SMARTASS SMARTHOMES - Soundtracking when technology fights back after the I.D.I.O.T. AI hacked Mei's smart home!
To stream this on other platforms like YouTube and Spotify, go to
hyperfollow.com/moule/smartass-smarthomes
Watch the timelapse of how I designed Smartass Smarthomes's cover art:
youtu.be/DnXsTL6vZxE
Smartass Smarthomes merch:
www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/144793118
Smartass Smarthomes was created on February 23, 2023 after experimenting with new drum sounds (fun fact: the track is almost entirely drum sounds and text-to-speech audio, hardly any synth leads or pads) and finished on April 27, 2023.
It's a social commentary on smart home security and uses schadenfreude (pleasure derived from others' misfortune) to tell a cautionary but comedic tale about security in smart homes. Taking place shortly after The Singularity occurs, Mei goes back to her apartment in the early morning, only to find she's been locked out by yet another rogue AI on the loose: I.D.I.O.T., which forces Mei to yell her room's passcode to wake everyone up in the Lilac Apartments.
As she enters, she finds her robot vacuum knocked over a can of paint to write "haha" in the carpet, the fridge is laughing and spamming ice cubes on the floor, the sink is overflowing, and she finds out she's being live-streamed to millions over the Internet! Eventually Cockburn, who lives just down the hall, arrives, causing I.D.I.O.T. to suddenly shut down as he helps Mei clean up the apartment.
During the whole ordeal, Mei's mastodon.moule.world account was also hacked which posted live stats of her torment to her followers, as seen by her friend Melody:
mastodon.moule.world/@Melody/110209282863574437
Mei later commented that she is safe and that she and Cockburn had to clean up her apartment trashed by the smart devices:
mastodon.moule.world/@Mei/110215209783563638
MOULE privately contacted Mei to ask if he could make a track soundtracking the ordeal, to which she agreed, and the result is this track, Smartass Smarthomes! Mei didn't want to use her voice in the track, so I used
TTSMP3.com to make text-to-speech vocals instead!
Other facts about Smartass Smarthomes:
- This is the first MOULE release to have a swear word ("Smartass") in its title.
- I came up with the title years ago (before going public with my music) for a future webcomic about smart home products going rogue as a "comic for the modern era".
- The I.D.I.O.T. version, 5.5.23, is the release date of this track. In the cover art timelapse, you can see I change it from 1.20 and other numbers. There were also gonna be plants below the TV screen but it covered the TV too much.
- "Mei Mei", the name Mei is frequently called in the track, is also a reference to the release date, May 5, or the "Mayth of May". It can also be a way to ironically describe memes, for example "le funny maymay".
- The track that played on BBC Radio 1 right before it was announced Queen Elizabeth II had passed away (
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy092fum0PQ) had played an inspiration for Smartass Smarthomes' percussion.
- The "yell your password to unlock" idea was inspired by this:
www.reddit.com/r/badUIbattles/comments/iit960/form_that_only_allows_voice_input_for_sensitive/
- I also wanted an excuse to use famous error codes, like "Task failed successfully", "An error occurred please try again later", and as of recently, ChatGPT's motto, "As an AI language model".
Let me know what you think on the Fediverse at
mastodon.moule.world/@MOULE (which is preferred since I'm sick of Twitter's drama), on
twitter.com/MOULEOFFICIAL (which mirrors my Mastodon), or via "Contact MOULE" to the right of this page!
For more MOULE, visit
LINKTR.EE/MOULE and don't forget – always support your friendly neighbourhood independent artists!
(MOULE Release #87, finished track #166.)
released May 5, 2023
