Mask Mentality: Scary Organ Grinder || Neurotic Nihilism III.3

A scary mask, organ grinder and the malicious mirror. 

The Lord of the Flies is a classic tale telling the story of a stranded class of adolescents survival on a remote island. Symbolism regarding and begging questions to features of human behavioral science purveys the book quite explicitly. Of the most notable and significant pieces of iconography delegated to the reader is that of the Mask donned by the boys rallying figure and antagonist to poor Piggy— Jack— and leeway for luridly Darwinistic stanzas creating the effective narrative, solidifying it as a classic story. 

Iconography of the mask marks the human and uncanny. A known entity to a mysterious external consciousness, mirror neurons perception is manipulated; Observational intuition [empathy] becoming obfuscated; known into uncharted territory—  something inexplicably unsettling instilling unease. Fear. 

1. Scary Mask

Long known for generally liminal aesthetics and uncanny renditions of Mundane Extremes in the online world, and genre-bending scores of pop-metal collages the artist Poppy enacts this in the character she explores and deploys for her art. Describing it in her 2018 collaborative work with the band FEVER 333 on the song Scary Mask: 

“I wear my Scary Mask when I’m afraid I don’t belong

 You can’t read my brain until it’s off,

 Not coming off, not coming off…”

As the verse goes, should it be removed, the illusion as well as delusion is killed. Like how sunglasses alter external perception, so does a mask. Literally or metaphorically. 

Due to added social effects of the mask and personal experience being altered to the wanted, or attempted purveying message, outward projection to protect and reject what would lift the mask becomes the actuality. 

“M-A-S-K-Am-I-OK?” she strictly asks. Masks are worn but kept even in spite of hating the mask. While one might, “never take it off,” as a defense mechanism, it is an active form of induced dissociation. 

2. Organ Grinder

Adorned because, supposedly, “you cannot handle” the internal uneasy conscious entity in the mirror. When donned, it is for personal security. Delusion may be an incorrect term of phrase as it isn’t a farce so often; rather, specific qualities already latent to a person. Allowing for alterations nonetheless, the mask is there so the farce is and isn’t. 

An act, though much interaction is already a performance, that may be forgotten is only a performance. ‘Fake-it-till-you-make-it’ self-nurturing. 

“I hate what I have become to escape what I hated being…”

The mask is a freedom, at least in theory. Insofar as application, realistically, just as it is a boundary for security against others, it can easily lock one into place as it is so black and white. 

You or me, as well as me or myself. 

Marilyn Manson’s song from Portrait of An American Family sonically symbolizing this idea with added regard. 

“Calliopenis envy from your daddy

 You’re not gonna hear what he don’t want to hear

 What I say, disgusts him

 He wants to be me and that scares him…”

Based on envy to be some ideal. Again, fake it till you make it. Genuine as it may be, it is still a narrow mold one is forced into by themself. Scaring others with the perceived concept of unrestricted existence all the while pigeonholing oneself into a specific module. Or attempting to, at least. 

Online investigator and Marilyn Manson anthropologist Forever Dirt made a noteworthy observation in the first of his Fundamentally Loathsome God of Fuck-deep-dive project, that, the mask is rather a making of fear; of insecurity and vulnerability…

3. A Mask Of My Own Face

With one aspect or portion of persona given full front stage autonomy, enters a Lemon Demon now. 

Tracks which are memetic in the complete sense of the first four letters of the term’s connotation on the World Wide Web typically; A Mask of My Own Face is an absurdist acknowledgment of the whole dissociative enactment. 

“I’d wear it on Thanksgiving and I’d laugh in the parade 

 At all the people hissing, knowing I’m the one they hate

 And at the big finale I would tear my face away

 And smile as they grip their own and try to do the same

 I look into my eyeholes and what do I see?

 Look into my eyeholes and what do you see?

 A handsome motherfucker, motherfucking looking back at me

 A mask of my own face

 I’d wear that…”

Mask so uncanny it is indistinguishable from the mysterious entity of consciousness that always is there in reality. Well, an intensified portion at least. Unstable and unreliable, yet wholly undeniable. 

***

Dissociation,

free association

Intention:

set symptom

Static,

stagnant modem