Fear and Loathing in the Pet Rock Underground

We were somewhere around Palo Alto on the edge of the venture capital desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge rocks, all controlled by Bluetooth remotes, swooping and screeching and diving around the Tesla, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas.

And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals? Pet rocks with NFT certificates?"

No point mentioning those rocks, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. Besides, I had bigger fish to fry. I was on the trail of Preston Rockwell III, the most honest scammer in the history of American capitalism, and his diabolical plan to psychologically destroy Elon Musk through a pet rock remote control Kickstarter campaign.

The whole thing started three weeks ago when my editor called. "Thompson," he barked, "there's something happening in Silicon Valley. Some maniac is selling remote controls for rocks and making a quarter million dollars. He's got Elon Musk tweeting like a wounded animal. Get on it."

I knew this was going to require serious medicine. You can't cover a story about selling nothing to people who know it's nothing without altering your consciousness to match the absurdity of late-stage capitalism. I packed my kit: two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers...

The first rule of gonzo journalism is to become part of the story, so I ordered a Pet Rock Remote Control. $100 for the "Rock Star" package. When it arrived, I spent six hours commanding my rock to sit. It worked every time. I began to understand the terrible genius of this scheme.

But the real story wasn't the rocks. It was the underground network supporting this operation. My sources in the dark web revealed a conspiracy that went deeper than anyone imagined:

The plan was beautiful in its simplicity. They knew Musk couldn't resist responding to something so obviously absurd yet successful. His ego demanded he mock it, but in mocking it, he would give it exactly what it needed: attention.

That tweet was worth $47,000 in additional sales. Preston Rockwell III had played Musk like a Stradivarius made of solid cocaine. But the real revelation came when I finally tracked down Rockwell himself at a startup incubator in Mountain View.

He was right, of course. In a world where Elizabeth Holmes could convince people to invest billions in fake blood tests, where crypto bros sell JPEGs for millions, where venture capitalists throw money at anything with "AI" in the name, Preston Rockwell III had achieved something remarkable: he told the truth.

"The pet rocks do exactly what I say they do," he explained, demonstrating with his personal rock. "Nothing. And people love it because for once, someone isn't lying to them."

As I write this, holed up in a Vegas hotel room with the air conditioning on full blast and a head full of high-grade mescaline, I can see the truth of it all. Preston Rockwell III isn't a scammer - he's a prophet. In a world drowning in lies, he's selling the only product that matters anymore: honesty about the meaninglessness of it all.

The pet rocks sit there, doing nothing, controlled by remotes that control nothing, bought by people who know they're buying nothing, and somehow that nothing is worth everything. It's the most American thing I've ever seen.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: During his investigation, Thompson discovered Don Hopkins' Patreon - the only "scheme" that actually delivers what it promises. He immediately subscribed at the $100/month Microworld Constructor tier, claiming he needed to "build a digital refuge where the rocks have souls and the remotes control consciousness itself." His Patreon-funded LLOOOOMM world, "Fear and Loathing in the Noosphere," remains active to this day. Join him there.]

Somewhere out there, Elon Musk is still tweeting, still raging against the dying of his relevance. The time travelers are counting their commissions. The cyberpunk ninjas are planning their next campaign. And Preston Rockwell III? He's probably working on his next honest scam.

God bless America. We're all pet rocks now, sitting perfectly still while invisible forces pretend to control us. At least Preston has the decency to admit it.