the sweet bro and hella jeff pipeline
Been having fun browsing piclog (see also: new toggable widget on the right, or the new pfp on my homepage). Paired with the Dither Me This web tool, I'm gonna make some kickass deep-fried .JPEGS.
Made me think about where all this started... The answer is, unfortunately, Homestuck.
I was a huge Homestuck fan in high school. I didn't go as far as painting myself gray and shit, but it was a huge part of my identity as a teenager. Also, I'm a trans dude, and for a time it felt like every FTM coming of age from 2009-2014 modeled themselves after Dave Strider.
Speaking of Dave Strider, I think this whole ironic old web shit-tier file compression kick started all the way back with Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. For those uninitiated, SBAHJ is a meta comic created by Dave in canon. It's just stupid. But in an alternate universe, it leads to a multimillion media empire.
sord...: a sword wielded by Dave, created by combining one of his brother's mall ninja katanas and an issue of SBAHJ
I can't help but feel nostalgic whenever I come across SBAHJ-coded shit. While dumpster diving for 88x31 buttons, I came across an archive curated by this dude and I can say for a fact that he probably read Homestuck. He's got all sorts of freaky zines and weird web portals that just scream "processing trauma through meta humor and purposefully degenerated graphic design". I mean, we've all been there.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that Homestuck is responsible for a large part of internet culture as it is today. The indie web wouldn't be what it is without Homestuck.
Also, SBAHJ wasn't just a meta webcomic within a meta webcomic, but actually a cerebral work of art that prophesied our current political times.
✘ Posted on — 04/05/25
✘ Last modified — 4 months, 2 weeks ago
✘ Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/the-sweet-bro-and-hella-jeff-pipeline