,” remarked Joshua Citarella about Do Not Research, the private Discord server-turned-blog he founded in 2020. Citarella, an artist and connoisseur of the esoteric corners of the internet, had convened a young and engaged crowd at Fulton Street project space Dunkunsthalle (a former Dunkin’ Donuts, hence the name) to celebrate the release of Do Not Research: 2022–2023. As its unadorned title indicates, the 402-page volume aggregates all entries published on the blog in the past twenty-odd months. Among the contributors are musicians, artists, scenesters, internet theorists, video artists, meme page admins; the content is similarly eclectic. Across the collection (the second Citarella has put out), the modes of voice oscillate from allusive to aloof, solipsistic to arch, conspiratorial to checked out. But time and again, the essays return to a common theme—really, a hermeneutical flourish. Channeling Mark Fisher, the DNR gang parses online interactions, memetic trends, and fringe or concocted ideologies to find evi…