The Church of the SubGenius: Parody, Slack, and the Gospel of “Bob”
Table of Contents
TL;DR: What Is the Church of the SubGenius?
The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion founded in 1979 that blends satire, counterculture, conspiracy theory, and absurdist humor into a mock-religious movement centered around its fictional prophet, J.R. “Bob” Dobbs. “Bob” is depicted as a 1950s pipe-smoking salesman who achieved divine revelation through an alien TV signal. The Church preaches the gospel of Slack—a mystical form of freedom and ease stolen by society’s “Conspiracy” of normalcy.
SubGenius literature parodies religious texts, cults, televangelism, and new age movements, encouraging followers to embrace their weirdness, question authority, and laugh at everything—including themselves. Its events (called devivals) combine rants, performance art, and communal satire. Despite its comic origins, the Church developed a real global following, influencing internet culture, underground art, and meme religion. It celebrates failed doomsday prophecies, sells fake salvation for real money, and champions self-aware delusion as a form of spiritual liberation.
The movement is both joke and belief system—a postmodern playground where irony and insight coexist. Quotes from “Bob” range from crude jokes to paradoxical wisdom like:
👉 “Pull the wool over your own eyes and relax in the safety of your own delusions.”
👉 “Too much is always better than not enough.”
👉 “Eternal Salvation—or TRIPLE your money back!”
Ultimately, SubGenius is a living satire that critiques the absurdities of modern life, religion, and culture—while offering Slack to those who laugh loudest.
Praise “Bob”!
Origins and History
The Church of the SubGenius emerged from the fringes of Dallas, Texas in the late 1970s, amid a boom of DIY counterculture and satire. It was officially founded in 1979 by two friends – Douglass St. Clair Smith (who adopted the title Reverend Ivan Stang) and Steve Wilcox (known as Dr. Philo Drummond) – who formed the SubGenius Foundation to publish bizarre, irreverent pamphlets. Their first known publication, Sub Genius Pamphlet #1, was a photocopied leaflet distributed in Dallas in 1979. This incendiary pamphlet announced nothing less than the impending end of the world and the possible violent demise of its readers, gleefully lampooning apocalyptic religious tracts of the day1.
In truth, the “church” began as a small circle of artist-pranksters, but from the start they claimed a far more grandiose backstory: according to Church lore, the true founder was J. R. “Bob” Dobbs, a mysterious prophet who actuallystarted the church back in 1953. This tongue-in-cheek revision of history became part of the SubGenius mythos, blurring the lines between prank and “holy” scripture.
In the early 1980s, the SubGenius movement gained momentum and a cult following. The founders staged the first World SubGenius Convention (or “devival,” as they call their gatherings) on November 22, 1981 – pointedly held at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, the site of President Kennedy’s assassination.
These devivals mixed rock music, satire, and fiery spoof sermons. Around the same time, a stroke of luck (or calculated divine intervention, as members might say) brought the Church a wider audience: an editor at McGraw-Hill happened upon their pamphlet and was intrigued.
This led to a major publishing deal and the release of The Book of the SubGenius: The Sacred Teachings of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs in 1983, a compendium of the Church’s “sacred doctrines” and absurdist prophecies. The book went through two printings in its first year, riding a wave of word-of-mouth buzz. “Not everyone picks up on the spoof,” noted one contemporary review, “It’s on a frequency only dogs and select humans can hear” 2. In other words, the Church’s satire was so deadpan that some readers took it semi-seriously – a phenomenon that would continue throughout its history.
The mythology of the Church continued to evolve alongside real-world events. In SubGenius lore, 1984 marked a pivotal moment: the year “Bob” Dobbs was assassinated. Indeed, during a devival in San Francisco on January 21, 1984, attendees witnessed a mock-tragedy in which “Bob” was dramatically shot and killed on stage – a sacrilegious parody of martyrdom that became canon in the SubGenius narrative . The Church announced “Bob’s” tragic death (supposedly at the hands of a jealous unbeliever) and simultaneously assured devotees that this was far from the end for their prophet. After all, resurrection is one of “Bob’s” many talents: Church scriptures claim he has come back from the dead numerous times, cheating death thanks to his superhuman luck Thus, in the mid-1980s, even as the real SubGenius founders were busily spreading their gospel of Slack through zines and cassette tapes, the fictional saga of “Bob” continued to unfold as an ongoing satirical epic.
Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, the Church of the SubGenius established itself as a fixture of underground culture. Its newsletter, The Stark Fist of Removal, circulated strange doctrines and member-submitted art to a growing “congregation” via mail, and local “clenches” (informal SubGenius groups) sprang up in various cities to hold devivals with ranting preachers and performance art. In 1992, Rev. Ivan Stang produced a promotional film titled Arise!, a frenetic collage of SubGenius imagery and teachings that became a cult VHS hit. The Church also embraced radio: Stang’s weekly show Hour of Slack, syndicated on college and community stations, broadcast SubGenius “anti-sermons” and weird music to insomniac listeners across North America. By the mid-90s, SubGenius devotees were early adopters of the internet, setting up one of the first church websites (in 1993) and colonizing Usenet newsgroups like alt.slack with their inside jokes and preachings. This tech-savvy approach helped the Church reach a new generation of nerds, artists, and iconoclasts online.
July 5, 1998 – a date prophesied for decades in SubGenius scripture – was supposed to be the Church’s grand finale. According to the prophecy, this day (X-Day) would bring the end of the world and the fulfillment of “Bob’s” promises. As that date approached, SubGenii around the world worked themselves into a satirical fervor: they held “X-Day drills” in 1996 and 1997 to practice for the impending apocalypse, and on July 5, 1998, about 400 members gathered at a clothing-optional campground in upstate New York for the fateful event. When 7:00 AM struck – the hour “Bob” had designated – no flying saucers arrived, and the Earth stubbornly remained intact.
The SubGenius response was pure parody genius. Reverend Stang leapt to the stage with a “sacred piece of paper” allegedly handwritten by “Bob” predicting X-Day 1998. Another minister then snatched the paper and turned it upside-down, revealing that the true date might actually read “8661” instead of 1998. The crowd roared with laughter as the Church deftly satirized the way real religious groups rationalize failed prophecies. Some outsiders dismissed the whole thing as a prank or performance art, but for SubGenii it became an annual tradition. They have continued to gather every July 5 (now whimsically calling each year “1998” again and again) to celebrate X-Day, cheerfully commemorating the world’s failure to end. In this way, the Church turned a doomsday that didn’t happen into a running joke and a bonding ritual for the community.
Entering the 21st century, the Church of the SubGenius remained alive – if not exactly well – and stubbornly weird. By the early 2000s it claimed tens of thousands of “ordained” members (though exact numbers are unknowable, given the Church’s love of exaggeration)3. It also notched a peculiar accolade: on January 1, 2000, Time magazine ran an internet poll for the biggest “Phoney or Fraud” of the 20th century, and J.R. “Bob” Dobbs won the #1 spot – an honor the Church had actively campaigned for, in sly recognition of its own magnificent hoax4.
Through the 2010s, SubGenius activity slowed from its heyday, but never vanished. Regional devivals and X-Day gatherings carried on, and the faithful still traded jargon on message boards. In 2019, the Church’s bizarre journey from satire to subculture was chronicled in a documentary film, J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius, introducing a new generation to the gospel of Slack. Decades after its humble Xeroxed beginnings, the Church of the SubGenius endures as a testament to the power of a good joke taken much too far – or as SubGenii prefer to think of it, the one true faith for the postmodern age.
Key Figures and Mythology
At the center of the SubGenius cosmology stands the pipe-smoking demigod J. R. “Bob” Dobbs, revered as the founder and figurehead of the Church. “Bob” is always written in quotes – a subtle hint that he may not be entirely real. According to official dogma, however, “Bob” is very real indeed: he was a 1950s salesman-turned-prophet, supposedly born in Dallas, Texas, in the 1920s. The legend goes that in 1953, while tinkering with a television set he built himself, Bob had a vision of an extraterrestrial deity named Jehovah 1 (or JHVH-1). This angry “alien space god” spoke to Bob through the TV screen and revealed to him the secrets of human existence and the conspiracy oppressing mankind. In a burst of enlightenment (or perhaps entrepreneurial zeal), Bob transcribed these revelations into what became the holy texts or “PreScriptures” of the Church. He then set out to spread this gospel, founding the Church of the SubGenius (so the story claims) in 1953 and converting disciples to his philosophy of Slack. Within the mythos, “Bob” Dobbs is touted as “the greatest salesman who ever lived” and a messianic figure who promises salvation to wayward “subgeniuses” everywhere.
His ever-grinning visage – a clip-art style illustration with a jaunty pipe clenched in his teeth – has become the cult’s logo and calling card, instantly recognizable in underground pop culture.
The biography of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs, as told by the Church’s tongue-in-cheek scriptures, is an outrageous pastiche of American tall tales and comic-book heroism. Bob, we are told, is impossibly accomplished: by age 6 he was a millionaire stock-market prodigy; as a teen he earned a law degree and worked as a spy during World War II; later he became a best-selling author and even a **door-to-door awning salesman in his mundane moments. He married his beloved wife Constance “Connie” Marsh Dobbs in 1955 during a ceremony in Las Vegas, and together they would later have a brood of children (the details of whom are intentionally shrouded “for their own safety,” adding to the mystique). The Church’s texts gleefully pile on mythic embellishments: Bob’s father was said to be a Mayan pharmacist and his mother the relative of an Irish revolutionary, giving him lineage both mystical and rebellious. With his all-American good looks and can-do attitude, “Bob” even had a short career as a model and film extra – the origin, they say, of the famous clip-art portrait that would later serve as his icon **subgenius.fandom.com. All these fantastical claims are delivered with a straight face. It’s part of the joke that “Bob’s” life reads like a parody of the “self-made man” legend, turned up to eleven.
Central to Bob’s story are the mythological elements he introduced into the Church’s belief system. Foremost is the alien god who contacted him: Jehovah-1, often depicted as a wrathful space entity who chose Bob as his messenger on Earth. JHVH-1 warned Bob of a sinister cosmic conspiracy and of the coming of the Xists (aliens from Planet X) who would play a role in Earth’s fate. Bob’s teachings also reveal that certain humans – the SubGenii – are actually descended from yetis (yes, the Himalayan Yetis), which accounts for their innate superiority and resistance to conformity. This tongue-in-cheek racial mythos posits SubGenii as literally “Yeti’s sons” (Yetinsyn), a mutant elite among the otherwise “pink” and clueless masses of humanity. By mixing UFO lore, cryptozoology, and conspiracy theory, the Church created a spoof mythology that at times rivals real new religious movements in complexity.
In SubGenius lore, “Bob” Dobbs’ death and resurrection cycle is particularly important – and entirely unconventional. The Church teaches that Bob survived innumerable assassination attempts by his enemies (shadowy agents of the global Conspiracy) thanks to his divine luck, escaping each time by the skin of his teeth. But on January 21, 1984, his luck appeared to run out: Bob was publicly “assassinated” on stage, shot through the heart by a detractor known as “Puzzling Evidence” during a devival in San Francisco.
Pandemonium ensued – and then, in true comic-book fashion, Bob promptly returned from the dead. In fact, Church doctrine claims that Bob, being too Slackful to stay dead, was relegated to Hell briefly (since he refused to be baptized), but managed to escape Hell so many times that eventually Satan threw him out for good, allegedly because Satan owed Bob a huge sum of money! Such irreverent twists on Christian resurrection and salvation narratives are typical of SubGenius storytelling. (The Church even points out, with a wink, that while Bob’s repeated resurrections might sound like a certain Galilean’s story, they totally deny any similarity to Jesus – Bob’s just doing it for the money, after all.) Officially, the Church maintains that Bob is currently “off communing with the Elder Gods of the universe” on some higher plane, which conveniently explains his physical absence. Unofficially (and among friends), even Church leaders like Rev. Stang will admit that “Bob” is a fictional persona – but one so useful and beloved that he may as well be real. As one SubGenius slogan puts it: “This ‘Church of the SubGenius’ is the best scam I ever pulled” – a quote attributed to “Bob” himself, making the faithful complicit in the joke.
Alongside “Bob” stand a cast of other curious characters in the Church’s pantheon. Connie Dobbs, “Bob’s” wife, is venerated as the embodiment of practicality and feminine mystique. Described as a former burlesque dancer and professional spouse, Connie manages “Bob’s” earthly business affairs whenever he’s off on cosmic journeys. She’s so respected that female SubGenii often worship Connie with equal fervor, and the Church’s tongue-in-cheek liturgy even encourages chants of “Praise Connie!” (sometimes in the same breath as the cheeky “Kill Bob!” – a duality that both exalts and mocks their prophet).
There are also the Saints and High Epopts of the Church, many of whom are actually the real-life founders and contributors in pseudonymous form: Rev. Ivan Stang and Dr. Philo Drummond are depicted as “Bob’s recruiters” or apostles who helped spread the gospel; figures like Dr. X, Papa Joe Mama, Sister Decadence and others populate SubGenius scriptures as colorful exemplars of Slack. The Church, ever inclusive in its parody, even folded in figures from other satire religions: for example, SubGenius scripture nods to the Discordian society by naming the goddess Eris (from Discordianism) as Jehovah-1’s wife and an ally of the SubGenii. Virtually any icon or character from conspiracy lore, sci-fi, or fringe belief can find a place in the SubGenius mythos – a deliberate “bricolage” of cultural references that the group remixes into its own scripture. The result is a sprawling parody mythology. It’s absurd and self-contradictory by design, yet detailed enough that a devoted fan can immerse themselves in “Bob’s universe” much as a scholar would study a real religion’s theology.
Core Beliefs, Satire, and Structure
The Church of the SubGenius is often described as having only one core doctrine: Slack. “Slack” is the mysterious substance or state of being that “Bob” promises to his followers – a kind of ultimate freedom that worldly people (derisively called “pinks” or “Normals”) lack. In the Church’s own words, “The SubGenius must have Slack”.
But what exactly is Slack? Part of its allure is that it’s never concretely defined. Slack can mean personal liberation, effortless accomplishment, and the joy of doing nothing, all at once. It’s described as the antithesis of the modern rat race: to “repent” in SubGenius terms is not to feel remorse, but to “Slack off”, to stop working and refuse to bow to society’s pressures.
The Church preaches that we were all born with Original Slack, a natural ease and carefree power, but that it’s been stolen from us by the demands of work, authority, and conformity. Thus, reclaiming one’s Slack is the spiritual goal of every SubGenius.
This tenet is, of course, a satire of both religious salvation and 20th-century self-help bromides. Where mainstream religion might speak of grace, enlightenment, or productivity, “Bob” simply offers Slack – an undefinable somethingthat every person deeply knows they’ve been missing. It’s both a joke on consumer culture (the one thing you truly need is the one thing you can’t buy…except from “Bob”) and a genuine commentary on burnout in modern life. By elevating laziness and “abnormality” to sacred virtues, the Church encourages adherents to embrace their inner weirdo and stop taking life (and themselves) so seriously.
The Church’s belief system is a deliberate satire of traditional religions and cults, and it wears that satire on its sleeve. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Church’s approach to money and salvation. The SubGenius offer is simple: for a low, low fee of $30 (now $35 due to inflation), you can become an “ordained minister” in the Church and receive Eternal Salvation – or TRIPLE your money back!.
This outrageous money-back guarantee is one of the Church’s most quoted slogans, a parody of both used-car-salesman pitches and evangelical promises of salvation. Of course, the fine print is that if you’re not saved, you must be dead – and thus unable to claim the refund. “Bob” Dobbs, the ultimate salesman, famously said: “Make them pay as much as they think they can afford.” and “You won’t appreciate it if you don’t pay for it.”.
These tongue-in-cheek proverbs guided the early Church’s membership fees and poke fun at the idea that people value spiritual rewards more if they’ve paid for them. The Church revels in this kind of faux-commercialism. It proudly calls itself a for-profit religion – “an organisation of the Über-Televangelist” as one description goes – in order to spoof the often unacknowledged profit motives of real religious institutions.
SubGenius sermons are peppered with pitches for merchandise, and “Bob” is depicted as openly greedy, founding his Church primarily to get rich. By being so blatant, the Church performs a kind of culture jamming: it mimics evangelists and cult leaders to the point of absurdity, thereby holding a funhouse mirror up to organized religion’s excesses. Scholar Carole Cusack observes that this “faux commercialism” is a direct parody of 1980s prosperity-gospel televangelism – yet it’s also “a strikingly original innovation in contemporary religion,” since the Church is very honestabout being a scam. It’s a joke, but one that makes a pointed critique. As SubGenius members often quote, *“If you can’t take a joke, it’s … well, in the Church’s blunt motto: “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”.
That brash slogan (sometimes called the Church’s “one commandment”) captures the SubGenius ethos: nothing is sacred, everything is fodder for satire – including the Church itself and its members.
The theology (or “entheology,” as they pun) of the SubGenius Church is an amalgam of sci-fi, conspiracy theory, and parody religion tropes. The cosmology starts with the idea of the Conspiracy (always capitalized) – an all-encompassing hidden enemy not unlike the Illuminati or The Man, which includes all world governments, major religions, new age gurus, aliens, and anyone else you might distrust. The Conspiracy’s goal is to keep normal humans (“pinks”) obedient and rob everyone of their Slack. Opposing this is “Bob” and his faction of empowered weirdos, the SubGenii. A key prophecy is that of X-Day: July 5, 1998 was foretold as the apocalypse or rapture for SubGenii.
On X-Day, according to “Bob’s” teaching, the Men from Planet X (the Xists) would arrive in their stark pleasure saucers. They would “rupture” (yes, rupture, not rapture) the dues-paying SubGenius faithful off the face of the Earth – lifting them into heavenly space yachts to join an intergalactic revel, complete with sex goddesses and endless fun – while simultaneously meteing out unspeakable torments to the remaining populace of Normals left behind.
In essence, it’s the Christian Rapture and the UFO cult abduction myth rolled into one, dialed up to absurdity. And unlike real doomsday cults, the SubGenius leadership preemptively had every excuse ready when 1998 came and went with no saucers in sight. They joked that perhaps the calendar had been sabotaged and 1998 hadn’t truly arrived yet; or maybe “Bob” misread the date because the paper was upside-down (yielding 8661); or even that the world did end and we just haven’t realized this “Earth” is actually Mars!
Each of these tongue-in-cheek explanations mocks the way real groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses or others rationalized failed prophecies. In the SubGenius narrative, rather than causing despair, the failure of X-Day became a cause for celebration – literally. “The non-appearance of the aliens is celebrated” at each annual X-Day gathering, notes one account dryly. It’s an article of faith that eventually, when we least expect it, the prophecy will come true; until then, why not party? This outlook turns the very idea of a doomsday on its head, making it a perpetual joke that binds the community.
The moral (or immoral) philosophy of the Church is encapsulated in a series of irreverent slogans and commandmentsthat “Bob” supposedly handed down. Many read like parodies of Biblical or Scientologist tenets. For example, where the Bible has “Thou shalt not work on the Sabbath,” Bob’s teaching is “Shun regular employment and stop working” – essentially commanding followers to quit their jobs and be lazy. The faithful are even permitted (half-seriously) to collect welfare instead, as a means of gaming the system while maximizing Slack.
Another instruction: “Rebel against ‘law and order.’” The Church particularly encourages acts that tweak the nose of authority, such as creative pranks, anti-surveillance graffiti, or computer hacking (a nod to the cyberpunk ethos). In one of its darker comic edicts, the Church proclaims that “Bob” hopes to rid the world of 90% of humanity – to “kill all Normals” – and it shockingly praises drug abuse and even abortion as efficient methods of culling the unwanteds.
This macabre joke is a send-up of extremist cults and eugenic fantasies; it’s deliberately offensive, meant to expose how fanaticism can justify any atrocity. (Of course, in practice SubGenii are not violent, except maybe toward one too many beers.) Balancing the scales, the Church also preaches a sort of hedonistic compassion: members are urged to exploit the fear that the Conspiracy has of true free humans – essentially, to be loud and proud in their weirdness, because nothing scares “the normals” more than people who aren’t ashamed to defy societal norms.
Through all these tenets runs a vein of absurdist humor. The faithful are expected to know that when “Bob” commands “Rid the world of everyone who didn’t descend from Yetis!”, it’s his over-the-top way of saying “We’re the freaks and we like it that way”. SubGenius beliefs constantly double back into satire: every genuine idea (anti-consumerism, anti-authoritarianism, pro-individuality) is wrapped in layers of outrageous comic exaggeration.
Structurally, the Church of the SubGenius is a parody of religious institutions, yet functions in some ways like a genuine new religious movement. It has its hierarchy of fictional saints and clerics, but in reality anyone who sends in the membership fee becomes an “ordained minister” and can adopt an impressive title of their choosing. (You might encounter SubGenius devotees calling themselves things like Rev. So-and-So, or claiming to be a Pope or High Epopt; within the culture, this is normal – everyone is encouraged to be an archbishop of their own imagination.)
The Church’s gatherings, called devivals, mimic tent revivals or religious conventions. They feature fiery “preachers” on stage (part stand-up comic, part soapbox ranter), live bands, satirical rituals, and maybe a symbolic “sacrifice” of a hated object (such as burning an effigy of a fax machine to renounce soul-killing office work). One well-known ritual is the fondling or burning of “Dallas” – a stack of dollar bills – to symbolically give money to “Bob” and then destroy the medium of exchange, thus having your cake and eating it too.
The terminology of the Church also spoofs real religions. Local SubGenius chapters are called “clenches” (a play on “clench” meaning a tight grip, versus “clique” or “church”). Instead of Sunday school, they have “Slack schools” (often just late-night bull sessions). Instead of missionaries, they have “Commandos” for “Bob” who spread pamphlets in secret. The Church claims no fixed abode – although in lore there is a mystic headquarters called Dobbstown somewhere in Malaysia, where the preachers purportedly live like royalty among loyal yeti followers. In truth, the SubGenius Foundation operated for many years out of Rev.
Stang’s home (first in Dallas, later in Cleveland). This casual, decentralized structure allowed the “faith” to be highly participatory: members contributed their own art, writings, and ideas to the mythos, blurring the line between consumer and creator. As one academic noted, SubGenius scripture is a “collage” or “web of references” built by many hands. In a sense, the Church is an open-source religion – albeit one moderated and published by Stang and company to maintain a coherent (if insane) narrative.
Influence on Counterculture, Internet, and Pop Culture
Though never a mass-market phenomenon, the Church of the SubGenius has had an outsized influence on counterculture and satire from the 1980s onward. In its early years, SubGenius attracted a devoted following among underground artists, musicians, and writers who found its mix of humor and social critique irresistible. Notable creative figures associated with the Church include members of the avant-garde band DEVO – for instance, Mark Mothersbaugh, DEVO’s lead singer, was an open SubGenius enthusiast and even contributed art and slogans. (At a SubGenius event around 1981, Mothersbaugh famously remarked that “As he knows, ‘Bob’ is merely an enema for a constipated society.
Underground comic legend R. Crumb also lent his support: Crumb reprinted SubGenius Pamphlet #1 in an issue of his weirdo-comics anthology Weirdo in the early ’80s, giving “Bob” and his message exposure to a nationwide alternative audience. The Church’s outrageous ideas resonated with the punk and DIY zine scene of the time, aligning with the era’s spirit of skepticism and dark humor. Its imagery – the grinning “Bob” head and slogans like “Kill Bob” – began to crop up as graffiti or T-shirt art in bohemian enclaves.
Paul Reubens (better known as Pee-wee Herman) was reportedly a fan; subtle references to SubGenius lore found their way into Pee-wee’s Playhouse on TV in the late ’80s (one of the show’s designers, artist Gary Panter, was a SubGenius member and hid “Bob’s” face in the set decor). The Church also overlaps with the Discordian movement (an earlier parody religion venerating Eris, the goddess of chaos). In fact, many individuals proudly counted themselves as both Discordian and SubGenius, and the two share a lineage – both were influenced by the satirical writings of Robert Anton Wilson and both delighted in conspiratorial absurdity. By the end of the 1980s, “Bob” Dobbs had become a sort of patron saint of underground satire, his pipe-smoking grin symbolizing a knowing rejection of mainstream seriousness.
The rise of the internet in the 1990s provided an ideal medium for the Church of the SubGenius to spread its gospel of Slack – and in turn, SubGenius culture helped shape early internet humor. The Church was online extremely early for a religion: it launched an official web site in 1993, when the web was still in infancy.
Even before that, devotees gathered on text-based Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and the Usenet newsgroup alt.slack, one of the net’s more infamous discussion boards. These forums became chaotic hotbeds of SubGenius in-jokes, doctrinal debates (mostly humorous one-upmanship), and aggressive “sniping” at nonbelievers who wandered in.
The term “slack” itself entered geek vernacular partly through these discussions. SubGenii on alt.slack were practicing trolling and meme-making before those words were commonplace – sharing bizarre Photoshop collages of “Bob” or coining phrases that would later seep into internet culture. For instance, the popular Linux distribution Slackware, created in 1993, was directly inspired by SubGenius: founder Patrick Volkerding named it in honor of “Bob’s” Slack, and early versions of Slackware even featured “Bob” Dobbs’ face in the installation graphics.
This is a testament to how deeply the Church’s lingo penetrated certain tech circles. The concept of “Slack” – freedom from onerous work – appealed naturally to programmers and hackers. The SubGenius attitude of “nothing is true, everything is permitted (if it’s funny)” prefigured the ironic, anarchic spirit that characterized many online communities. It’s no stretch to say that SubGenius was an internet meme before the internet had memes: the Dobbs head was a proto-meme, replicated thousands of times in digital and print form with endless variations, its meaning morphing slightly with each usage but always carrying that kernel of subversive joy.
Beyond the net and underground circles, the Church of the SubGenius has left quirky fingerprints on broader pop culture. The band Sublime included audio samples from SubGenius sermons on their 1992 album 40oz. to Freedom(and even snuck “Bob” into the album art). Funk legend George Clinton and his band Parliament-Funkadelic referenced “Bob” on stage in their 1990s tours, blending SubGenius iconography with P-Funk’s afro-futurist mythos.
Fans of science fiction might spot a Dobbshead cameo in the background of the 1988 cult movie The Wizard of Speed and Time, or find a reference to Slack in the comic series The Middleman. The phrase “Praise Bob!” has entered the lexicon of general satire, used in contexts where someone wants to invoke a faux-religious exuberance for a dubious savior. Even the children’s cartoon Rugrats made a jokey reference (a song lyric “A baby is a gift, a gift from a ‘Bob’”) which, while referring to a different Bob, delighted SubGenius fans who took it as accidental affirmation of their gospel.
The Church’s influence also shows up in the arts of prank and hoax: it inspired later parody religions like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Pastafarianism), which emerged in 2005. The Pastafarian movement’s tactic – using absurdity to make a point about religious privilege – echoes what SubGenius had been doing for years (though SubGenius is more about humor for its own sake than political statement). In interviews, Pastafarian founder Bobby Henderson has acknowledged earlier parody faiths like SubGenius and Discordianism as paving the way. In a sense, SubGenius normalized the idea that one could invent a religion for fun and still have it taken semi-seriously, or at least receive legal recognition (Pastafarianism, for instance, won the right for followers to wear colanders in driver’s license photos as a religious headgear).
The Church’s loud presence in the 1990s also attracted academic interest and the occasional mainstream media spotlight. In 1995, the Church was profiled in Wired magazine and on talk radio shows, usually as a curious footnote about the “weird wide web.” It even found its way into a Time Magazine poll, as noted, where internet voters (many likely SubGenii or their allies) crowned “Bob” Dobbs the biggest “Phoney” of the century – beating out the likes of P.T. Barnum and Bernie Madoff. This prank showed how the Church could mobilize its network of fans for a gag that got national attention.
In 2000, Time wrote with some bafflement: “Dobbs is a very imaginary modern evangelical Protestant created online by an irreverent band that set up a website in his honor” – not fully grasping that the same “irreverent band” had just gamed their poll. Such moments highlight the Church’s method of culture jamming: they treated mass media itself as a canvas for their satire, sneaking “Bob” into wherever he could plausibly fit.
After the millennium, the Church’s direct cultural influence waned as the founders aged and internet culture evolved. But its legacy is evident in the tenor of modern satire and the proliferation of what some call “meme religions.”
Today’s ironic online cults – whether worshipping a Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or chanting “Hail Eris!” – all share a debt to the SubGenius model of religion-as-performance-art. In 2019, the documentary film J.R. ‘Bob’ Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius premiered, featuring interviews with Ivan Stang, Philo Drummond, and many long-time SubGenii. The film cemented the Church’s status as a piece of Americana, right alongside other unconventional religious movements. It also brought forth the poignant side of this long-running joke: for many, being a SubGenius was not just about mocking religion, but about finding community and meaning through that mockery.
The influence of the Church of the SubGenius, therefore, isn’t just the cheeky slogans or the Dobbshead stickers on a musician’s guitar – it’s the demonstration that sincerity and satire can coexist. In the Church, people found a way to laugh at the world’s insanity and still, oddly, derive a sense of purpose from it. As one journalist noted, “Their higher goal is to just have fun – and maybe expose a few truths along the way”. In shaping that attitude, the Church quietly imprinted itself on the DNA of countercultural movements for decades.
Parody, Religion, and the Question of Belief
The Church of the SubGenius occupies a bizarre and thought-provoking place in the landscape of modern spirituality. It began as an obvious satire – an inside joke about cults and televangelists – yet over time it amassed a following that treated it almost like a genuine religion (albeit one wrapped in perpetual irony).
This ambiguity has made the Church a subject of interest for scholars studying the boundaries of faith and fiction. Many outside observers have simply labeled SubGenius a “joke religion” and left it at that, seeing it as little more than an elaborate prank or a long-running piece of performance art. Indeed, the Church is frequently cited alongside Discordianism and Pastafarianism as a prime example of a parody religion, a faith that openly satirizes belief even as it mimics the forms of religion. SubGenius members themselves often reinforce the “it’s just a joke” stance in public – they’ll say with a smirk that their only dogma is “****, and we don’t practice what we preach because we’re not the kind of people we preach to”. Rev.
Ivan Stang has called the group “both satire and a real stupid religion,” conceding that yes, it’s absurd, but also arguing that the Church is more honest about its absurdity than, say, certain televangelists are about theirs. This kind of statement exemplifies the SubGenius ethos: it refuses to separate the spoof from the sincere message.
Interestingly, some academics have argued that the Church of the SubGenius does fulfill many functions of a “real” religion, despite its humor. Religious studies scholar Carole M. Cusack has written that the Church must be accorded the status of a functional equivalent of religion, if not an “authentic” religion. She points out that SubGenius communities perform rituals (devivals), have conversion experiences (the sudden realization that one is a born SubGenius upon reading “Bob’s” words), and even possess a moral orientation of sorts (valuing creativity, freedom, and Slack over conformity).
Cusack sees the Church as “arguably a legitimate path to liberation,” because through its joking veneer it encourages people to break free from societal constraints and think for themselves. Another scholar, Danielle Kirby, has provocatively suggested that SubGenius is “a religion masquerading as a joke, rather than a joke masquerading as a religion”. In her view, the movement is a spiritual or cultural response to an era dominated by irony and skepticism – essentially, it’s a way for people to engage with big existential questions in a manner that doesn’t demand they suspend their sense of humor or critical thinking.
By cloaking everything in satire, SubGenius gives permission to believe and disbelieve at the same time. This paradox is actually very appealing in a postmodern context. As evidence of the “sincerity” underlying the parody, one can point to how long the Church has sustained itself and how genuinely connected many members feel. A purely insincere joke typically doesn’t keep people donating money or gathering in the woods year after year for X-Day. Clearly, something more is at play – a sense of belonging, a shared mythos, even a quirky sort of faith in “Bob” and Slack. Long-time member Dr. Philo Drummond once half-jokingly said, “Sure, we’re a joke – but we’re the most important joke in the world,” hinting that the Church, joke or not, carries meaning for those in on it.
Legal and social systems, however, have sometimes struggled to know how to treat the Church of the SubGenius. Is it a legitimate religious organization, deserving of the same protections and recognition as, say, the Hare Krishnas or the Church of Scientology (another group it loves to mock)? Or is it just a satire, undeserving of serious consideration? A famous incident highlighting this dilemma was the Reverend Magdalen custody case in the mid-2000s.
Rachel Bevilacqua, known in the Church as Rev. Magdalen, had participated in an X-Day festival where some SubGenius members staged an obscene parody of Catholic rituals for laughs. Photos of her at that event (which included crude sexual and blasphemous humor in line with SubGenius tradition) were later used against her in family court, where a judge ruled that her involvement in such “blasphemous” activities made her an unfit parent.
In 2006 she temporarily lost custody of her young son, essentially because of her SubGenius religion. The case alarmed civil liberties advocates; it appeared to be a blatant violation of freedom of religion and expression. Eventually, after much public outcry (and support from organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, since internet speech was involved), the custody decision was reversed and Bevilacqua regained her son. However, the judge bizarrely ordered that she must keep all SubGenius materials out of her home if the child was present **reddit.com.
This amounted to legally labeling SubGenius content as harmful. The whole saga raised profound questions: can a parody religion claim First Amendment protections? The answer leaned toward yes – the court couldn’t ultimately take away her child for her tongue-in-cheek beliefs – but the uncomfortable caveat was that SubGenius was still treated as something obscene or dangerous, not quite on par with “real” religions. For SubGenii, this was both infuriating and validating. On one hand, it confirmed that society didn’t quite understand them; on the other, it proved their point about the Conspiracy of Normals persecuting the bringers of Slack. The incident has since been cited in law reviews and discussions about religious freedom, showing that even a joke religion can have serious real-world consequences and thus perhaps must be taken seriously by the law.
Philosophically, the Church of the SubGenius invites people to ponder what “belief” means. Do the Church’s members believe in “Bob” and the Xists and the Stark Fist of Removal (another one of their fabled divine punishments)? The best answer might be: they believe in them the way one can believe in a story – as a vehicle of truth, not literal fact. There is a truth in “Bob”’s gospel, SubGenii would argue, but it’s told through exaggeration and farce.
As Rev. Stang often explained, the Church uses the language of paranoia and craziness because that’s the language of the world we live in. In a society that sometimes seems insane, being “crazy” (in the SubGenius way) is a method of coping. Sociologist Thomas Alberts wrote that SubGenius is attempting to “subvert the idea of authenticity in religion” by mirroring so many other faiths and frauds at once.
By doing everything a cult does – inventing myths, soliciting money, promising miracles – but admitting it’s a sham, they call into question what distinguishes a “real” religion from a fake. Alberts suggested using the term “fake religion” not as a dismissal but as a category: SubGenius and Discordianism and others are self-consciously fakereligions that nonetheless have genuine communities and practices. They force us to recognize, with a bit of discomfort, that all religions have elements of story, metaphor, and even the absurd. The SubGenius just cranks absurdity up to where you can’t ignore it.
In the end, the Church of the SubGenius endures as a grand practical joke with a sincere point: that freedom of thought and the human need for meaning can take on very unorthodox forms. It challenges its “dupes” (members) to constantly ask: “Am I laughing at this, or is this actually giving me insight? Or both?” For many, the answer has been both. The movement demonstrates what writer Michael Muhammad Knight observed – that SubGenius is “at once a postmodern spoof of religion and a viable system in its own right”.
The viability comes from the community and catharsis it provides. By parodying cults and televangelism, the Church gave people a release valve for their frustrations with society, a way to mock the powers that be and stay sane. It became, ironically, a source of identity – thousands proudly call themselves “SubGenius” in defiance of a world that labels them misfits. And though “Bob” Dobbs may be a fictional savior, the laughter and camaraderie he inspired are very real. In a sense, the Church of the SubGenius asks: if believing in sensible things has made the world crazy, why not believe in a little calculated nonsense instead? As “Bob” himself once put it, “Pull the wool over your own eyes and relax in the safety of your own delusions!” **subgenius.com – a paradoxical joke that carries a Zen-like hint of wisdom. By choosing their own delusion (one with a smile and a pipe), SubGenius followers exercise a unique kind of freedom of belief: the freedom to believe satirically. It’s a mindset where one can join the cosmic joke and, in so doing, perhaps transcend it. And at the end of the day, if nothing else, they will have at least had a good laugh – which, in the Church of the SubGenius, is itself a form of salvation.
The Gospel of “Bob”: Notable Quotes and Sayings
No portrait of the Church of the SubGenius would be complete without the “scripture” according to J.R. “Bob” Dobbs – a cornucopia of one-liners, slogans, and seemingly paradoxical proverbs. Over the decades, the SubGenius faithful have amassed a rich oral (and textual) tradition of “Bobisms”: quotes attributed to “Bob” that encapsulate the SubGenius ethos. Some of these appeared in official publications like The Book of the SubGenius (1983) and Revelation X: The “Bob” Apocryphon (1994), while others surfaced in pamphlets, sermons, or even on the SubGenius website. Many have become sacred mantras for the community – repeated in reverence or whenever a dose of “Bob’s” unique wisdom is needed. What follows is a curated selection of famous (and infamous) quotes attributed to “Bob” Dobbs, presented with context where known. Together, they form a kind of “Dobbsian” gospel that is by turns insightful, profane, and hilariously absurd.
On the SubGenius attitude to life and society: “Bob” often delivers rallying cries for the strange and rebellious. His most iconic dictum might be “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”
This crude exhortation is the Church’s unofficial prime directive – a reminder that nothing should be so sacred that it’s beyond humor. It’s said that this phrase was the very first commandment “Bob” gave to his followers, setting the tone for everything that followed. In the same breath, Dobbs extols excess over moderation: “‘Too much’ is always better than not enough.”
This celebration of immoderation (from The Book of the SubGenius) jabs at puritanical norms and encourages the pursuit of pleasure and Slack without guilt. Another classic maxim, delivered with Bob’s characteristic grinning confidence, states: “You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half of ’em are even dumber than that.”.
This wry observation turns a statistical truism into a sardonic punchline – it’s “Bob’s” way of justifying why SubGenii feel out of place: in a world full of idiots, the slightly-less-idiotic will always feel alienated. Toward those hapless normals, Bob’s advice is to put on an act: “Act like a dumbshit and they’ll treat you like an equal.”. This quote, one of the Church’s favorites, has a double-edge: it mocks the idea of playing dumb to fit in, but also suggests a sly strategy for infiltrating the Conspiracy by blending with the herd. And if blending in fails, Bob has a more direct tactic: “Pull the wool over your own eyes!”, followed closely by “Relax in the safety of your own delusions.”.
Typically these two lines are quoted as one full proverb: “Pull the wool over your own eyes and relax in the safety of your own delusions.” **subgenius.com. It’s a cheeky endorsement of self-deception – essentially advising that if the world’s going to be crazy, you might as well choose a delusion that benefits you. It also satirizes the concept of faith (believing in comforting fictions), turning it into an overt prescription for happiness. In SubGenius philosophy, if you’re aware that you’ve chosen your own delusion, you’re actually freer than those living unconsciously in someone else’s.
On work, money, and Slack: “Bob’s” teachings constantly return to the theme of Slack versus the grind. He preaches a gospel of productive laziness and glibly mocks the Protestant work ethic. One well-known Bob command is “Quit your job!”, often paired in Church liturgy with “Slack off!” and “Repent!” (meaning repent from being normal) **subgenius.fandom.com. But Bob, ever the salesman, also acknowledges the role of money in this cosmic joke. His cynical marketing genius shines through in quotes like: “Make them pay as much as they think they can afford.”.
According to SubGenius lore, this was Bob’s mantra when he first started charging people for Church membership back in the ’50s. It’s a knowing commentary on value and perception – a riff on the idea that people only value what they struggle to attain. Along the same lines, when a young charter member complained about having to pay, Bob chided her, “You won’t appreciate it if you don’t pay for it.”. This line, attributed to Bob in conversation with a girl nicknamed “Kitten” Anderson in the early days, reflects his tongue-in-cheek stance as the ultimate capitalist prophet. The Church may promise priceless Slack, but Bob insists that you put some skin (or cash) in the game first. Perhaps his most famous sales pitch of all is emblazoned on SubGenius flyers everywhere: “Eternal Salvation — Or TRIPLE your money back!”.
This audacious guarantee takes a jokey swipe at both religious salvation (which normally comes with no guarantees at all) and commercial refund policies. It’s impossible to hear it and not crack a smile – and that smile is the point; if you’re laughing, you’re beginning to get the spirit of Slack.
On belief, doubt, and the nature of “truth”: Many Bobisms directly address belief systems – usually to knock them down a peg. One frequently cited line from Dobbs is: “Just because some jackass is an atheist doesn’t mean that his prophets and gods are any less false.”. Here, Bob skewers everyone – religious and atheist alike – by suggesting that even atheists can have false gods (ideologies, heroes, etc.). It’s a classic SubGenius stance: a plague on all your houses of dogma. In a similar vein, he quips, “Everyone here is stupid.”– a blunt equalizer that spares no one (often the quote is completed with the implicit “…and I can prove it scientifically,” which is an unspoken punchline). Contradiction is another of Bob’s tools. He proudly declares, “I always lie . . . and I’m always right.”.
This paradoxical statement (straight out of The SubGenius Psychlopaedia of Slack) is both a parody of doctrinal infallibility and a Zen-like koan meant to short-circuit logical thought. If Bob is telling the truth about always lying, then he’s lying… and round and round it goes, forcing you into a mindset where traditional logic doesn’t apply – perhaps the ideal mindset for grasping SubGenius “truth.” In Revelation X, Bob tackles theology head-on, proclaiming provocatively: “There IS no God — but if you’re any kind of real American, you’ll demand that He treat you as an equal.”. This line encapsulates SubGenius parody in a nutshell: it denies the existence of God (atheism), yet immediately satirizes a certain American attitude towards God (that even if God did exist, we’d insist on our rights!). It’s a joke about entitlement and disbelief rolled together, likely delivered by “Bob” to shock a pious listener (the book context says he said this to a child at a dedication ceremony, heightening the humor through inappropriateness). Another of Bob’s religious send-ups is his twist on Jesus’s famous plea from the cross. Instead of “forgive them for they know not what they do,” Bob asserts, “Don’t forgive them, for they know exactly what they do.”
This cynically flips compassion into a kind of revenge ethos, fitting the Church’s dark humor. It implies that the Conspiracy (or the idiots of the world) aren’t innocently ignorant – they’re willfully perpetrating nonsense, and thus deserve no mercy.
On personal conduct and philosophy: Many Bob quotes serve as sardonic advice for living – usually encouraging indulgence or contrarian behavior. One classic: “Don’t just eat a hamburger, eat the HELL out of it!”. In other words, whatever you do, do it with gusto and exaggeration. This aligns with the SubGenius view that too much is better than moderation. Another bit of life coaching from Bob: “If you have no pipe, I will give you one; if you do not [smoke], I will take it away from you.”. This is Bob’s parody of a biblical teaching (a play on Matthew 13:12, “to he who has, more will be given; to he who has not, even what he has will be taken”). By substituting a smoking pipe (the symbol of Slack, full of the mystical herb “frop”) into the equation, Bob makes a joke about spiritual entitlement – only those already slacking deserve more slack.
A similarly cheeky beatitude from Bob’s repertoire: “I’d rather be lucky than good any day.”. This celebrates Bob’s own legendary luck and by extension the SubGenius principle that dumb luck (or divine Slack) trumps effort and moral goodness. Why strive to be “good” if sheer luck can carry the day? It’s the ultimate Slackful worldview. And when it comes to the pursuit of knowledge or enlightenment, Bob again takes a nonchalant (if crude) approach.
Consider this gem from a rare Bob interview: Interviewer: “Are you interested in discovering what’s behind the Veil of Illusion, Bob?” “Bob”: “HELL no! I’m interested in what’s behind the veil of ordinary reality.”. He’d rather find out what’s really going on in our mundane world – because that’s where the real scams and mysteries lie – than chase after mystical secrets. In true SubGenius fashion, it’s a call to pay attention to the everyday cons and absurdities instead of lofty otherworldly concerns.
Of course, not all of “Bob’s” wisdom is lofty – much of it revels in the lowbrow and absurd, reinforcing that nothing is too silly or base if it provokes laughter. For instance, Bob sagely advises: “Any time you can tape record a fart, you should.” **subgenius.com. This piece of advice (from a 1991 memo attributed to Bob) exemplifies the SubGenius love of sophomoric humor. It even comes with a helpful addendum (courtesy of Bob): “But don’t leave it by phone on a friend’s answering machine, because you won’t want your face near your mouthpiece again for the rest of the day.”. Such gross-out comedy might seem trivial, but within the SubGenius mythos it serves an important purpose: it demolishes pretension. It’s a reminder that even a guru with cosmic knowledge is not above potty humor – if anything, especially not above it. The Church often says that fart jokes are a sacrament in their religion of satire, and Bob leads by example.
Likewise, Bob’s pronouncements can be blunt to the point of shock. He once posed the dark rhetorical question: “What do you throw a Pink who’s drowning in quicksand?” After a beat, he gives the punchline: “His wife and child.”. It’s an extremely harsh joke – implying that the “Pink” (ordinary conformist) is so useless that you’d doom his whole family with him. SubGenii laugh at this precisely because it’s outrageous and “wrong.” It bonds them through shared transgression of polite norms, much as black humor does in other contexts.
Finally, some “Bob” quotes verge on the profound (albeit in a twisted way). Take his assertion: “The stupider it looks, the more important it probably is.”. This is a remarkable little aphorism. It sounds like nonsense, yet in the context of SubGenius it rings true: if something appears utterly stupid or absurd, pay attention – there’s likely a hidden significance or at least an important lesson in how absurd our reality has become. It’s a guide to decoding the modern world’s mixed signals (and perhaps a meta-commentary on the Church of the SubGenius itself, which has always looked “stupid” to outsiders but conceals layers of meaning).
In a similar spirit, Bob proudly proclaims in one of the Church’s pamphlets: “I am the global village idiot!”. This is “Bob” positioning himself as the sacred fool – the one who may appear idiotic but speaks the truth that others won’t. It’s a hat-tip to Marshall McLuhan’s idea of the “global village” with Bob casting himself not as its wise man but as its jester, the only role from which truth can be safely spoken.
All these quotes – whether genuinely uttered by Doug Smith in character as “Bob,” or invented by other contributors and placed into Bob’s mouth – form a kind of scripture that SubGenii quote and live by (at least when it amuses them to do so). They are as likely to raise a cry of “Praise ‘Bob’!” as to yell “Kill ‘Bob’!” in joking paradox; as likely to toast “Bob” with a beer while quoting his line “Too much is always better than not enough” as they are to curse his name for messing up the X-Day prophecy. That is the unique dynamic of this faith: its prophet is both exalted and the butt of the joke, often within the same sentence.
In the Church of the SubGenius, every member is encouraged to develop their own “Bob” inside their head – a personal trickster guru who might guide them one moment and prank them the next. The quotes provide a common language for this shared imaginary friend. Whether it’s a slogan like “Slack! Slack!! Slack!!!”, a snarky quip like “They may be Pink, but their money’s still green!” **subgenius.fandom.com, or the defiant creed “I don’t practice what I preach because I’m not the kind of person I’m preaching to!”, each saying keeps the spirit of SubGenius alive and kicking. They remind the listener to question reality, mock the powerful (and the powerless), and most of all to maintain a sense of humor.
As “Bob” once admitted with uncharacteristic humility (in a rare diary entry at age 15): “I choose to believe in an afterlife only because it is too horrible to believe that such a cool stud as myself could be allowed to disappear from the universe.”. That tongue-in-cheek self-flattery contains a kernel of the human condition – we all struggle with our mortality and significance. “Bob” just states it in the brash, irreverent way that only “Bob” can.
In the end, the quotes of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs serve as both the scripture and the punchlines of the Church of the SubGenius. They are mantras to live by and laugh by. Read one way, they’re nonsense; read another, they’re a profound critique of modern life. This duality is exactly what “Bob” intended. As the SubGenius creed concludes in one of its print gospels: “Pull the wool over your own eyes, and relax… You may now stop reading forever.”. For those who “get it,” these bizarre commandments and witticisms are oddly liberating. They affirm that even in a world that often makes no sense, you can at least take control of your own nonsense. And that, in a pipe-smoking, money-back-guaranteed nutshell, is the gospel of “Bob.”
Praise “Bob”!
