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A lot of people don''t know that Serial experiments Lain is an Open source anime, (until 2028) meaning  anyone and everyone as long as they're a fan can make stuff based on the IP.

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Here's some bonus cool stuff I'm collecting from across the web, most of them are links to other places:

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  1. Via makes music in the programming environment PureData. Check out their SEL inspired work

  2. Layer 22 Fashion store with an accela keychain

  3. Wired Sounds for Wired people website

  4. LainOS is an OS based on Communication OS from the anime

  5. JJ from the show is a real DJ and hosts parties on VRchat

  6. The mebious website is pretty cool

  7. The official merch website is super sick

  8. Lain themed URL shortener

  9. Lain is an inspiration to a LOT of electronic music producers, such as ARCA, Sewerslvt, tokyopill and Virtual Self( Porter Robinson ), who has made this cool website heavily inspired by serial experiments lain for his music video

  10. Check out the 25th anniversary website! Use Wayback if you want to see it after it expires

  11. Another more occultish fan website

  12. Navi simulator website!

  13. Lain Internet fanZines!

  14. Occult Lain website on neocities (again)

  15. Omnipresence is an old but still baller website! enable popups if you're using firefox

  16. You can play a modified version of the Lain game online!

  17. Lain skateboarding

  18. Someone made a concept album based on the Schuman resonance...

  19. The 20th anniversary blog where Konaka looks back on the show (It's in japanese)

  20. Thoughts Experiments Lain is a goldmine of references, theories, articles and stuff. Most of my blog's references are from this website.

  21. Visual experiments Lain artbook

  22. The SEL DVD ROM simulation has 4 gb worth of exclusive fan content

  23. A bitcrusher VST for my musician visitors!

  24. SEL bootleg game and tutorial

  25. The Techgnosis website has a lot of cool podcasts and talks related to the subject of technomysticism, hosted by the author Erik Davis himself

  26. Club Cyberia XIV is a Final Fantasy and SEL inspired virtual nighclub

  27. Lain inspired Electronic album

  28. Another Lain inspired album

  29. ANOTHER LAIN INSPIRED ALBUM

  30. Evanglion and Lain inspired AV video

  31. Try looking up for SEL skins on the Winamp web simulator, webamp! Play your favourite songs with an SEL themed player.

  32. This is a github project that creates a bot meant to replicate Lain on discord

  33. The nightmare of fabrication (Lain manga doujinshi) by Abe

  34. Wired inspired DnB and breakcore mix

  35. Opera GX browser's Lain mod, full of live wallpapers, background music, keyboard sounds and interactive themes!

  36. A Lain Iwakura LoRa that you can use to create Lain AI art in Stable diffusion

  37. Lain UFO plushies by Lita Mitchell

  38. https://steamdeckrepo.com/post/n2Gax/copland_os_enterprise_intro_serial_experiments_lain (SEL steamdeck screen)

  39. Lain gmod game

  40. OmniDisplay's website

  41. A History of the SEL fandom

  42. Lain Iwakura ASCII style music player

  43. Cool Lain Steam wallpaper

  44. Lain plushies

List of great SEL video essays:

  1. Loneliness in Internet culture

  2. Explaining Lain iwakura: SITE-B (PSX game)

  3. Sartre's Bad Faith in SEL

  4. A great take on the "culture war"

  5. SEL and the work of Marshall Mcluhan

  6. Examining the dynamics of Eiri and Lain

  7. Character design in SEL

  8. An analysis of cult psychology in SEL

  9. Parasocial relationships in Lain

  10. Essay on the 9/11 episode clip

  11. Relationship between Lain and breakcore

  12. How SEL created "cracky chan", the internet's first influencer

  13. Interview with Yoshitoshi abe, Lain's character designer

  14. Individuation and syzygy in SEL

  15. Skapbadoa's explanation of SEL

  16. An essay on how SEL is part of the Japanese Post war identity crisis

  17. How identity breaks down in SEL

  18. Lain, Perfect blue and Unreality

  19. How SEL nails sound mixing

  20. Why is SEL not as famous as EVA?

  21. Playstation Lain and interactive CD roms

  22. The unique impact of Serial experiments Lain

  23. AI, cosmic horror and SEL

  24. Computers and internet in SEL

  25. The subtle horror of Serial Experiments Lain

  26. A throwback to the , erhm, not so great 25th anniversary

  27. How Konaka, Ueda and Ryutaro made SEL possible

  28. CCC video on AI, UFO's, Magic, CIA psyops and the internet's hallucinations

  29. The Other You: An essay on SEL and Perfect Blue

  30. One hour lecture on the Anti-Tech themes of SEL

  31. Why lain is a cult classic

  32. Autism encoding in lain

  33. What is Denpa? Hyperreality and globalization

  34. The MAL hack

  35. Lain and the evolution of modern identity(from a queer perspective)

  36. DungeonChill's video connecting the Lain anime and Game

  37. God is a Girl Online: Tiqqun, Baudrillard and Feminine performance in the internet age

  38. Neoliberalism, Social Darwinism and Biopolitical modernity

Written SEL essays:

  1. The art of shadows in SEL

  2. Philosophy, Alchemy and esoteric symbolism in SEL

  3. Anomie, isolation and the Japanese consensus society

Film/TV recommendations

The following shows and films are ones I think deal with topics in SEL or are pretty similar to SEL :

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  • VideoDrome by David Cronenberg

  • Dennou Coil

  • Kairo by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

  • Neon Genesis Evangelion

  • Network (1976)

  • Black Mirror (mostly seasons 1 and 2)

  • Synecdoche by Charlie Kaufman

  • Suicide club by Shion Sono

  • Tetsuo the iron man

  • Paprika by Satoshi Kon

  • Ghost in the shell (movie and Standalone Complex)

  • Hypernormalisation by Adam Curtis

Book recommendations

The following books helped me really understand the nature of SEL and I recommend them to you as well if you're interested in these topics:

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  • Darwin amongst the Machines by George Dyson

  • The four archtypes by Carl Jung

  • The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore

  • Our Posthuman future by Francis Fukuyama

  • The end of history and the last man  by Francis Fukuyama

  • Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard (Alternatively, you can read  Ecstasy of communication instead since it deals with the angle of media much better than SS. America is also a great book that makes his critique much clearer)

  • Cyberia by Douglas Rushkoff ( I highly recommed this one)

  • TechGnosis by Erik  Davis (Best recommendation for beginners)

  • God, Human , Animal Machine by Meghan O'giebhlyn

  • The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore

  • Emergence by Steven Johnson

  • Philosophy and simulation by Manuel Delanda (Highly advanced but if you study Computer Science you may enjoy this )

  • Mind and nature, Gregory Bateson (Highly advanced but recommended if you study biology/evolution)

  • Underground by Haruki Murakami (Insight into Japanese society as it is through Aum Shinrikyo)

  • Metaman by Gregory Stock (Makes you kinda get how the Wired unkowingly  became a living organism)

  • What kind of people should there be? by Jonathan Glover. 

  • New Dark Ages by James Bridle

  • Debt: The first 5000 years by Dave Graeber

  • Fanged Noumena by Nick Land

  • The Cybernetic Hypothesis by Tiqqun

  • Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

  • Flatline constructs by Mark Fisher

  • Zeroes and Ones by Sadie Plant

  • A Hacker Manifesto by Mckenzie Wark

  • A Thousand Machines  by Gerard runing

  • Mutant Neoliberalism by Wendy Brown

  • Governing by Debt and The Indebted Man by Maurizio Lazarrato

  • The Birth of Biopolitics, Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, the history of sexuality by Michel Foucault

  • "Postscript on the societies of Control" by Gilles Deleuze

  • Surveillance capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

  • Colossus: The rise and decline of US Imperialism by John Peterson

  • Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall Mcluhan

  • The Singularity is near by Ray KurzWeil

  • Redesigning humans by Gregory Stock

  • God and Golem by Norbert Wiener

  • Engines of Creation By Eric Drexler

  • Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson

  • The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien

  • BioMedia by Thacker

  • The invisible doctrine: How neoliberalism controls your life by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson

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Note to curious animals:

If it's out there, accessible and in the open, it's not a real threat to the men behind the throne, and is actually bait to send you on a wild goosechase. Truth always takes work to attain.

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