About Me
Who is №56?Pronounced “number fifty-six.”
Welcome to my personal website!
This is a place for me to collect and publish various things that I’ve written, some of which have already appeared in other places. I’ve spent most of my time online (about 20 years now) as an anonymous poster on websites hosted by other people and have never had much in the way of a centralized web presence. This is my fourth attempt at fixing that by creating a website. The site first went online on August 20, 2023 and has managed to last longer than any of my previous attempts so far. I credit this to its use of markdown and complete lack of a main theme.
I’m not a computer programmer or an artist. I don’t believe in manifestos and reject the idea of “small web” purism. I don’t use social media. I think the internet is a means to an end and not an end in itself. I’m interested in literature, history, media studies, and stupid jokes for people with double-digit IQs. I like being anonymous and embrace the fact that all social interaction on the internet is done through a series of masks and personas. I also think it’s possible to do this while also remaining fundamentally honest and sincere. “Aye, aye, aye! I, I, I!”
Where My Username Came From
“№56” is only my most recent internet handle. I’ve used several over the past two decades, and will probably invent new ones in the future. The name comes from the 1967 TV series The Prisoner, a surreal spy thriller set in a mysterious village where every inhabitant is referred to by a number. At some point I’d like to write about The Prisoner in detail, it’s a fantastic show. In one episode the protagonist, played by series creator Patrick McGoohan, disguises himself as a bureaucratic dignitary named “№56” to uncover a sinister mind control plot. I came up with the name when creating an account on Agora Road, partly because I thought the show was relevant to the forum’s theme and partly because I wanted to get more people interested in it.
The “self-hating bureaucrat” subtitle was supposed to be a parody of “self-hating Jew.” I created the “№56” account on Agora shortly after starting a boring bureaucratic job, and at the time it felt like I was a natural-born bureaucrat that was doomed to do the same kind of thing my father and grandfather did whether I wanted to or not. If a self-hating Jew is a Jewish person who hates Judaism, then I was a bureaucrat who hated bureaucracy. I’ve got a more positive attitude towards work now, e.g. I don’t think about it as much as I used to, and have other, more interesting things to occupy my free time. but I still like the phrase and am going to keep using it even if it makes me seem like some kind of self-loathing doomer gloomer. (I’m not, or at least I try not to be!)