Reuzel

I am not going to correct this statement, just please ask you not to use the word "intellectual-yet-idiot" to describe other people ever again. IYI is a great and new concept, and can be enlightening when correctly applied. Let us (pseudo)intellectuals cherish that value.

EDIT: https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/09/intellectual-yet-idiot/ to add something interesting for others.

I like how "memes" got laundered through these sites. Taking memes from adversarial communities and making them your own. Or blaming your own memes and campaigns on other communities.

There was, and still is, an admiration of the "hidden hand". Manipulating a newspaper poll, without their readers finding out about it, or blame hitting eBaumsWorld.

Memes started/start in small ICQ channels. Were collectively dumped online to seed them. Other communities would adapt, share, replicate, up until the point the real origins were obfuscated the meme was from "the internet".

Small hacker groups on ICQ had applicants write troll-scripts for acceptance. One of these was DuckRoll. DuckRoll consisted of switching out Wikipedia titles and article contents and sometimes adding a picture of a duck on wheels. Bonus points for having someone else run the script (thinking it was a PHP guest-book script, MySpace theme, or innocent link to an answer to their vampire help questions [1]).

Duckroll morphed into RickRoll. RickRoll was seen as more acceptable, since it contained the damage to a single individual. The principle was the same as with linking shock images, such as Goatse: either you knew about the image, and someone "gotcha", or the internet really confused and upset you that day. You probably were taking it too seriously, and the prank did you a favor. The best pranks had a lesson.

99.9% of those Rickrolled won't trace it back and think it started on Reddit or Digg, or simply "the internet".

[1] https://communitymgt.fandom.com/wiki/Help_Vampire

Lowtax was one of the last "nerd heroes".

Before the internet, there was little hierarchy between nerds. Your peers either classified you as a nerd, or not, and nerds welcomed another. They were getting beat up in the school grounds, forced to share it with the jocks, and constantly be reminded of their social standing. The internet changed this. Early internet bullies were keyboard jockies.

The internet gave us nerd heroes like Maddox and Lowtax. These people got credit inside the outcast nerd community. Larger-than-life internet personalities. Critiquing and trolling and scoring points about a subject no other nerds would even find interesting.

You grew in ranks by contributing quality content, such as game guides and humor columns (compare early Cracked). You grew by being an insufferable asshole, by trolling, by hoaxing. Disputes were settled through duel flame-wars. As you were mostly pseudononymous back then and your authority was attached to a username, losing a flame-war could really hurt your standing, or require you to start over.

This also meant that disputes could be lost by the current authorities, if they were successfully trolled or flamed. Lowtax did "lose" many such disputes. He was not allowed to call victory if the community and lurkers saw it differently. You were judged on a weird form of merit only beat-up asshole nerds understood.

I remember Lowtax interviewing a 00's pornstar which every nerd back then knew. The Lowtax-thing to do was definitely to comment about her strange foot (merged toes into a hoof), up until the interview being cut short. I think nobody wanted anything else out of that interview.

Around 2008 the climate shifted. Joe Rogan had opened his own message board, which did not require 10$ to join, but his/his mods approval. A new hero was born: "the jock hero". The jock hero was critical of science, just like he had been critical of his high-school physics teacher: he did not understand very well and this bothered him (being in a digital age relying less on physical authority).

Disputes were about who had the most muscles, showing photos to proof it. You got into a flame-war with a mod or Joe, you would be banned, the people left too afraid to call anyone out for having a thin skin. A weird sort of authority grew, were jocks could show they were king of multiple playgrounds.

Now the internet itself is a closely watched playground. People walk around with permanent real-name identities. Teachers and governments look for ass-holish behavior. Media complains about large-follower playground kids who refuse to get a diploma and join the "real" world. And the nerds are back at their place. A place too low on the totem pole to elect heroes.

It's actually all very sad. Lowtax wrote funny columns about Uwe Boll's movies, and Uwe charged him to a boxing match. Lowtax got his manhood taken from him and never was the same. The domestic violence can be seen as him moving down in weight class. After a few he actually got pretty good at it for his weight advantage. And then this happens.

Dropsy the Clowns was a very unique Forum game in the pixelated style of Day of the Tentacle / Full Throttle. Collectively choose your own adventure, by incorporating posts and prompts from everyone. https://jaytholen.net/dropsy2.html

And, the collective scam baiting, with the p-p-p-powerbook. http://pdf.textfiles.com/books/thepowerbook.pdf

I still shiver at the words "keyboard goop".

:(

Corn_Boy - AM what are you saying robot, plese stop it I do not like you. turn yourself off robot!

Corn_Boy - are you there MR lowtax??

Corn_Boy - mr lowtax are you alright??

Corn_Boy - are you there lowtax?????

https://www.somethingawful.com/icq-pranks/icq-transcript-spa...

There is a front page?

> I just woke up after hearing a crash. There's a big-ass hole in the World Trade Center, and smoke's pouring out of it. My suitemates are freaking out! That kind of sucks . . .

9/11 as it happened http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/wtc01.html

Took about 4 posts for the first joke, something about a band called "I am the World Trade Center" playing their next show while on fire. 10 minutes for the first conspiracy theory: X-files using predictive programming. 22 minutes to pin it on Bin Laden. God I love the internet.

May he forever have stairs in his house.