Slowjamastan – the Weird Side of the Internet

Slowjamastan – the Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

As a journalist, I have a passion for discovery. I’ve covered the smallest nation in the world, called Sealand. I found Slab City, a desert city with no laws and no government. And we’ve interviewed a researcher in Antarctica, and asked what they did for fun (surprise: it’s called IceStock.

And in that vein, I bring you Slowjamastan. A friendly dictatorship in the California desert. Not sure how far it is from Slab City. It’s eleven acres, and comprises 13 states, not all of which has been names.

The Sultan of Slowjamastan’s name is Randy Williams, and when he is not worrying about his fiefdom, he is a radio DJ (kind of like us!) He has the distinction, beyond his own currency and general accent, of having gone to the NATO Summit to pitch his land.

So now what does the United States, namely the State of California, do with eleven less acres and one more nation.

Turns out Slowjamastan, as a nation, isn’t recognized by anyone, Cali’, U.S. A, even NATO. Slowjamastan is what’s called a micronation. Micronations aren’t like microstates, like Lichtenstein or Vatican City. Basically people just claim territory, come up with a flag and an official bird and a language, and set themselves up at king (or dictator.) So anyone can form a micronation, because no one recognizes them anyway. Even a micronation with a name as cool as “Slowjamastan.” And by the way, the official music is slow jams.

So I think I’m going to go one step further. I’m going to create a micronation in a notebook, mainly because I don’t have any land. So ‘Sweenystan’ will be in a notebook. Maybe I’ll pass it along to get people to pay the taxes with a poem or a cartoon or something.

Off to sew the flag…

More from Liam Sweeny…