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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
All rights reserved

The Let it Be Syndrome
Dejanews Archeology Unit; Day 223 Year 3003. Professor Doctor Hank
Guava of the Dejanews Archeological Unit proposed a new theory on the
sudden demise of the RMB (rec.music.beatles) group in late 1998.
According the Guava, the group collapsed under the weight of its own
inertia created by the constant discussion of the Beatles breakup. 

What is emerging, Guava said, is that the sudden end of the RMB
mirrors almost exactly the same conditions that recent
extraoscularparapsychology has found in the Beatles' breakup itself.
Under these conditions a group of people locked into a repetitive
situation become unwilling protagonists, each willing the other to
break out of the loop. No single individual wants to take
responsibility for termination. Each accuses the other of non-activity
or of counterproductive activity. Finally, unable to break out, the
group as a whole looks for external factors to blame. In the case of
the RMB the externals are the so-called trolls and flames.

Guava expounded the theory that constant discussion of the Beatles
demise and factors leading to that demise led empathetically to the
same condition in the RMB. Behind this all, he said, was the long
term deeply buried wish for their own eventual rebirth in the form if
the 'ritual reunion of the RMB' as a mirror of the eternal Beatle
reunion urge. That reunion, as we now know, never took place in
either case.

We can see their death-wish in the later behaviour of the core
members of the RMB, he went on, although they knew that any form of
reply to negative posts only served to encourage the originator, they
found themselves unable to resist the temptation. Indeed, the core
members were the worst offenders, and in terms of the RMB,  their own
worst enemies.  Exhausted by their negative activies they had no time
left to follow up the positive posts which still arrived every day in
the newsgroup, in vain. Finally, they simply fell into the notorious
"giant worm" thread loops blaming each other and external forces for
the situation they had in fact created themselves.

The decisive black hole loop took three months and tens of
thousands of posts to collapse, most members only capable of posting
er and ah for the last month. We are still investigating the story
that the so-called mythical saki figure finished the group off with
a sudden reappearance where she sent a terminal two word posting. What
those two words were remains shrouded in mystery, but the most recent
theory is that she simply posted the words mick jagger.

Guava was unable to explain why most core RMB members soon became
members of the RMH (rec.music.hanson) which formed only months after
the collapse of the RMB, but he did point out that within seven years
the RMH also collapsed under its own weight under almost identical
conditions. He was also unable to confirm or deny whether appellations
such as saki, neohippie [sic] and FurDickAll applied to real people or
groups of people as has been recently suggested. However, he rejected
completely the theory that some members of the Beatles actually
contributed to the group under cover names. None of them knew how to
use a computer, Guava said, which required complex mechanical
operations of at least finger at the time. Since we have already
established that Lennon, at least, was completely incapable of even
holding a guitar, it seems reasonable to assume that none of the
others could operate a keyboard, at least not while simultaneously
looking at a computer screen.

Another recent theory, which Guava refused to comment on, was that the
RMB had actually created all the music of the Beatles simply so that
it could form the newsgroup. Tanaka, the author of this idea, says
that it was obvious that the individual members of the Beatles
themselves could not have produced the volume of music in the time
available. It was clear from the discussions within the group that
they had inside knowledge that could only have come creating the music
themselves. Alan Pollack clearly wrote all the Beatles' songs,
Tanaka said, but he admitted that some individual members of the
Beatles may have influenced the process.

Work by the Dejanews Archeology Unit on the surviving servers
continues, but many clusters of the remaining raid arrays are known to
be defective. We may be getting near the end of our ability to
recover new data, Guava said, but he immediately blamed Tanaka for
contradictory reports. Tanaka in turn said it was Guava's spouse who
was the problem. Since she arrived I have not been able to have a
meaningful conversation with Guava, Tanaka said. The malaise in the
unit runs deep and the suspicion is that the unit itself is in the
grip of what has become known as the Let It Be syndrome. 

ian hammond
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