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Whitney was never the video-essay fan in the relationship. Something about watching someone talk about a niche passion from their bedroom floor was far too intimate for her to handle. What’s more, a decade of school librarians hammering home oversimplified ideas about what websites were and weren’t reliable had scared her off of listening to anyone without a full time journalism job at a traditional publication she already recognized. As she grew older, Whitney grew more skeptical of those traditional publications, but that did not make her any more accepting of information from random people on the internet. It just made her skeptical of everyone.
To Whitney, almost all video-essays looked like they were being hosted by conspiracy theorists. But this video really seemed sketchy. The thumbnail had a painting of a pope with a red X over his face and three black and white photos of men Whitney didn’t recognize.
The host, using the name HaraSarahSees, was a white woman in her thirties with lavender gamer lights illuminating the wall behind her. She spoke with a calm excitement that was engaging and relaxing at the same time. But, Whitney noticed that as the video continued, she was feeling her natural levels of anxiety winding up; her emotions building to a catharsis she knew would never come.
HaraSarahSees promised to tell “histories of the undiscovered and unexplored plots by the Catholic World Government,” but Whitney was busy adopting conspiracies of her own. Clearly Dillon had sent this video for a reason, but what?
The video focused on the Servants of Gregory, a “secret monastery” supposingly dating back to Gregory the Great’s time as ambassador to the court in Constantinople before becoming pope. With Miaphysite sects forming with the Nestorians in the east and the Three Chapters Controversy in the west–and political power shifting from Rome to Constantinople with the Lombard invasion of Italy–it became Gregory’s job to consolidate power in Rome while convincing Constantinople to send money and soldiers for Rome’s defense against the invading barbarians.
According to HaraSarahSees, Gregory first hoped to accomplish this task by fucking his way through the wealthy wives of note in the Byzantine empire. She showed an image of an ancient mosaic depicting two women Gregory supposedly slept with, winked, and cooed, “good work if you can get it.” Whitney wondered if this strange lady was actually turned on by this old mosaic floor. She was also more than a little confused where HaraSaraSees was finding this list of lovers. Who was recording Gregory’s fucks for posterity?
Ultimately, the fucking could only get the future Pope so far. Despite his newfound popularity amongst the babes of old Byzantium, Gregory found that he could not compete with the public popularity of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Unable to flex his soft power any further, Gregory collected a team of reliable “servants” and had them murder the Patriarch. HaraSarahSees acknowledged that the Catholic Church, who has since granted both men sainthood, claims that the cause of death was illness. However, in the video, this was used as proof that the cause of death must have been poison.
HaraSarahSees then went on to outline a string of plots and conspiracies that appeared to have no connection other than the fact that someone of import died of illness. And considering how many people die of illness, that did not strike Whitney as a coincidence at all. Illness is always out here killing people. It’s very good at it.
But then, Whitney discovered why Dillon had sent this video. Or, more specifically, Whitney discovered why Dillon sent this video as opposed to any other HaraSarahSees video available online. Why Dillon had sent any HaraSarahSees videos to the email thread would remain an open question.
Apparently, the “Servants of Gregory” made it to Nebraska.
The video claimed that the 19th Century Catholic Church was concerned about the immigrants coming to the United States to build the transcontinental railroad. They worried that Miaphysitists from Northern Italy, Eastern Europe, and rural China would form new alliances that might threaten the church’s power. These sects had previously been isolated from one another by geography, but immigrants from these isolated communities were now all arriving in Omaha. Some believed that if these immigrants found common cause in the American West, it would create the greatest schism in the church since the Protestant Reformation.
By the time the Servants of Gregory arrived in Omaha, they were mostly out of the murdering business. In fact, their specific outpost in the frontier town was as a newspaper syndicate. This was a heyday for newspapers, with political parties, religious organizations, ethnic communities, and neighborhoods all commonly having their own discrete paper. So, as the city grew, it behooved the Church to have newspapers in place to serve those communities before they could organize one for themselves.
When discussing the five different newspapers run by the Omahan Servants of Gregory, HaraSarahSees would show the respective paper’s logo and a flag indicating the immigrant community they were serving. She showed an Italian flag for The Sons of America, a Greek flag for The Dove, a Chinese Flag for The Lord of Heaven, and a Vatican City flag for The Gregorian Times (which served Catholics at large rather than any specific ethnic group).
To Whitney, the most confusing flag was used for The Cynic. The Cynic was a paper written by Catholic monks to serve the “community of new atheists and freethinkers on the prairie.” When discussing this paper, HaraSarahSees would show a UN flag. Whitney was not quite sure why the United Nations was apparently synonymous with atheism, though Whitney wasn’t exactly sure what a better flag would have been. She figured there was an actual atheist flag out there somewhere, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to pick it out of a lineup. Whitney wondered if anyone in the comments had pointed out that the United Nations wasn’t founded until well after The Cynic had already closed, but found that it was towards the bottom of the flag complaints. Apparently, none of the national flags HaraSarahSees used in the video were officially adopted until the 20th Century. Her comments were flooded with flag nerds asking she rerelease the video with era appropriate 19th Century flags. Whitney was often shocked to find out just how new many of the things around her really were.
Flags aside, with a secret monastery of writers and journalists turning out newspapers, the Servants of Gregory could control what news made it into town and what events made it onto people’s calendars. For example, for reasons that can only be guessed at, none of the five papers covered the assassination of Umberto Ranieri Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di Savoia, the king of Italy. In fact, articles in The Dove referred to him in the present tense as late as 1905.
Though all five newspapers shared writers and editors, the news they delivered changed from paper to paper. Anyone reading The Cynic would believe that secularism in America was shrinking in the face of tremendous opposition. However, readers of The Gregorian Times were being told that liberals in Washington D.C. and New York City were on the very brink of forcing children, by law, to avoid all religious services until they were of drinking age.
It seems that The Gregorian Times was given special attention by the Servants of Gregory. While the other papers were created with specific goals and audiences, The Gregorian Times allowed the servants a freedom to follow their interests. As the paper continued, it started including more personal pieces, poems, recipes, and even jokes.
In fact, over time most of the papers shrunk and eventually disappeared as more and more attention went into The Gregorian Times. By the 1940s, only The Dove and The Gregorian Times remained. However, the decrease in newspaper circulation provided time for the Servants of Gregory to try out new mediums.
Although the lineage of many items are disputed, it is believed that the Servants of Gregory have published paperback adventure books, religious and historical comic books, etiquette and dating advice books, and even riot grrrl zines with an underlying emphasis on abstinence and modesty. Beyond books, the Servants created a weekly radio show, produced a feature length film, and even hosted a Svengoolie-style horror movie night on public television featuring movies believed to underline the dangers of Satanism.
Since the Servants of Gregory were technically considered monks, members were required to adhere to monastic prayer schedules and liturgical calendars. However, considered a low priority in the Catholic Church, they were generally given the freedom to make whatever they would like while still being provided the basic necessities needed to survive; generally the dream for most artists.
While Whitney remained skeptical throughout the entire video, she started to notice more inconsistencies towards the end. She wondered if that was just because she knew more about the 1990’s than the whole 19th Century combined. HaraSarahSees claimed that the reason for the destruction of the Jobbers Canyon Historic District was not to create a new headquarters for AgriCon Foods, but instead to destroy all physical evidence of the Servants of Gregory, including their extensive archives and massive printing press. However, Whitney knew that Jobbers Canyon had been destroyed in 1989, while the riot grrrl zine movement wouldn’t start until the 1990’s.
For believers, the supposed destruction of the Servant’s archives explained why there was almost no physical evidence to present. The video included a couple pictures of old newspapers, but all they proved is that, at some point, there were newspapers called The Cynic and The Gregorian Times. There are no recordings of the alleged radio or public tv show and all copies of the feature film are believed to be lost to time. To HaraSarahSees, this proved a Catholic cover-up. But Whitney was not a believer. To her, the lack of evidence made the whole thing sound like hooey.
As a conclusion, HaraSarahSees started spouting rhetorical questions like “Why would any company destroy a historic neighborhood to build a new headquarters? Why wouldn’t they just build somewhere else with less historic value?” or “Why would these politicians approve such a destructive plan without sufficient strings attached to actually keep that company headquartered in Omaha? Doesn’t it seem suspicious that AgricCon Foods would take on this big construction project only to relocate a couple decades later?” Whitney found these question-based arguments entirely unconvincing. Frankly, they seemed quite naive for a conspiracy theorist. Doesn’t HarahSarahSees know that politicians make bad decisions all the time, often to help out businesses who don’t need any help to begin with? Does she really think that big corporations care about how historic a neighborhood is? Or even care about the communities they are a part of at all? If the city of Omaha had prioritized the historic neighborhood over the empty promises of a major corporation, then Whitney might have believed something fishy was going on.
And so, as the video ended and Whitney became increasingly confident that the whole thing had been a bucket of hogwash, she was left with the question: “What does this video have to do with my fucking truck?” The question was so beautiful and concise that she texted it to Dillon right away.
She did not receive a response.
To Whitney, almost all video-essays looked like they were being hosted by conspiracy theorists. But this video really seemed sketchy. The thumbnail had a painting of a pope with a red X over his face and three black and white photos of men Whitney didn’t recognize.
The host, using the name HaraSarahSees, was a white woman in her thirties with lavender gamer lights illuminating the wall behind her. She spoke with a calm excitement that was engaging and relaxing at the same time. But, Whitney noticed that as the video continued, she was feeling her natural levels of anxiety winding up; her emotions building to a catharsis she knew would never come.
HaraSarahSees promised to tell “histories of the undiscovered and unexplored plots by the Catholic World Government,” but Whitney was busy adopting conspiracies of her own. Clearly Dillon had sent this video for a reason, but what?
The video focused on the Servants of Gregory, a “secret monastery” supposingly dating back to Gregory the Great’s time as ambassador to the court in Constantinople before becoming pope. With Miaphysite sects forming with the Nestorians in the east and the Three Chapters Controversy in the west–and political power shifting from Rome to Constantinople with the Lombard invasion of Italy–it became Gregory’s job to consolidate power in Rome while convincing Constantinople to send money and soldiers for Rome’s defense against the invading barbarians.
According to HaraSarahSees, Gregory first hoped to accomplish this task by fucking his way through the wealthy wives of note in the Byzantine empire. She showed an image of an ancient mosaic depicting two women Gregory supposedly slept with, winked, and cooed, “good work if you can get it.” Whitney wondered if this strange lady was actually turned on by this old mosaic floor. She was also more than a little confused where HaraSaraSees was finding this list of lovers. Who was recording Gregory’s fucks for posterity?
Ultimately, the fucking could only get the future Pope so far. Despite his newfound popularity amongst the babes of old Byzantium, Gregory found that he could not compete with the public popularity of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Unable to flex his soft power any further, Gregory collected a team of reliable “servants” and had them murder the Patriarch. HaraSarahSees acknowledged that the Catholic Church, who has since granted both men sainthood, claims that the cause of death was illness. However, in the video, this was used as proof that the cause of death must have been poison.
HaraSarahSees then went on to outline a string of plots and conspiracies that appeared to have no connection other than the fact that someone of import died of illness. And considering how many people die of illness, that did not strike Whitney as a coincidence at all. Illness is always out here killing people. It’s very good at it.
But then, Whitney discovered why Dillon had sent this video. Or, more specifically, Whitney discovered why Dillon sent this video as opposed to any other HaraSarahSees video available online. Why Dillon had sent any HaraSarahSees videos to the email thread would remain an open question.
Apparently, the “Servants of Gregory” made it to Nebraska.
The video claimed that the 19th Century Catholic Church was concerned about the immigrants coming to the United States to build the transcontinental railroad. They worried that Miaphysitists from Northern Italy, Eastern Europe, and rural China would form new alliances that might threaten the church’s power. These sects had previously been isolated from one another by geography, but immigrants from these isolated communities were now all arriving in Omaha. Some believed that if these immigrants found common cause in the American West, it would create the greatest schism in the church since the Protestant Reformation.
By the time the Servants of Gregory arrived in Omaha, they were mostly out of the murdering business. In fact, their specific outpost in the frontier town was as a newspaper syndicate. This was a heyday for newspapers, with political parties, religious organizations, ethnic communities, and neighborhoods all commonly having their own discrete paper. So, as the city grew, it behooved the Church to have newspapers in place to serve those communities before they could organize one for themselves.
When discussing the five different newspapers run by the Omahan Servants of Gregory, HaraSarahSees would show the respective paper’s logo and a flag indicating the immigrant community they were serving. She showed an Italian flag for The Sons of America, a Greek flag for The Dove, a Chinese Flag for The Lord of Heaven, and a Vatican City flag for The Gregorian Times (which served Catholics at large rather than any specific ethnic group).
To Whitney, the most confusing flag was used for The Cynic. The Cynic was a paper written by Catholic monks to serve the “community of new atheists and freethinkers on the prairie.” When discussing this paper, HaraSarahSees would show a UN flag. Whitney was not quite sure why the United Nations was apparently synonymous with atheism, though Whitney wasn’t exactly sure what a better flag would have been. She figured there was an actual atheist flag out there somewhere, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to pick it out of a lineup. Whitney wondered if anyone in the comments had pointed out that the United Nations wasn’t founded until well after The Cynic had already closed, but found that it was towards the bottom of the flag complaints. Apparently, none of the national flags HaraSarahSees used in the video were officially adopted until the 20th Century. Her comments were flooded with flag nerds asking she rerelease the video with era appropriate 19th Century flags. Whitney was often shocked to find out just how new many of the things around her really were.
Flags aside, with a secret monastery of writers and journalists turning out newspapers, the Servants of Gregory could control what news made it into town and what events made it onto people’s calendars. For example, for reasons that can only be guessed at, none of the five papers covered the assassination of Umberto Ranieri Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di Savoia, the king of Italy. In fact, articles in The Dove referred to him in the present tense as late as 1905.
Though all five newspapers shared writers and editors, the news they delivered changed from paper to paper. Anyone reading The Cynic would believe that secularism in America was shrinking in the face of tremendous opposition. However, readers of The Gregorian Times were being told that liberals in Washington D.C. and New York City were on the very brink of forcing children, by law, to avoid all religious services until they were of drinking age.
It seems that The Gregorian Times was given special attention by the Servants of Gregory. While the other papers were created with specific goals and audiences, The Gregorian Times allowed the servants a freedom to follow their interests. As the paper continued, it started including more personal pieces, poems, recipes, and even jokes.
In fact, over time most of the papers shrunk and eventually disappeared as more and more attention went into The Gregorian Times. By the 1940s, only The Dove and The Gregorian Times remained. However, the decrease in newspaper circulation provided time for the Servants of Gregory to try out new mediums.
Although the lineage of many items are disputed, it is believed that the Servants of Gregory have published paperback adventure books, religious and historical comic books, etiquette and dating advice books, and even riot grrrl zines with an underlying emphasis on abstinence and modesty. Beyond books, the Servants created a weekly radio show, produced a feature length film, and even hosted a Svengoolie-style horror movie night on public television featuring movies believed to underline the dangers of Satanism.
Since the Servants of Gregory were technically considered monks, members were required to adhere to monastic prayer schedules and liturgical calendars. However, considered a low priority in the Catholic Church, they were generally given the freedom to make whatever they would like while still being provided the basic necessities needed to survive; generally the dream for most artists.
While Whitney remained skeptical throughout the entire video, she started to notice more inconsistencies towards the end. She wondered if that was just because she knew more about the 1990’s than the whole 19th Century combined. HaraSarahSees claimed that the reason for the destruction of the Jobbers Canyon Historic District was not to create a new headquarters for AgriCon Foods, but instead to destroy all physical evidence of the Servants of Gregory, including their extensive archives and massive printing press. However, Whitney knew that Jobbers Canyon had been destroyed in 1989, while the riot grrrl zine movement wouldn’t start until the 1990’s.
For believers, the supposed destruction of the Servant’s archives explained why there was almost no physical evidence to present. The video included a couple pictures of old newspapers, but all they proved is that, at some point, there were newspapers called The Cynic and The Gregorian Times. There are no recordings of the alleged radio or public tv show and all copies of the feature film are believed to be lost to time. To HaraSarahSees, this proved a Catholic cover-up. But Whitney was not a believer. To her, the lack of evidence made the whole thing sound like hooey.
As a conclusion, HaraSarahSees started spouting rhetorical questions like “Why would any company destroy a historic neighborhood to build a new headquarters? Why wouldn’t they just build somewhere else with less historic value?” or “Why would these politicians approve such a destructive plan without sufficient strings attached to actually keep that company headquartered in Omaha? Doesn’t it seem suspicious that AgricCon Foods would take on this big construction project only to relocate a couple decades later?” Whitney found these question-based arguments entirely unconvincing. Frankly, they seemed quite naive for a conspiracy theorist. Doesn’t HarahSarahSees know that politicians make bad decisions all the time, often to help out businesses who don’t need any help to begin with? Does she really think that big corporations care about how historic a neighborhood is? Or even care about the communities they are a part of at all? If the city of Omaha had prioritized the historic neighborhood over the empty promises of a major corporation, then Whitney might have believed something fishy was going on.
And so, as the video ended and Whitney became increasingly confident that the whole thing had been a bucket of hogwash, she was left with the question: “What does this video have to do with my fucking truck?” The question was so beautiful and concise that she texted it to Dillon right away.
She did not receive a response.
Copyright © 2015