Difference between revisions of "I Am Trying To Believe"

Revision as of 00:02, 10 April 2007

A t-shirt from the early 2007 European tour of Nine Inch Nails. The highlighted letters spelled out ‘iamtryingtobelieve’ which was found out to be a website when adding “.com” to it.

Discovery

On February 12th, 2007, following the initial shows of the Nine Inch Nails 2007 European tour in Lisbon, Portugal, fans noticed a peculiarity on a tour T-shirt--several letters from the tour itinerary on the rear of the shirt were highlighted. The highlighted letters, in order, spelled out "iamtryingtobelieve", which, when adding “.com” to the end, was discovered to be an active website URL. Around the same time, the same URL was also linked to in an update on theninhotline.net.

Another reference could be found in the Year Zero trailer video that was posted on yearzero.nin.com. In the video, just before "The Presence" is seen, there is what appears to be a road sign that passes in front of the camera's view. If the video is played back in slow motion, one can see that the text on the sign is actually "I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE".

Website

http://iamtryingtobelieve.com/

This was the first site relating to the World of Year Zero discovered.

The content of the website centers around a drug called Parepin. The unnamed author of the website describes a future world in which Parepin has been introduced into municipal water supplies throughout the United States, under the direction of the US government. The purported reason for this put forward in the media as excerpted on the website is that Parepin is immune system booster that will protect Americans from biological warfare; apparently in response to biological terror attacks which have occurred on the west coast. However, the website author's main thesis is that Parepin has no immune system boosting effects, and in fact is a psychoactive drug being used by the govenrment to sedate the population and make them complacent.

The site has several sections, describing what Parepin is, listing several undesirable side effects, and suggesting that people try to avoid Parepin. Also prominently featured is a mention of the phenomenon known as The Presence, which the author suggests is a Parepin-induced hallucination. On the bottom of the last page is an email address for contacting the author: water@iamtryingtobelieve.com

Auto-Reply E-Mail

When sending an email to the address listed on the website, the following auto-reply is received:

Auto-reply from water@iamtryingtobelieve.com wrote: ------------------------AUTO_RESPONSE--------------_-- Thank you for your interest. It is now clear to me that Parepin is a completely safe and effective agent developed to protect us from bio-terrorism. The Administration is acting purely in the best interests of its citizens; to suggest otherwise was irresponsible and I deeply regret it. I'm drinking the water. So should you.

Attempting to reply to this auto-reply produces no further result.

Numbers

The website has the number 24.14.3 hidden on the main page.

Also, although not obvious at first, the email auto-reply was discovered to contain a hidden number; counting the consecutive dashes in the

"------------------------AUTO_RESPONSE--------------_--"

line of the email reveals 24.14.2.

The tour t-shirt which led to the discovery of the website has 24.14.1 printed at the bottom.

Unlinked Images

There have been 12 images found that are not linked in the HTML.

Fake Websites

After this site was discovered, some websites were found which appeared to be related but were later shown to be fan-made or hoaxes:

http://www.parepin.org/ leads to a "Page not found" page that has a similar appearance to other official World of Year Zero web pages, but contains a link indicating it was just a fan-made homage.

www.parepin.com and www.parepin.net are registered domains but there is not yet any active website set up at those addresses.

Trivia

The words "I am trying to believe" are also some of the main lyrics in the song "The Good Soldier".

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 The tour t-shirt which led to the discovery of the website has [[numbers#24.14.1|24.14.1]] printed at the bottom.
-.14.1 : "[This is] what occurred as the word of Jehovah to Jeremiah concerning the matters of the droughts" - Jeremiah 14.1
-.14.2 : "Judah has gone mourning, and its very gates have faded away. They have become dejected to the earth, and even the outcry of Jerusalem has gone up" Jeremiah 14.2
-.14.3 : "And their majestic ones themselves have sent their insignificant ones for water. They have come to the ditches. They have found no water. They have returned with their vessels empty. They have been put to shame and have been dissapointed, and they have covered their head" - Jeremiah 14.3
 == Unlinked Images ==