It’s been a long time since I’ve walked out of an event and could genuinely say, “Wow, I’ve never experienced anything like that before!” It’s all been done, right? Wrong. The Internet Yami-Ichi Market last weekend was something truly fresh—and whimsically weird. It all went down at the Knockdown Center in Maspeth, complete with a free shuttle to and from the L train and a veritable smorgasbord of internet-inspired frivolity.
From the extreme weather man to the semi-psychedelic, IRL version of Web MD (his waiting room was full of patients, just like the internet!), creativity poured into the space. Internet and tech puns abound, I spotted binary greeting cards, a “paper view” 2-D boxing game, a guy who was mailing actual spam for a few bucks per envelope, and scratch off tickets that awarded social media followers.
