Have you ever come across a person that is so unique, so creative, that it just makes you mad? Like, it’s unfair for one person to be able to come up with so many amazing ideas? Well, to me that person is SB Nation writer Jon Bois.
Around these parts, Bois is probably best known as the creator of Breaking Madden, in which he came up with increasingly absurd ways to abuse digital football players. (I can’t figure out how to hyperlink text using the mobile site, so here’s the link: https://www.sbnation.com/breaking-madden )
He has just released the first chapter in his newest project, 17776: a story about the future of American football ( https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football ). I’m not exaggerating when I say this is one of the most jarring, original science fiction stories I have ever come across.
If you aren’t a fan of American football, or science fiction, or 80s jazz, or MS Paint, do yourself a favor: get over it. Go read this anyway.
Oh man, John Bois is ridiculously good at everything he does. Pretty Good and chart party are appointment viewing every time and his Twitter is fantastic!
I know this is stupid, but I sometimes resent that he is wasting himself on sports when he could be, I don’t know, solving global poverty or finding a cure for cancer or something.
So glad I went into this blind this morning, it’s incredible (and sad how many people will dismiss this as something they assume they won’t be interested in, like I almost did).
Can’t wait to see where it goes, looks like it’ll be daily until July 15th.
this seems really promising, though i guess it’s to be expected - bois has a ton of experience writing complete nonsense dystopian fiction out of sports videogames. i’m actually really curious to see how much “videogame” there is in this, and how the google earth landscape data comes into play.
This is one of my favorite pieces ever written. There are just so many amazing storylines that develop. LeBron going to LA is becoming too much of a possibility for my liking now though…
The new article is very good so far. The I love the representation of putting the messages on the calendar. It’s just so striking.
Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles is really good, and is deffo part of why I’m excited for 17776—in its own (comparatively) more restrained way, TTCFLC also asked what the future of football could be. I’m curious as to what a more concentrated attack on that point looks like, and how Jon’s thinking has changed over the years in light of larger discussions over the problems of the sport—I’m thinking here of his SB Nation colleague Spencer Hall’s pieces The Future of Football and the utterly amazing BUFFALO.
I started reading this today and this is fucking wild, y’all. I am absolutely on board to see how this all concludes because it’s such a novel take on science fiction and American football.
I’ve felt like this evoked something specific and couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but today I think I know what it is. This feels like the mobile game Lifeline meets Don Hertzfeld’s Simpsons couch gag from 2015.
I have so many theories running in my head already - anyone else thinking that everyone’s brain has been uploaded to a computer, a la SOMA, hence why everyone is immortal?
I was really enjoying today’s chapter. The Detmer game was so cool. Then those last two paragraphs. Damn. Damn.
@jmcrofts I figured it has something to do with the nanobots that saved Jason from the car wreck. I am very curious how 15,000 years in the future, we’ve eradicated poverty and disease, people are immortal but also all born in the 20th/21st centuries, trucks last for thousands of years, and printer paper looks exactly like 2017 printer paper. I’m 100% convinced that wasn’t just some dumb gag, but is in fact a critical clue to how the last 15,759 years have played out.
