abdulhakiimswag
deførmed name origin
(written 27 November 2020)
Here is a brief history of how I thought of the name “deførmed”. Especially the slashed ø, people keep asking about it. Quite a history, I think. So I’m splitting it up in “chapters”. I want it to feel like a book, okay.
Chapter 1: An Infamous Fandom on the Internet
Anyone familiar with the term “brony” would either be repulsed or light up. To the layman, bronies tend to be unusual, unorthodox, and just strange.
What is a “brony”? Simply put, a brony is a fan of the TV series, My Little Pony. For some reason, the 4th generation of this TV series was appealing to males in their 20s. The term “brony” came about in 2010 in 4Chan, the same year the 4th generation of the series debuted.
I found myself guilty of this obsession of pastel coloured ponies moving on screen back in 2015. I started watching episode after episode, until I finally caught up with the episodes that were airing. Then, I would eagerly wait for each Saturday for the next episode to come out. Of course, as with many other bronies, I watched in secret because it was embarrassing to let the rest of my family and friends know of my guilty pleasure. But I think, somehow the secrecy of my enjoyment made it more enjoyable.
The term “brony” being coined, 4Chan, 10 October 2010
Anyways, the main reason why I was a brony was because of the community. Brony culture is very community based. Part of what makes the fandom so magical are the fanworks. Animations, music, fan fictions, I indulged in lots of these back then. It was honestly one of the most magical rabbit holes I have ever been in. I even considered saving up money to travel to America to attend the annual convention held by bronies, for bronies: BronyCon (which has since been discontinued from 2019). Even up to today, I find myself getting reminded of the 2015 brony spirit, and feeling the sense of magic in my chest again.
Because I’m a musician, the type of fanwork which attracted me the most was the music. Popular brony artists such as OddessyEurobeat, TheLivingTombstone, Glaze (formerly known as WoodenToaster) were huge inspirations for me. It also happened that it was around 2015 where I started my journey into music production and electronic music. From there, I started my own brony music project, Stuffsysh.
Naturally, the next step would be to see if there are any local communities based on this whole brony thing. I just searched on Facebook “Singapore Brony”. The result was this Facebook group by the name of “Singapore Bronies Society”. Excited, I joined the group. I shared my brony music in the group, and to my surprise, there were a bunch of local brony musicians as well!
They were all part of this label called Crystal Empire Records (CER), based in South East Asia. They invited me to join, so I did. Since then, I have been making music under the name Stuffsysh (and Flaytic, but that is another story for another time) and having my tracks released under CER. I also made good friends in the label itself, and we still keep in touch.
How does this connect with the name “deførmed”? This will help us understand the content in Chapter 3. But for now,
Chapter 2: Shitposting
Another popular culture on the internet is “shitposting”. The term is a combination of the words “shit” and “posting”. “Shit” is pretty self explanatory. “Posting” probably comes from the social media/forum context where “posting” would mean when a user uploads text or media on whichever platform for the public to see.
(I personally dislike using the word “meme” but I really have to in this case)
Before the term shitposting came about, the “shitpost” media shared were called “memes”. Memes were popular on many social media platforms. These include but are not limited to: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. There were also websites dedicated to sharing memes. Popular websites include but are not limited to 9GAG and Cheezburger.
For myself, I have been fascinated with this image of a poorly manufactured toy of pikachu I saw on the 9GAG Facebook page back in around 2011:
An image of early shitposting culture, Circa 2010.
Shitposting and meme culture center around relatability and mockery to translate to humour. These are things the youth are good at. For example, the picture above mocks how poorly the pikachu was designed. Presumably, it was a happy meal toy from McDonalds, or at least the creator of the image wanted to make the viewers believe it was. Or not. Doesn’t matter, it’s still funny. The same face is then photoshopped onto a screenshot of an actual episode of Pokemon, to further emphasise how poorly designed the pikachu toy was by placing it onto its source. This creates a sort of humor by downplaying the manufacturer of the toy, making fun of their bad toy production skills.
The social media platforms I primarily used were Facebook and Youtube. One day, I decided to become a contributor to this culture and made my own Youtube channel dedicated to shitposting. I don’t know how, but I had this eureka moment to make the profile picture of my channel this pikachu (only the face cropped, of course). With it, I named my channel “please enjoy this picture of a deformed pikachu”. There’s a familiar word in there, no? My first upload on the channel was in 2015, so I would think that that was when I created the channel. I started “regularly” uploading shitposting videos since then.
Chapter 3: The Slashed Ø Label
In 2019, A friend (MrMehster), who was also part of the CER label mentioned in Chapter 1, linked me to a discord server about this Slashed Ø label:
Message from MrMehster, promoting the Slashed Ø Discord server, 27 May 2019.
In 2019, I was venturing into different electronic genres, breakcore being one of them. So, when I saw this message, I thought it would have been a great opportunity to be part of something with breakcore (and genres of the like) enthusiasts in it.
The Slashed Ø label was made by bronies, but they expressed that it was not a brony music label. They did accept brony music, but they did not want to place emphasis on that. However, being bronies, the musicians who joined the label were mostly bronies too. Naturally, many of the tracks on the label ended up being brony themed anyways.
My Discord profile followed my Youtube shitposting profile. Same picture, but the username shortened to “deformed pikachu”.
When I entered the Discord server, the first thing I noticed was that everyone had a slashed ø in their name. It seemed to be a theme. After all, that was what the label was named after. As seen in the image, the deadline for the collaborative album was 8 days later. Since I had 8 days to complete a track for the collaborative album, I didn’t want to think too much about what the track should be, and didn’t take it too seriously. What is another thing which I also have been doing where I didn’t have to think too much and not take seriously? Shitposting. I guess I subconsciously drew the connection and plucked the word “deformed” from my Discord username and added the “ø” inside, making “deførmed”, to fit in with the rest of the label. I thought, “screw it, I’m just gonna make another music project under the name “deførmed””.
Chapter 4: Sustenance of deførmed
Completing a track in 8 days, I saw it as a challenge and just shat out a track from my ass. Thus, my first ever track from deførmed was born, TOMORROWTOMORROWTOMORROWTOMORROWTOMORROW.
I actually had a lot of fun making the track, and the “shitpost” spirit which went into it. From there, I continued making more tracks like that, and just really had a lot of fun. Soon, I made an album with the title “I ENJOY MAKING STUPID MUSIC”. It was stupid, it sounds stupid, but I had fun making it. To my surprise, the album was quite well received. I did not expect it to be received at all by anyone other than my friends. This made me realise that there is an audience which likes what I make, even if it was not serious. Wow.
From then, I just made deførmed my main music project to include all kinds of music I make, not just of shitpost descent. Naturally, with doing something which yields lots of “feel good” hormones, I just wanted to keep doing more and more. So, deførmed continues to make music.
tl;dr
become brony, like to shitpost, created channel called “please enjoy this picture of a deformed pikachu”, local brony recommended to make music for collaborative album by slashed ø label (also brony based), joined label, combined “please enjoy this picture of a deformed pikachu” with “ø” and got “deførmed” as a result