About a year ago, on April 17, 2007, Nine Inch Nails released "Year Zero" and it completely changed my life. It came about at just the right time in my young life. It was early 2007, and we had just started studying George Orwell's 1984 in English. It marked a transition of focus on myself to focus on the world around me, and its many, many problems. Perhaps it acted as the spark that ignited my previous desires to understand politics and human nature, or what was going on, what was "out there." In other words, it marked the day that I, "Woke up and gave a shit."
I still remember the first bit of news about Year Zero- Trent Reznor made a post on his website: " 'Year Zero' It may be about the end of the world." About a month later, Nine Inch Nails started their European tour. Now, everybody knows that band merchandise is often sold at concerts, like t-shirts and stuff. In this case, a fan noticed that the tour dates on the back of a new t-shirt had certain letters that were printed in a different colour. He took these coloured letters, entered them into Google, and out popped this website.
Soon we found out that Year Zero was the subject of a massive alternate reality game campaign, an idea brought up and paid for by Reznor himself to engage us, the fans. For the next few months the fans searched through every little detail in the websites, videos, songs, audio clips, and even flash drives for a clue in the puzzle. Tiny details in the images present on one website were code for another website that would not be discovered for another month. Mp3s of four of the tracks from Year Zero were placed onto USB keys and left in the bathrooms at the concert venues. Even the video for the first single, "Survivalism" contained clues. Lucky fans in the Los Angeles area also got to engage first-hand in the action when they attended a "resistance" meeting, and an even luckier few were bussed to an undisclosed location and got to experience a private NIN show. The ARG made headlines, and a summary of it all can be found at NINWiki or 42Entertainment, the company that created the campaign.
The album itself is based on Reznor's concept of a future dystopian world. It is set in year 2022. The government has gained full control of the people, there are drugs in the water, there are epidemics throughout the country, Los Angeles and Hollywood has been wiped off the map, and the world is on the brink of death. People are reporting having hallucinations of a massive phantom hand coming down from the sky. The songs and the imagery that they produce all tell this story, from various viewpoints of the people who are experiencing Year Zero.
I'm sitting here listening to Year Zero again for the first time in a while, and all these thoughts and memories are running through my head. And I know, that should the world end, I will sit here and watch the giant hand come down from the black sky and consume everything in existence.
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