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June 4, 2004 5:29 AM Subscribe
Welcome to the internet. (via coolios)
cbrody, you can't say that! His MeFi number is marginally lower than yours! Didn't you read Rule #14?
posted by DrJohnEvans at 6:23 AM on June 4, 2004
posted by DrJohnEvans at 6:23 AM on June 4, 2004
Very 1996--I think the Internet has pretty clearly proven itself not to be a "meritocracy based on knowledge" (unfortunately).
This kind of makes nostalgic, though [sniff] for the days when angry nerds actually thought all this was going to put the jocks in their places. Good times. Good times.
posted by LairBob at 6:27 AM on June 4, 2004
This kind of makes nostalgic, though [sniff] for the days when angry nerds actually thought all this was going to put the jocks in their places. Good times. Good times.
posted by LairBob at 6:27 AM on June 4, 2004
Man, somebody needs to photoshop that picture into one of him getting anally raped by Bill Clinton while he's performing oral sex on a cow.
posted by UKnowForKids at 8:19 AM on June 4, 2004
posted by UKnowForKids at 8:19 AM on June 4, 2004
19) If you can't take a joke, immediately sell your computer to someone who can. RIGHT NOW.
Alas, thanks for a midmorning chuckle. And now I need to go back to finding the 137 mefi members I can get away with insulting.
posted by codger at 8:40 AM on June 4, 2004
Alas, thanks for a midmorning chuckle. And now I need to go back to finding the 137 mefi members I can get away with insulting.
posted by codger at 8:40 AM on June 4, 2004
Indeed, lairbob - I kept thinking "this sounds so 1996".
Ahh, the good old days, when we only thought the net sucked.
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:07 AM on June 4, 2004
Ahh, the good old days, when we only thought the net sucked.
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:07 AM on June 4, 2004
This is along the same lines as the classic End of the Internet.
(A google for it brings up numerous results, so I doubt this is the original.)
posted by o2b at 10:09 AM on June 4, 2004
(A google for it brings up numerous results, so I doubt this is the original.)
posted by o2b at 10:09 AM on June 4, 2004
You got me by four, codger. You bastard sweet, wonderful person.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:37 AM on June 4, 2004
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:37 AM on June 4, 2004
Aw... so sweet. This is even pre-1996; I swear I remember reading it sometime around 1994. *wipes a nostalgic tear*
Remember when aol users starting flooding in? And how it represented the end of everything because idiots were going to take over the net? Huh? *looks around* Uh... right, okay. Yes, fie, we can admit now that the internet has always been full of idiots. Carry on.
posted by jokeefe at 5:53 PM on June 4, 2004
Remember when aol users starting flooding in? And how it represented the end of everything because idiots were going to take over the net? Huh? *looks around* Uh... right, okay. Yes, fie, we can admit now that the internet has always been full of idiots. Carry on.
posted by jokeefe at 5:53 PM on June 4, 2004
17) You aren't going to win any argument that you start.
Yes I am.
posted by weston at 6:09 PM on June 4, 2004
Yes I am.
posted by weston at 6:09 PM on June 4, 2004
weston, no, you're not.
Welcome to the Internet Arguement Clinic.
Time for a self-link from the Wendell Archive:
Beyond the End of the Internet
Someday, I must redo this concept with some more sophisticated coding.
posted by wendell at 6:25 PM on June 4, 2004
Welcome to the Internet Arguement Clinic.
Time for a self-link from the Wendell Archive:
Beyond the End of the Internet
Someday, I must redo this concept with some more sophisticated coding.
posted by wendell at 6:25 PM on June 4, 2004
Yep. And you know something? It's a bunch of bullshit - this little techno-elite article sums up everything that I'm getting to hate about the internet. The posing. The shallowness. The constant need to front like a bad ass and hide any real feelings.
"We place no value on them ... or what car you drive, the size of your bank account, what you do for a living or where you went to school."
The hell you don't. Do a google search for "factory rat" and see what you come up with.
Point proven.
The internet is an enclave for middle class geeks who want to perch above the rest of the world like Roman cynics above the ruins and comment snidely as the proles get ground down.
No, not everyone of course - but enough to make it just like the damned world people are getting away from when they WEBSURF in CYBERSPACE.
Yeah, there's a lot of annoying clueless people on the internet - and a lot of those actually manage to act clueful in a technical sense and totally blow it in a human sense. There's a lot of insecure, wretched people on the net - and they sound a lot like this article.
posted by pyramid termite at 8:29 PM on June 4, 2004
"We place no value on them ... or what car you drive, the size of your bank account, what you do for a living or where you went to school."
The hell you don't. Do a google search for "factory rat" and see what you come up with.
Point proven.
The internet is an enclave for middle class geeks who want to perch above the rest of the world like Roman cynics above the ruins and comment snidely as the proles get ground down.
No, not everyone of course - but enough to make it just like the damned world people are getting away from when they WEBSURF in CYBERSPACE.
Yeah, there's a lot of annoying clueless people on the internet - and a lot of those actually manage to act clueful in a technical sense and totally blow it in a human sense. There's a lot of insecure, wretched people on the net - and they sound a lot like this article.
posted by pyramid termite at 8:29 PM on June 4, 2004
This 1996-era Internet attitude, where it still exists, applies more to the Internet (usenet, MUDs, etc.), than to, say, Web message boards, or to blogs. I kinda like what the Internet has become, but with it has come fewer communities, the real kind, with their own shared attitude and everything. I think the Internet elitism wasn't due just to hostility, but to ensure that you get to know one group, and understand its subtleties, like you do in real life. Like I'm nominally head administrator of a MOO. It's from a chain of communities starting around 1995 (they started off as games set in the Myst backstory but gradually dropped the theme and became more like chatrooms), originally perhaps almost 100 and now down to 10 or 15 active users, liberally. I started off when I was 11 or 12. I was treated exceedingly hostilely - doctored pictures, everything. All of the people who were genuinely that hostile ended up leaving, and the rest who remain, the more passive originally, are now some of my closest friends (met one from New York, one from Kansas stayed at my house for a month and a half during summer break). It's because we developed a kind of ethic and way of thinking, at least minorly, despite originally having met for more topical reasons. The problem is, if communities are so open then there's got to be some kind of social acknowledgement of the difference between some guy who comes and, say, asks a question on AskMe and barely posts again, and the real regulars of Mefi who all recognize each other and have developed a style of posting and even some local phrases and such.
In other words, to help it to not seem impersonal, which of course is one of the biggest potential problem with online communities, there's got to be some way that "social" groups can assert themselves so everyone isn't talking to just a blur of semi-anonymous names. Everything2 has usergroups, as does probably Kuro5hin etc., which helps. In other words, there's got to be a distinction between the "scene" and those that just participate. No insulation, just some kind of distinction.
posted by abcde at 10:18 PM on June 4, 2004
In other words, to help it to not seem impersonal, which of course is one of the biggest potential problem with online communities, there's got to be some way that "social" groups can assert themselves so everyone isn't talking to just a blur of semi-anonymous names. Everything2 has usergroups, as does probably Kuro5hin etc., which helps. In other words, there's got to be a distinction between the "scene" and those that just participate. No insulation, just some kind of distinction.
posted by abcde at 10:18 PM on June 4, 2004
weston, no, you're not.
Yes I am.
Welcome to the Internet Arguement Clinic.
Actually, I'm considering shifting all my internet arguments to this style. It's considerably simpler than elucidating a case.
posted by weston at 11:20 PM on June 4, 2004
Yes I am.
Welcome to the Internet Arguement Clinic.
Actually, I'm considering shifting all my internet arguments to this style. It's considerably simpler than elucidating a case.
posted by weston at 11:20 PM on June 4, 2004
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Am I stupid or is it crap?
posted by kenaman at 5:51 AM on June 4, 2004