The Making of a Viral Following: Interviewing the creators of “Teh Lurd of Teh Reings”

by Bruno Di Tillo

Some of you will already know the page which titles this article. For the others , on the social platform Facebook the videos of Teh Lurd of Teh Reings will come as a well accepted novelty. But what exctly is being talked about here ? It is quite simple really; the page crops and fits parts of the movies inspired by writer Tolkien’s work, The Lord of The Rings (from which the page distorted and adopted the name) to create something that much more resembles the Vines phenomena than anything. In down to earth terms and with more alcohol induced blabber being typed on this article , what is done is simply a work of art in terms of humor; in even simpler words: It’s fucking mythical. From donald trump governing over middle earth to becoming the dwarf king, to then again creating countless sexual innuendos and frankly more British-humor silences in beautifully crafted momentums , the shorts are the perfect children of the union between modern cynicism and the internet. If all y’all reading this hadn’t understood by now I like their work….  done … we’re over . Totally being biased about their work (and I love being it) .

Mors tua Vitae Mea: A brief comment on Italy’s populist victory

by Bruno Di Tillo

A short premise: I will not be talking about why the NO vote lost with technicalities, but I’ll mostly make a commentary from the social point of view.

So, Italy has voted NO to the referendum on December 4^th 2016, thus marking the end of the Renzi centrist government, but is it really such a big surprise? For years, the common Joes of the country have been lingering on the hope of change. But an establishment government in which its head Matteo Renzi, a man not elected by the commoners or the industrial workers but by behind-the-scenes governmental apparatus, could certainly not bring forth the so needed change that his country needed. What exactly did he propose with this referendum?

 

Internet the New World Order?

by Bruno Di Tillo

A small premise: this article may be viewed as somewhat of a borderline conspiracy theory, or the mantra of a man with a strong need for antipsychotics, but it’s main purpose is to illustrate a viewpoint that isn’t seldom made in my opinion. In the article I’ll merely limit myself to talk about a romanticized idea of the Web and its effects on the makings of the 20th century, without going into technical aspects. This is a very, very brief question I asked myself the other day, with all of the craziness that it follows. Its Imagination at its prime: wild, at times incoherent, at times borderline psychotic. My intent is to make you readers scandalized, contempt, or any other feeling; the importance that is being stressed is that I would like you to think and comment.

Thus, my question for you readers is the following. If Nations were initially constituted as such to encircle populations that shared either a language, a common culture, a geographic identity, or simply political ensigns, then is the Internet disrupting such emphasis? What has the internet done to our concept of mortality? What is the Internet’s relationship to us? And most importantly, is our new age the age were we finally end the search for immortality?

The World Wide Web seems to provide the common Joe with a kind of power that is unprecedented in History: being able to project one’s voice into a universe totally obscured from reality as we know it.

Austria: A Forgotten History of Occupation During Wars

Austria became part of the 3rd Reich starting from 1938

 

by Bruno Di Tillo

Whilst a very crucial player in the events of the Great War, Austria remained a sideshow in the shadow of the other great powers both during and after the Second World War. Following the Anschluss of 1938, the former Austrian First Republic, now part of the German Reich, was impacted both on a social, with anti-Jewish reprisals being carried out by the now-in-power Nazi party, and an economic level, having become an indispensable supplier of prime for the increasingly hungry German war industry. Austria also served as a strategic acquisition both for the Reich and later for the four occupying powers. Whereas the Austrian First Republic had been publicly declared as the first victim of German expansionism by the Allies, it was partitioned, alongside Germany itself, among the four victors of the war, effectively being treated as part of the former Reich because of the longing occupation by the victors. Thus, Austria was occupied militarily for the period following the Anschluss up until 1955, when its independence was granted by the newly-formed United Nations.

Letter to Eric

by Bruno Di Tillo

Are a man’s last words the ones he’ll be remembered with? Is this the meaning of life, to reach that climactic point where he’ll mutter those last defiant syllables and then enter the darkness of the senses? I’m now bedded, my body is leaving this rail, but my mind still hasn’t found peace. With great difficulty I’m keeping this dictum from entering those realms that only souls will grasp. How are you? How are the kids? How will you be going on? And although you’re in the room next to mine, trying to desperately convince the medics to try one more time their faithless procedures on my mangled entrails, I’m becoming more distant with every breath you take. I feel beautiful, I am happy. For this wretched realm that has meant so much to my undying corpse has finally a way to reach the indefinite. This is death, in a way, meaningless and savage. Death is that entity that democracies, politics, communism, fascism, and all the constructions by man have tried to replicate in their existence.

Franz Von Papen: The Man Behind Hitler’s Success?

 by Bruno Di Tillo

Franz Von Papen (right) and Adolf Hitler (left) in 1935

By 1933 Nazi support in the Reichstag was becoming skimmer, and the electorate of the Party as a whole was moving towards other coalitions. In November 1932 Nazis had 33.1% of the Reichstag seats and had lost 34 seats from the 230 of the July elections^[1]. Hindenburg had won the second and final April election of 1932; he’d surpassed Hitler by a mere 16.2% percent^[2], but in the meantime he’d lost the Centre and most of the Conservative right; his political supporters had been shifted with the last election from the old militarist guard of the far-right to the Social Democrats’ coalition that now supported him in fear of Adolf Hitler’s rise, thus seeing Hindenburg as the lesser evil^[3]. Bruening’s presidential government experiment had drawn most of the conservative elites