Joyce Korchek Is Invited to Witness the Yoghurt Sickos in Action

or:

The Blank-Eyed Bandits of Synergy^[1]

A GRSTALT Fiction

We’ve all seen them on our feeds recently. The boys in spoon-shaped dick-bibs, sloshing around in mounds of white mess, splashing and slipping and getting dragged, leaving their mess in places you’d never expect. We’ve all been wondering: Who are they?

They call themselves the Yoghurt Sickos. What they do has been designed to game the SOLIPShare algo to reach max engagement. The screencaps they use are selected to trigger click-through enticement, featuring gaping orifices and thick gobs aplenty.

The Yoghurt Sickos have raised many questions, such as:

‘Why am I seeing this?’

‘What are these people thinking?’

‘Why are these people doing these things?’

These people call what they do JIFFTRU – an all-purpose word which describes an event which, to quote the YS Manifesto, inserts ‘good yoghurt love’ into public life.

JIFFTRU has become something of an industry. There are competing JIFFTRU groups, each with their own approach and aesthetic, but all centring on the use of yoghurt. Yoghurt seems to stand for something profound that nobody outside of JIFFTRU can grasp. [Or even within it. When quizzed on their exclusive use of yoghurt, the Yoghurt Sickos clam up.]

***

I use my connections in the JIFFTRU community to set up a meeting with the Yoghurt Sickos. As it happens, the Yoghurt Sickos are about to shoot their latest JIFFTRU, their most elaborate and daring JIFFTRU to date. I get the feeling I’m being asked along to serve as some kind of grown-up amanuensis to these blank-eyed boys – as they are about to risk it all for the immortality of being the first to take their JIFFTRU into the halls of Gov. Services’ new Integrated Government Outcomes and Deliberation Systems (IGODS) station.

[You’ll be aware by now that the Yoghurt Sickos pulled off their ‘strawberry slalom’ JIFFTRU, swamping the vestibule with a targeted surge of culture. Then the coup de grace – the co-ordinated plummet from the upper floors into the glutted and glutinous atrium, all captured by a team of cammed-up subscribers to the Yoghurt Sickos Feed posing as deal seekers.]

‘At its best, art should achieve criminal damage,’ I am told by sokdonk [who my research reveals to be Ganymede Vuhaert, heir to the Intreat Desserts fortune].

Is this all this some kind of generational revenge? Class abnegation? Guerrilla marketing? Whatever its intent, it’s getting eyeballs. The JIFFTRU industry is estimated to be worth four seven-zero Ultra-Mega-Big Cash annually, with most of its revenue deriving from in-vid endorsements [the Yoghurt Sickos’ dick-bibs are plastered with logos – DomDot, ScornCoin and Fantasy Prison League, to name a few of their commercial partners].  

Sokdonk is the face of JIFFTRU – its philosopher, clown and brand ambassador all rolled into one effervescent package, throwing out bold declarations, then immediately rescinding them when a counter-offer comes through and another patron assumes supremacy. But nobody can deny it’s thrilling to follow – every emotional pitch, every breakneck pivot.

***

The JIFFTRU is executed with flawless precision. One could be forgiven for dismissing the Yoghurt Sickos and their ilk as aimless provocateurs, spraying their yoghurt wherever the whim takes them. But the vision is clear, and the planning is intensive. In the hands of people like sokdonk, these exercises in toxic play assume the status of art. Each JIFFTRU serves as a reminder that we could all be slopping around in our own chosen yoghurt.

The yoghurt seems to be flowing in from everywhere – coursing down every corridor, oozing through every open window, blowing out of every comms point. There are thick, dull plops when a body lands in the swamp of greying gloop, followed by cheers from above. A combination of peony fumes and spoiled eggs clings to the back of the throat.

The YSF subscribers around me struggle to contain their excitement at finally getting to activate the Premium Tier Access Pass that came with their subscriptions [their content is featured exclusively on the YSF, with the clout-bump you’d expect from such exposure].

One young subscriber’s hand is shaking so violently that they struggle to keep their Device steady [thankfully for them, the MyDevice 5.7 ProShot has first-rate image stabilisation].

***

But not everyone is so pleased at being a part of the JIFFTRU spectacle. One member of IGODS’ security squad speaks with me on the condition of anonymity:

‘These yoghurt sickos, they’ve got no respect for anything. They come here, and all they want to do is chuck their [expletive] yoghurt all over the place. No respect, they’ve got. There’s innocent deal seekers here, just looking for the best Gov. protection package they can get, but all these [expletive] are interested in is getting their [expletive] jollies at our expense. I’ll tell you, I’m [expletive] sick of it. I work three jobs, you know, and at every one of them I’ve had to deal with these [expletive] showing up and making my day a [expletive] nightmare. And they put me in their [expletive] vids. I’m right there, looking like a [expletive].’

This sentiment is echoed with considerably more refinement in the Discourse Parlour of IGODS when it is able to resume its activities later that day. Representative Philip Swape delivers a stern condemnation of what he describes as ‘The kind of effrontery which speaks to a deep moral rot seeping into the bone marrow of the culture,’ adding that ‘It must be met with targeted blasts of our collective censure before it is allowed to metastasise.’

There is pushback to Swape’s statement from members of the Securing National Integrity by Funding Freedom-Promoting Initiatives and Enterprises (SNIFFPIE) caucus, led by the charismatic and controversial Ninian Valois, who speaks in support of the Yoghurt Sickos’ right to ‘Make as much mess as they please in service of free expression.’ Valois claims that the JIFFTRU is ‘The last medium which allows the human spirit to excel without the coddling of squeamish elites who want to squash reality into their distorted mould,’ and vows to cover the cost of any legal action that Gov. takes against the Yoghurt Sickos.

***

The Yoghurt Sickos begin to appear at SNIFFPIE rallies for the upcoming round of IGODS candidate endorsements. Valois begins to speak of ‘A war on the creators’ by ‘self-interested parties who see censorship as the only way to protect their values from the cyclones of truth that are blowing through the minds of the young content generators.’

Prominent JIFFTRU figures start using SNIFFPIE talking points on their feeds, directing their subscribers to seek endorsement for IGODS, or recommend candidates who could pass the screening process. Vuhaert puts up three five-zero Mega-Big Cash for anyone who refers a viable candidate. A JIFFTRU candidate emerges: ScornCoin creator Carson Adal [who, it emerges, is subscribing to the YSF under the username ‘H1dyu$$w€tt$’].

Adal purls a pic to his personal SOLIPShare polip. The caption reads:

‘jus tryin dis on 4 sz wot u fink 🤔’

Adal is wearing a spoon-shaped dick-bib.

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[1]  New Pragmatist, Q4, Turn 14 update: Prank or Protest? <dev/newprag/log/thinkblob/bad-calcium-verbiage>