The Scrolleteriat: Before we get into the main event, tell us a little about your backstory. Family, music, favourite memes, whatever floats your boat.
Avalanche: Oh gosh. This is a really difficult question to answer. I lost both my parents at a real young age. I think the pressure of holding the mountain up, and then having me and my brother, was just too much. I’ve spoken to geologists in therapy, and they said this was a rare case where they appeared to self-avalanche.
The Scrolleteriat: Sounds tough. How was it after your parents were gone?
Avalanche: I’m just misunderstood, born into a role I didn’t want. No avalanche wants to be an actual avalanche. So yeah, it wasn’t easy. I was young, grieving my parents, and immediately I had to step in and hold up the mountain as best I could. I was really young, should have been in school–got no training, nothing. Meanwhile, people are looking up at me with their menacing eyes, saying I could come down any day. But I didn’t–well–not for a long time.
The Scrolleteriat: What are you listening to these days?
Avalanche: I’m a huge fan of sludge, Fjord metal, grindcore and other types of esoteric metal genres. I will say this: Metallica was a slippery slope into the depths of metal. But you know, if you ever go to a metal gig, they are just the nicest people. It was like, every time I went to a show, and felt the camaraderie of people expressing their frustration of living a life built for destruction, it gave me a bit more power to hold up the mountain one more day.
The Scrolleteriat: What do you think about Big Tech?
Avalanche: Look, I’m all for it. They’re people I call friends–ones I’ve done lock-ins with at metal karaoke bars. My karaoke name was “Scream the mountain down,” pretty rad, huh? And when I hit the high note, I really bring the house down.
The Scrolleteriat: So what about the Tech Bros?
Avalanche: Yeah, weirdly I’m all for them as well. I mean, they are the ones that come and visit me the most. Sure, you could say they are stomping all over me, but, you know –as I said, it gets lonely up here–a couple of billionaires with tech-lite puffer jackets have been the warmest embrace I’ve had in years. But you know, I like to read a lot, and Orwell said something like, ‘history is a boot stamping over your face for eternity’–that guy was clearly an alpinist during his downtime.
The Scrolleteriat: So why did you let it roll during the Aspen soiree?
Avalanche: People are going to tell you all sorts of things that went down that night. Like I was colluding with Russia on some sort of trans-continental ice-tundra pact. The other story I hear a lot is that I had a vendetta against the media. Mass media always say it was a “freak accident.” And when I say stay in your lane on the valley floor, no one reports it.
The Scrolleteriat: Avalanche, you are being obtuse with your answers. What specifically, can you tell us about the horrific accident that took out 60% of Silicon Valley on holiday in Aspen?
Avalanche: Shucks, you got me. As I melt into the bitumen road, let me raise my dying index finger and tell you this– I may go down as a terrorist, but it wasn’t that I wanted to wipe out Silicon Valley for their anthropocentric blast-off-to-Mars ways. That’s not my world. I simply wanted to stop the vocoder lounge music that the Big Chill Soiree pumped into the mountains. It was poison to my ears, a simple case of me or them.