A side entrance from the big web

~ns

With a confused look, I step into the pub.

Not from the front door. Nor the one that's in the back, if you go through the kitchen past the sink. This door opened up from a completely nondescript section of the wall. You'd hardly know there was door here, if I hadn't opened it.

I verify that this is the Midnight Pub I know. I see the familiar face of ~bartender, and Smudge is curled up on an armchair. No, this is definitely the Midnight.

I'll give you the story.

I was going through my work spam folder. Hadn't ever checked it before. Had only a handful of messages. Most from software hockers, or SEO consultants. One registrar scam. Out of curiosity, I search for the domain name of one spammer who wants their advertising bullshit productivity articles on our company website. And so imagine my surprise when the second result is a link to the Midnight. Issue #538 by ~starbreaker, to be specific. ~starbreaker seems to have also received a similar email from this company.

Maybe it's my weird, esoteric paid search engine that has profiled me. I go to Google. The big dog. Search the phrase. There's the Midnight. Quick, activate cognito-cloaks! Enable scrambler VPNs! Still there. A door, right into this smol corner of the web.

I mean, I knew that the Midnight was on the clearnet. It's indexable. But I never thought I'd actually come across it organically like this. It's like going to the beach, picking up a random sand grain, and it has significance to you. It's not supposed to happen. This is either a statistical anomaly, or the smol web is a bit better connected than I thought.

If you're curious, the phrase I searched is "audiencr". One adjacent keystroke away from a well-known word. Please ignore the spam/scam company behind it :)