I met the rhizome about two and a half years ago and since then it won't go away. Honestly once you know about it, you'll see it everywhere, kind of like the game, which you just lost. We were introduced by Deleuze and Guattari in 1987 at 'A Thousand Plateaus'* but I'm gonna make the call and say a lot of people conceived of the world through rhizomic glasses before that.
People that know about plants probably know the rhizome as a botanical term referring to 'a continuously growing horizontal underground stem which puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals' #google.
Well rhizome the theory is pretty much the same.
Just like ginger, it is resilient and has the capacity to regenerate.
Just like potatoes, it involves multiple connections and a lack of hierarchy.
Just like pingao, it spreads through underground systems and has multiple entryways.
Just like bamboo, it reproduces through imitation and deterritorialisation.
And just like ferns it's made up of multiplicities with no unifying centre.