Hello. I'm the Head of Toppa Publishing. I'd like to introduce you to my little idea neighborhood.
School's Out! is a growing webproject created by Toppa Publishing.
The belief: I believe something has ended. I don't know what, exactly, but I think this End happened a long time ago. The effects of this End are still being felt, and they're only growing. In order to properly deal with them, people are going to need art and ideas that can sketch the landscape appropriately. Most importantly, I believe one of the best parts of any idea is not the idea itself, but the idea of the idea. What lies underneath what's already there.
School's Out!: School's Out! was actually started because of a rewatch of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Following the rewatch, School's Out!, the original philosophical documentary short which this project takes its name from, was created.
School's Out! discusses a lot of the ideas that are central to the project which bears its name. A large part of it is based on Francis Fukuyama's 1989 essay "The End of History?", which talks about a theoretical "final event" in History, and, using examples like the American Revolution, or the End of the Cold War, descibes the components and consequences of such an end.
For me, Fukuyama's essay is a love-hate relationship. I believe it should be considered essential modern reading for everyone, but before you go and read it, I need to clarify: my fascination with it is a perfect example of my idea of the idea idea. I believe Fukuyama's essay is highly important, not because of all the little parts that make it up---although I obviously appreciate them, and find them fascinating in their own right. Without them, there would be no essay. You've always got to pay attention and respect to, and love, the Little Stuff.
Rather, I believe Fukuyama's essay is important because of the idea of an End of History. Namely, the idea of a fundamental change which either happened either 200 or 40-odd years ago, and whose effects I're still feeling today. In fact, whose effects---and our blindness to their source---may be the very reason for some of our present day difficulties.
In truth, Fukuyama's predictions in "The End of History?" are much more pessimisstic than I believe the present situation to be. Ever heard the phrase "One great rock song can change the world."? I believe this to be 100% true.
This is why I also borrow ideas from Hegelianism and Taoism, in order to lay the groundwork for how people have used words and ideas before to talk about incredibly difficult existential situations, as well as Nietzsche's Death of God to try and illustrate how even some of the biggest collapses of the past 200 years have proven to bring more light than dark.
As much as I want to be a philosopher or an internet private detective, I'm a writer at heart. As you may have seen in the opening part of this website, I use extended metaphors and images like the idea of life being an eternal neighborhood, full of kids on bikes, to try and illustrate a picture of how our ideas and our lives can live seamlessly together, and how rediscovering innocence and fun after an apparent End is one of the greatest joys you can experience.
I also like to use and repurpose a variety of media from across the Internet in order to copy-and-paste together a kind of living collage with the videos I make. I've always been a huge fan of animation, which is why you'll often see cartoons as a throughline through my work.
The End: The End of School's Out!---as in the purpose, though we could also mean it in the regular sense of a final point---is to try and find ways to introduce these, and other, ideas into the mainstream consciousness.
I believe we live in a time of what Wall Street bondsmen would call "creative desctruction". A lot is falling down, in slow motion. Whole buildings collapsing in a gravity creep right in front of our eyes, in a way we haven't seen before. This is really scary, but there's also plenty of time to get out of the way.
This also presents a magnificent opportunity to rethink how we would like to rebuild. I truly believe the small web is the future, and I think there will be a slow migration of people away from social media---The Corporate Internet, The CorpoNet---and towards the small web. I see a future where there are thousands of little Internets, all a part of the big one. Where small towns everywhere have their own collections of specific websites and forums, created by the residents, where people interact, create, and do business with the larger channels. I think this will take a long time to happen, and we'll never abandon the CorpoNet---we shouldn't. But no one can live in a shopping mall forever. It's time to leave the Mall that the Corporate Internet has become, and build something for ourselves. There's a whole frontier to explore.
This is just one part of School's Out! It will grow and change, and new ideas and art will always show up from it. More than anything, I hope people can read what's in here, and take something interesting away. Even if it's just a little seed of something they might nurture themselves, and grow it into their own.
The other part of School's Out! is cataloguing all of the resources we use to the best of our ability. Not only am I dedicated to this as a means of being intellectually and creatively honest, and giving credit where credit is due to the people whose material I use in my own work, but it's also an excellent way to reach out and maintain relationships online.
I'll be updating this bank, and chances are it will become its own page at some point. For now, it will be the home for a few links I think are important, or of my own work.