Ukulele: A Synapse in the Matrix

I believe I have stumbled upon a Cosmic Coincidence. Although I know now that there are no coincidences. Make of this what you will.

A few years ago, Amanda Fucking Palmer put this joyous piece of propaganda into the world — the Ukulele Anthem. It is compelling, it is infectious, it is humorous, political, and even sad.

This year, I participated in the great Reddit Secret Santa exchange, in which 212,000 people signed up to be secret santas for one another, and send each other surprise gifts.

Much joy could be had even for lurkers, spectators, because part of the fun of the game was posting photos of your received gifts on the exchange page. You can browse for hours, oohing and aahing, laughing and cringing vacariously with the recipients of strange, exotic, and sometimes plain awful gifts.

One thing I noticed this year was a preponderance of ukuleles given as gifts. Strange, because outside of various musical subcultures, one probably does not encounter ukuleles frequently in everyday life. Like accordions, they seem to appear at strange intervals in life, signaling a crossroads of sorts. The warning is clear to all but the booze-muddled and the heroin-soaked: Do not choose the path of the accordion, or you will be doomed.

I submit to you that Amanda Fucking Palmer’s glorious and well-orchestrated propaganda campaign for the ukulele is having its desired effect of spreading temptation globally. Gift-givers, not content on the destruction of their own souls, are sharing their evil payload with innocent Redditors, to ensure that none of them will go down alone.

I wonder what the shipping charge on a uke is, anyway…