A Uniquely Protean Triumph

by Tess Crain

This essay appears in Issue 1 of the Mars Review of Books. Visit the MRB store here.

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Fragnemt

by CTRLCREEP

Independently Pubished, 256pp, $16.16

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Who is CTRLCREEP? The pseudonymous writer appeared on Twitter in 2014, posting bizarre, enthralling snippets that read like Zen koans penned by a sentient AI—which, as far as I know, they are. According to the sociologist Martin Innes, the term “control creep” refers to a “deeply entrenched process . . . whereby the social control apparatus progressively expands and penetrates (or ‘creeps’) into different social arenas, in response to . . . fears about a sense of security in late-modernity.” “CTRLCREEP” might evoke, too, a keyboard shortcut or a buggily scrolling cursor. But who is behind the name? They offer no pronouns, no anthropic descriptors of any kind, on any platform (Twitter, Patreon, Substack). In 2019, CTRL stepped from the internet into the physical realm to self-publish a book, Fragnemt, but kept the disguise. Their Twitter bio reads simply, delightfully: “analog, but not for long.”