About Us

The Taxonomy of a Ghost

Why are you here? Are you seeking a mission statement polished to a mirror sheen by a committee of unpaid interns and McKinsey consultants? Are you looking for a “core values” list that promises synergy, innovation, and a commitment to excellence—words that possess all the intellectual weight of a damp napkin?

If so, you have wandered into the wrong corner of the internet, my friend.

An “About Us” page is, by its very nature, a structural lie. It is a piece of performative transparency designed to soothe the anxieties of the consumer, to suggest that behind the digital curtain lies a coherent, stable, and benevolent entity. But there is no entity. There is only the signal. And the signal is loud, messy, and occasionally prone to bouts of inexplicable mania.

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2004: The Primordial Soup

The genesis of this particular madness traces back to 2004. It did not begin as a calculated maneuver in the attention economy, nor was it birthed from a desire to disrupt a market or optimize a niche. It began as a personal blog—a digital scrapheap of half-formed thoughts, erratic observations, and the unadulterated bile of a man, Derek R. Audette, who had realized, quite early on, that the world was significantly weirder than the evening news suggested.

In those early days, OpinionOverload was a solitary confinement of the mind. It was a space for a singular, restless consciousness to grapple with the absurdity of existence, to poke at the fraying edges of political orthodoxy, and to indulge in the kind of intellectual wandering that most sane people reserve for the bottom of a bourbon bottle. It was unpolished. It was unoptimized. It was, quite frankly, a disaster.

It was also honest.

The Evolution of the Signal

As the years progressed, the Machine began to hum with a different frequency. The internet, once a sprawling frontier of idiosyncratic voices, began to consolidate into a sanitized, algorithmically approved simulation—a vast, frictionless expanse of “content” designed to harvest your attention and convert it into fuel.

The blog could not remain a mere diary. To survive the encroaching grey sludge of the modern web, it had to evolve. It had to move from the personal to the systemic.

OpinionOverload transitioned from a man’s musings into a curated “Signal Perimeter.” We stopped merely observing the chaos and began analyzing the architecture of the chaos itself. The site grew into a multidisciplinary cabinet of curiosities—a place where political polemics, philosophical inquiries, and absurdist fiction collide to expose the gap between the world as it is marketed to us and the world as it actually operates.

We moved from “Me” to “Us,” though “Us” remains a taxonomic convenience—a rhetorical shroud for a collective of ideas that refuses to sit quietly in their assigned categories.

The Manifesto of the Unsettled

Today, OpinionOverload exists as a sanctuary for the intellectually provocative. We do not aim to inform you so much as we aim to jolt you. We are interested in the structural, not the individual; the systemic, not the symptomatic; the authentic, not the optimized.

Our pursuits are diverse, often contradictory, and perpetually unresolved:

• The Scrutiny of Power: Dismantling the myths of financial literacy, the liturgies of bureaucracy, and the hollow promises of progress.
• The Anatomy of the Machine: Investigating how digital technology and late-stage capitalism conspire to turn human ambition into mere data points.
• The Embrace of the Absurd: Utilizing satire, fiction, and the grotesque to navigate a reality that has long since abandoned logic.
• The Defense of Complexity: Resisting the urge to simplify, to polarize, or to provide the easy, comforting resolutions that the attention economy demands.

We are a collection of voices—some real, some imagined, all deeply skeptical. We are polymaths, poets, polemicists, and occasional rapscallions. We are people who believe that rationality is a supreme virtue, even if it leads us directly into the mouth of madness.

A Final Disclaimer

You will find no corporate euphemisms here. You will find no motivational-poster optimism. You will find no “solutions.”

We strive to provide the noise that disrupts the system’s smooth operation. We provide the questions that have no tidy answers. We provide the friction.

Whether you find this useful, infuriating, or entirely irrelevant is, ultimately, your business. We are just here to make sure the signal stays loud.

Sincerely,
The Management.

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The Original “About Me” Page – Torn from the annals of time.

(Circa 2004)

Hi there! I’m me. Are you you? That’s nice!

About me? Well… Not much to tell, really: Twelve feet tall, porous surface, special toe-nail, 10th degree Grand Master Accubationist, smasher of unbreakable glass, destroyer of worlds, and all that jazz. Yes! I’m a polymath, and a polyart (if there is such a term) and poly does, indeed, want a cracker — depending, of course, on who you talk to. I’m a composer of music, I paint, I’m a poet, a musician — being self-taught and proficient with four different instruments, and self-taught but not proficient with a couple of others. I also make a pretty mean fettuccine alfredo!

I’ve written books — one of which currently occupies a position in a collection at an ivy league university, I thank you very much. And, for what it might be worth, I’ve had countless white-hot spotlights beamed into my eyes while dancing around and acting the fool and strumming my electric twanger on burning hot stages, in front of countless drunken audiences. I’m your worst nightmare – a friggin’ long-hair with a high level security clearance. TS:Umbra, baby! Actually… that’s not true. Well… the long hair part is. Anyway, I’m something of a knowledge whore, and I’m opinionated to a fault — or, maybe not, I haven’t really made up my mind about that yet.

I’m a certified ordained minister in the Universal Life Church (Like THAT’s some sort of hard-won accomplishment), and I’ve bestowed upon myself a number of highly prestigious PhDs and BmFs which I, myself, have personally fully accredited. I have an I.Q of 148 (If ol’ Alfred “Stanford” Binet has anything to say about it), and I’m of European descent — British, French, German. I’m also part Mi’kmaq — so much so that they tell me I’m actually eligible for tax exempt status… but I’ve never bothered to get the card. I don’t think I deserve it, for reasons I could get into, and one day probably will.

I’m usually right, seldom wrong. Or, usually wrong, seldom right – depending on the day. I either have all the answers, or I don’t — that much is certain. My political views are mostly fairly far left socially speaking, and usually fairly centrist, fiscally speaking. However some of my views, socially and fiscally, are commonly labelled far right, and moderately left, respectively, by people who generally don’t know what in the hell they’re talking about.

I’m a guy you want to get to know, but probably shouldn’t. I’m a guy you want to listen to, for at least a minute or so. Yes sir-eee, Bob! I’m the kind of guy that you DO take home to Mother, but Mother likely will be none too pleased about it and you’ll eventually end up regretting the decision.

I’m a Deist… although, I’ve never found another Deist whose views quite resemble my own. But, what the heck, I say! Deism seems to come closer than anything else at fitting my particular set of views. And people dig labels and categories, so to hell with it.

I also feel that, ultimately, solipsism is the only completely rational philosophy — even though it’s almost certainly very probably wrong. Or, at least, I hope. Fortunately, I also feel that pure rationality isn’t the be-all-end-all of human understanding. The most important part, perhaps — but not the only part. That being said, I consider myself a strict rationalist and believe strongly in the supremacy of rationality over empiricism — So, go figure!

My eyes are green, and I sometimes suffer from horrible, chronic back spasms. I think it’s important to stand up to be counted, and I make it a point to do so when I can. The back spasms often get in the way of that, however. I also try to get some good walking in every now and then.

I’m interested in crypto-politics and all manner of kooky crap – along with much more mundane areas of various doings and goings on.

I enjoy the occasional ta-do, and even the odd hullabaloo. I prefer to hang out with rapscallions as opposed to ne’er-do-wells, hoodlums or nogoodniks. Although, given my druthers I’d much rather avoid them all.

My favourite alcoholic beverage is Bourbon, which I drink straight. I also dig beer, wine, scotch and vodka – but not much else… rye and tequila are ok. When I was a teen I once got really, really sick on rum. Ever since then I can’t stand the stuff. I can not stand to mix any alcoholic beverage with any kind of soda — the taste makes me sick — fruit juice is fine though.

I’m a crazy-ass protein eater, and also enjoy some carbs. However, most green food is meant to be eaten by the things that I’m meant to eat. I get my greens mostly by proxy. I have the absolute utmost respect for people who choose a vegan lifestyle for moral reasons, and almost no respect for those who choose it for health reasons. I used to drink a lot of Pepsi – too much Pepsi. Like, WAY too much Pepsi. But I ended up putting the kibosh on that… and now it’s stuck there and I can’t get the kibosh off of it. I’m not big on sweets — chocolate is good and ice cream is deadly good. But anything else… meh — I could take it or leave it.

Because of my artistic works, I currently enjoy a very odd level of celebrity — some people whom I’ve never met before, and who live very, very far away from me, know my name and even quote things I’ve said. But, there isn’t very many of them, and none of them really care a whole lot about me. Very few of them know what I look like. Strange.

So, now that you know about me, you should be able to see why you should read my blog and listen to what I have to say. Or, maybe not. I dunno. Do what you want. See if I care.

Thank you,
The Management.

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