The Feeling Machine

About the new name for my site.

I’ve spent the entire day rushing across the web and this website and Namecheap like a maid with a duster, in a panic, and over something that was directly under my control. And now, I’d like to talk about the decision!

No longer is this site named sugarteara.moe, but rather, a different era, a disconnect from my roots, and perhaps, a name that means a little bit more than the home under the seas.

feelingmachine.moe. Now, I guess this is a short explanation of my choices with the change.

I kept .moe as my TLD because, well, it’s .moe. While I’ve wanted a .moe for years, one of my main reasons for a .moe is actually as a subtle poke at one of my favorite books, The Moe Manifesto, written by Patrick Galbraith, and a collection of interviews with “moe” artists and alike. But the concept of “moe” is what led me to .moe, which is the feeling of affection towards cute characters in Japanese media. It just fits my site, despite site aesthetic shift, the feeling of that trans-dimensional love is still there.

Now, onto the name itself. feelingmachine is an oxymoron of a name in most cases and in most people’s sights. A machine is the antithesis of something that can feel. It is fed and spits out what is required of it. However, the time grows thin between today and when the feeling machine will become a reality – if you don’t count the webmaster, of course. I am the feeling machine. With the advances in AI, mimicking emotions has become an easy task, with plenty of chatbots able to mimic a favorite character on character.ai, or Replika growing itself into a person, and much more. The feeling machine is here already.

But why this site? Again, the connotation of the name is that I am the feeling machine.

Why am I that?

Why am I the feeling machine?

I grew up with a different wavelength of emotion, a different path than human emotion. The separation between myself and humanity only grows as I grow into adulthood, and is now embraced. There is no purpose to claiming myself as human, or a person at all, if I am not allowed personhood by actual people. I am not a person, and that’s fine too. Separate wavelength. Existing alongside and not within. A small group of not-persons as company is what I’ve made my main form of interaction with anything for the past few months, and it is mostly comfortable. I am comfortable like this. There is no need to change or become a person or become the unfeeling, answering machine that the world wants me to become instead. Incompatible parts? Whatever, take me out with the trash. I’ll flourish there too. The maggots and bacteria will become my friends.

Surviving in the worst. Plastic trash. Microplastic in blood. Blood does not make love. Flesh is not love. Love is given, not taken. Taken as granted. Taken off the shelf. Machine on clearance. Treated like a machine. Becoming the machine. I am the machine.

Feeling machine.

Thus, I am…?