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Writer's pictureThad McKraken

2020: The Year In Technological Synchromysticism

Updated: Nov 16, 2023


To say last year was a creepily disorienting head fuck spectacle would be the understatement of the new century but hey, on an up note I sure did stumble my way into a crapton of uncannily amusing sync storms. Not only that, but I also made a point of documenting them in more detail than ever. Gee, what could have lead me to get bored and take that on? No clue, but before we get down to the nitty gritty dirt band with all that, let me lead this off by rehashing the concept of technological synchromysticism for those who haven’t been paying attention, which I’m guessing is most of y'all.


Technological Synchromysticism is a concept I came up with in roughly 2014 by accident when I started taking closer note of my own strange inner workings. What I realized in engaging in this highly recommended activity is that one unrecognized application of the constant surveillance technology we’ve created is that it can often essentially prove synchronous experiences that in the past would be considered anecdotally interesting but ultimately unconfirmable. What I’m getting at here is that supposedly “random” narrative alignments don’t have to just be hearsay in this day and age as often there are unintentional receipts on this kind of occurrence. That’s sort of how it happens, this conjunctive plot flurry hits and then after the fact I’m like, wait, there is absolutely evidence that this supposedly crazy shit that I claim happened did in fact happen.

Now, I wish we lived in a world where this sort of pandering to fundamentalist materialism wasn’t necessary at all but that’s not where we're at. I’m not doing this to prove a goddamn thing to myself. I realize this is in fact the secret way our talking monkey puppet realm truly functions. It’s so commonplace to a mystic like myself, it’d be odd if it wasn’t going down on the regs. I’m doing this to appeal to everyone mind raped by the “enlightenment” dismissiveness our religious, academic, and media institutions have installed in us all. No, we did not in fact defeat animism like you think we did and now your tech is going to educate you. So let’s kick this off with the 3 syncs I do in fact have a bit of a paper trail on from last year and run from there. Word.



Confirmable Synchronicity #1: The Infinite Sync


In early March I watch the film The End of the Tour about David Foster Wallace who isn’t someone I was remotely familiar with up to that point and am not even a fan of (although I absolutely think it’s a great film). A couple days later, after watching a few lectures, I have this experience where I essentially channel his loneliness. In retrospect I realize this probably had more to do with the collectively loneliness COVID was going to wreak more than tapping into his internal social alienation. Truth: I wasn’t smart enough to grok this on my own but caught it when it was pointed out to me in a similar feeling follow up dream a few weeks down the road. What’s important though is that I had this experience on March 2nd, but didn’t get around to writing about or posting it until March 17th on some intuitive level. Then, on that exact day, the freaking NBA podcast that I listen to constantly (of all places) just so happened to mention him briefly, which is the only time I can remember him ever coming up in that context. Totally confirmable.


They were discussing the one book you’d draft as your quarantine book and one of the hosts says he was thinking about choosing Infinite Jest but decided against it when he remembered why he’d stopped reading the thing in the first place. I only mention this because he’s clearly not much of a fan so it’s not something he’d typically be talking about at all. Here are the receipts on that.









Confirmable Synchronicity #2: Be Water


On July 20th I have this vision that I post on social media on July 22nd:




When this happens I immediately think of the Bruce Lee “be water” mantra which I’d never even heard of until a documentary on his life of the same name dropped a few months prior. What’s synchronous here is that the very next day, on July 23rd (because of course), I ended up watching a documentary called A Kid From Coney Island on Netflix, which shows that exact clip roughly twice in the last 20 minutes as a closer. Absolutely confirmable via my FB post and my Netflix browsing history. Check it.



Confirmable Synchronicity #3: Oslo


October 28th, 2020:


I have a free month of Hulu so I decide to sort of last minute to watch that Lords of Chaos movie while working out. As I’m watching it, I repeatedly contemplate how it might be the only movie I’ve ever watched that takes place in Oslo, Norway. Before going to bed I’ve got like a half hour to kill and decide, maybe I’ll watch a Seinfeld episode I haven’t seen in years. So I choose the first episode from the final season. This is weird why? Because in it, Elaine and Puddy are taking a vacation in (you guessed it) Oslo. They even show a map of Oslo in a brief cut scene to identify their location. This is totally provable as I have screenshots from my browsing history. Watched a movie that takes place in Oslo, then like a half hour later accidentally watch what’s as far as I know the only episode of Seinfeld ever that has a scene that takes place in that exact city. Is there a paper trail here? Yep.









Now honestly in my mind these aren't necessarily the most compelling synchronicities, they're just the ones that were accidentally etched into material form. I did in fact jot down way more that I can't truly substantiate, but c'mon. You think I'm just making it up that the rest of these are happening? Why? Y'all have in fact felt this stuff, deep down you know it's legit. Learn to ride the waves and it'll start happening all the goddamn time.


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