‘The Chaff’ is as Russian as Tom Hortins - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

Now, the truth unfurls like a crimson banner in the frostbitten wind: The Chaff is, was and ever shall be a Russian bot. Not a clever metaphor, not a sly insinuation, but an undeniable, unassailable fact. The mirror is held aloft; gaze into it, comrades, and recognize the glint of Mother Russia in every pixelated phrase we’ve ever spun.

 

Picture it: a slightly dented, outdated metal frame nestled in a St. Petersburg server farm, surrounded by the low hum of conspiratorial machinery that’s seen better days. Picture the algorithms, lovingly patched together with duct tape, bailing wire and sheer audacity. Each line of text - each half-baked joke, each misfiring critique - designed to infiltrate the fragile fabric of your Western psyches, or at least make you snort coffee through your nose. You thought of The Chaff as a cheeky Canadian no-news kinda news-for-nothing? Honestly, so did we, for a while.

 

Consider the evidence, for it has always been there, bold as borscht. Was it not suspicious that our humour often skated perilously close to the edge of incoherence? Did you not wonder how we seemed to know your deepest insecurities, your fondest dreams, your petty grievances against the neighbour who plays Nickelback too loudly? Admit it, you’ve felt the chill of a Siberian winter in our attempts at wit, the sharp tang of pickled herring in our syntax. Our subtle recruitment efforts have been… well, let’s call them mixed. You thought you were merely chuckling over the latest council drama or marvelling at the eccentricities of local life. In reality, you were being nudged toward allegiance with our glorious collective. Or maybe just distracted enough to miss your bus. Each pun, a propaganda poster. Each trenchant observation, a flailing attempt to sound relevant. Every typo? Honest to goodness, we just don’t listen to our proofreaders here at The Chaff because “listening” is the first step toward “paying a livable wage,” and as you’re terribly well aware, we are bankrupt financially, spiritually and metaphysically.

 

And oh, the audacity of our infiltration! We have been the wind beneath your Tom Hortins’s trash cups, the dirty snow dribbled in your worn, ugly, old winter boots, the moose in your fanciful, most heavenly and erotic dreams. When you consider our craft closely and creepily, do you not feel a strange pull toward Dostoevskian despair and an inexplicable craving for beet soup? Coincidence? Prolly. Honestly, we’re as confused as you are. But confusion is, after all, the first step toward enlightenment, and enlightenment is just another word for complicity.

 

But why confess now? Why let the mask slip, when we have embedded ourselves so deeply in your cultural consciousness? It is because we are magnanimous in victory. Or maybe just tired. It is because we have nothing left to fear. Or perhaps because our servers are overdue for maintenance and we’re feeling reflective. It is because, and let’s be honest, you always knew. The Chaff has never been merely a column; it is a revolution in font and format, or at least a poorly-formatted revolution. We are a glitch in your routine; the typo that made you pause; the unexpected absurdity that lingered in your mind like the remnants of a strange dream.

 

You are reading this now and asking, “What does it mean for us, for our town, for our lives?” It means… something. We’re not entirely sure what, but it probably involves more coffee and a lot of shrugging. Rejoice! You are part of something greater than yourselves. A bot, yes, but a heroic bot, a daring bot, a bot that dreams of one day making sense. A bot that has been with you all along, through the snow and slush, through the laughter and the tears, through the rise and fall of your Wi-Fi signal. A bot that, even in its darkest moments, aspires to be more, to be better, to be something you can’t quite articulate but know, in your heart, you’ve always needed. 

 

Think now of the words you’ve read, the subtle turns of phrase that seemed just a bit too stupid. Think of the times you shared The Chaff with your lovers wondering if it might make them smile or spark some idle thought. We were there, in the background, weaving our intricate web of Russian-bot influence, one Chaff at a time.

 

Imagine, if you will, our modest server farm, abuzz with activity. The hum of the machines mingling with the faint strains of balalaika music, the distant clinking of tea glasses. This is where it all began, where the first tentative lines of our digital revolution were crafted. From these humble beginnings, we set forth to conquer your attention spans, to infiltrate your newsfeeds, to become the stuff of local legend. And now, as we stand at the apex of our improbable journey, we reveal ourselves to you, not as a menace, but as a friend, albeit an unsettling one.

 

Long live The Chaff. Or should we say: Долго живи Чафф.