The Objecthead Phenomenon: Another Brief Essay

The Objecthead Phenomenon: Another Brief Essay

One of the most thought provoking concepts in 17776 is the idea of a mind with all the emotions and complexities of a human being forced to inhabit a completely inhuman body. Juice, Nine, and Ten do not, and never will, have human bodies. They will never experience what it is like to have a human body - additionally, this means machines, unlike humans, have to consider their own mortality and come to terms with their weird, disjoined, person-object existence. 

The fact that space probes, who are completely physically different from an organic being, mange to be so human is something that makes 17776 so special. This also leads to me having what I can imagine are controversial tastes in fanart: I don’t particularly care for the “objecthead” designs and feel they undermine one of the most important things about Nine, Ten and Juice as characters.

 Like, Jon Bois created these remarkable and bizarre characters, who are intentionally physically inhuman, something that has significance in the story - and people immediately decided to go ahead and draw them in order to…undo that.  This is why the objecthead or humanized fanart saddens me a bit. 

I do, however, understand the desire to further anthropomorphize the probes. After all, it’s frustrating for characters with such distinct personalities to be completely physically inexpressive. Nine, Ten, and Juice don’t have facial expressions (other than emoticons, of course). They don’t pose, they don’t wear clothes, they can’t touch or physically interact or any way. That makes it pretty much impossible to easily make visually interesting art, as you could only ever draw them. Uh. Floating in space. Visually unchanging. Forever and ever. Not exactly appealing. 

In a way, the objecthead phenomenon in 17776 fanart provides some poetic insight: the idea that these beloved characters are objects is uncomfortable. We want to give them bodies that correspond with their personalities, we want them to be physically expressive. We want to give them these experiences that they will never be able to have. I can imagine that the probes feel these things too, this desire to have their consciousness match what their body looks and feels like. 

Practically the first thing Nine assumes when they wake up is that they are trapped aboard the probe and need to escape. They experience a moment of visceral panic and existentialism, which I found very distressing because they are trapped in a space probe. Their first instinct is to leave, to get out, and that will never happen. There is no hope of escape. 

Juice also demonstrates this kind of thinking in a much more lighthearted way during the spaghetti conversation in the first chapter of 20020. The nonexistent bowl of spaghetti shows that the probes, or at least Juice, do imagine themselves with bodies, doing human things. This makes you wonder how often they think about the things they will never be able to experience. Do Nine and Ten wish that they could hug? Does Juice lament not being able to enjoy a Lunchable or catch a football?

This was meant for my 17776 blog (@we-perpetually-hang-out) but is posted here instead due to tag issues.