Metafilter: Amusing lists outside of google's power

September 27, 2007 1:16 PM

I was thinking it would be good to see a complete list of all those "Metafilter: eating babies and porking hamsters" things that crop up from time to time constantly, but my google-fu i dont know how to so i hereby throw myself on the mercy of the court
posted by criticalbill to MetaFilter-Related at 1:16 PM (72 comments total)

There's a list somewhere... at least there was at one time....
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:19 PM on September 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wiki: Taglines
posted by Aloysius Bear at 1:23 PM on September 27, 2007

cortex assembled every mention ever by working the database over a few months ago.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:25 PM on September 27, 2007

There have been a couple of compilations of these in the past; the wiki currently links to an abandoned site (http://tickingaway.org/mefitag/), but I think there was another fairly recently compilation.

I've been meaning to put together a canonical list; if someone can't turn up an existing list, maybe I'll bump that up the stack some.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:25 PM on September 27, 2007

(It was pb who did the working over at the time, and shit, I like to forgot about that: I'll see if I can get a dump from that posted pronto.)
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:27 PM on September 27, 2007

Also, the topic came up most recently, I think, in this Bad Idea thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:29 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: I'll see if I can get a dump
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:45 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: shit, I like to forgot about that

I've already made all your hand work obsolete.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:49 PM on September 27, 2007

I don't care if you say hard work. I say hand work.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:50 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: You say hard work. I say hand work.
posted by breezeway at 1:57 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Jesus Christ, NO, I already tried to kill you !
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:58 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: it's a query, man. I can just run it again.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:02 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: I'll see if I can take a dump.
posted by ericb at 2:05 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Wow, taglines sure are lame and unentertaining when taken out of the context of the original conversations, aren't they?
posted by koeselitz at 2:06 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: You said "bump that up the stack."

heh hehh hunh heh
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:13 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: I've already made all your hand work obsolete.

I'll show you hand work; like Larry Craig in a bathroom stall!
posted by Pollomacho at 2:17 PM on September 27, 2007

Since when do we have that color-changey spiffy box notifying us of updates to user pages, btw?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:17 PM on September 27, 2007

cortex assembled every mention ever

None of MINE are on there. But you'd think if they were even remotely funny, at least I'd remember them. And I don't.
posted by hermitosis at 2:17 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: I was thinking it would be good
posted by fire&wings at 2:19 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Wow, taglines sure are lame and unentertaining when taken out of the context of the original conversations, aren't they?

Fixed that for you
posted by davey_darling at 2:27 PM on September 27, 2007

Go poop in a hat and head out on the next train, Davey. This party doesn't need you.
posted by boo_radley at 2:36 PM on September 27, 2007

This dude favorited like 300 of them. Most of them are pretty meh.
posted by mattbucher at 2:39 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Make sure your parser for (Metafilter: random jokey tag without an included reference such as (Metafilter: other random joke)) doesn't get caught in a recursive loop.
posted by vacapinta at 2:40 PM on September 27, 2007

Producing a good clean list turns out to be non-trivial, but I'm getting close. In the mean time, I've discovered a little mini-meme that adds noise to the system:

Next on Metafilter: [cable news style headline]

There's a few of those from early on, before proper taglines started showing up in comments on the blue. It's interesting (but not surprising, I suppose) to see that taglines weren't a meme from day one; it took a while for them to start rolling in.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:42 PM on September 27, 2007

I was thinking if matt does any more of those t-shirts, he should do a selection each with a different randomlychosen (or maybe randomlygenerated) strapline, sort of like an advertising campaign of moronic selflove. (which i'm in favour of). Think of all the completists who'd have to buy all the different ones. Whatever shade of blue they were.
posted by criticalbill at 2:46 PM on September 27, 2007

HOW QUICKLY YE FORGET.
and yes, you're welcome. I also did this. Do I get a meta-meta-meta prize?
posted by Mach5 at 2:51 PM on September 27, 2007

I can't decide:

Metafilter: This party doesn't need you.
or
Metafilter: Go poop in a hat and head out on the next train.

I take it back - this is super fun!
posted by davey_darling at 2:58 PM on September 27, 2007

cortex: "There have been a couple of compilations of these in the past; the wiki currently links to an abandoned site (http://tickingaway.org/mefitag/), but I think there was another fairly recently compilation."
The tickingaway.org one was mine, but I had no way to maintain it apart from manually collecting them and then I gave up on the domain due to incessant problems with comment spam.
posted by dg at 3:02 PM on September 27, 2007

I'm wondering, by the way, if we should blame rodii for all of this.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:16 PM on September 27, 2007

I only take my hamsters pork-free, thank you very much.
posted by psmealey at 3:20 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Do I get a meta-meta-meta prize?
posted by Rumple at 3:22 PM on September 27, 2007

Okay! I think we're in business. Two files:

Taglines from the blue
Taglines from the grey

Notes:
- The lists are in chronological order; the first few entries on each are mostly mismatches, from before the tagline convention appeared.
- The "Metafilter:" link will take you to the comment in question.
- This only catches "metafilter:" style taglines, so nicknames like mefi and alternate or fictional subsites ("metatalk:", "catfilter:") aren't accounted for. However, it matches any case and preserves it.
- Some taglines are false positives where someone threw the string "metafilter:" into a non-tagline comment.
- Some taglines go on beyond the original intended tagline portion of a comment. Folks, if you write a tagline and then don't bother to put something civil at the end of it like a linebreak or whatever, PEOPLE DIE. Or auto-grabbed taglines get munged, anyway.

Have fun! Questions/suggestions welcome; I may make the lists themselves slightly prettier at some point, but this should be good for random stupid tagline surfing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:28 PM on September 27, 2007 [6 favorites]

Cortex, that's a thing of art. Fantastic. I do think IRFH needs to back off the coffee a little bit, though.
posted by psmealey at 3:33 PM on September 27, 2007

cortex, which thread/comment has been flagged an epic 576 times?
posted by Aloysius Bear at 3:42 PM on September 27, 2007

MetaFilter: Random stupid tagline surfing.
posted by loquacious at 3:48 PM on September 27, 2007

Aloysius, see previous thread for discussion of that flagging distro.

At some point, I'll make a proper home for this stuff.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:51 PM on September 27, 2007

cortex, which thread/comment has been flagged an epic 576 times?

This maybe?
posted by puke & cry at 3:52 PM on September 27, 2007

hm, nevermind.
posted by puke & cry at 3:53 PM on September 27, 2007

Heh, there's some interesting reading for people like me if you navigate up through the directory structure from cortex's link.

Yes, I am a sad, sad excuse for a human being.
posted by dg at 3:56 PM on September 27, 2007

I'm so glad this was posted today, because this is going to be my one and only and I had no venue for it until just now:

Metafilter: The narrative urge is far stronger than any sense of decorum or shame.
posted by jjwiseman at 3:57 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Metafilter:
posted by ardgedee at 4:15 PM on September 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I do think IRFH needs to back off the coffee a little bit, though.

Heh. That ain't coffee!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:30 PM on September 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: Fixed that for you
posted by kyleg at 5:05 PM on September 27, 2007

Heh. That ain't coffee!

Oh. Oh, dear.
posted by LionIndex at 5:10 PM on September 27, 2007

As far as I can tell, pnevares has the first one with the all too apt MetaFilter: Where you go for one-liners. :)
posted by Kattullus at 5:11 PM on September 27, 2007

Next on MetaFilter: Taglines!

yep, we should definitely revive that... especially with "Pretend You're a Time Traveler Day" coming up...
posted by wendell at 5:53 PM on September 27, 2007

We've switched IRFH's regular not-coffee with ...
(a) LSD
(b) Wesson Oil
(c) Taglines
(d) A link and 25 snarky comments.
(e) coffee
(f) All of the above
posted by wendell at 6:03 PM on September 27, 2007

metafilter: speeming my brundlemert so you don't have to
posted by quonsar at 8:19 PM on September 27, 2007

Surprisingly good reading. This one brought back memories:
Metafilter: I was slightly happier before I saw the PENIS being shoved into the CHICKEN.
posted by donpedro at 8:44 PM on September 27, 2007

God I hate people who try to make taglines by paraphrasing something or just making something up. It has to be a direct quote from the thread. Not just "Metafilter:" followed by whatever tickles your goddamn fancy.
posted by ludwig_van at 8:58 PM on September 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: whatever tickles your goddamn fancy
posted by wendell at 9:04 PM on September 27, 2007

MetaFilter: followed by whatever tickles your goddamn fancy
posted by Kattullus at 9:05 PM on September 27, 2007

CURSE YOU WENDELL!!!
posted by Kattullus at 9:05 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Sometimes wendell posts what you were just about to post
posted by ludwig_van at 9:32 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Sometimes wendell..... CURSE YOU LUDWIG_VAN!!!
posted by wendell at 10:10 PM on September 27, 2007

can we Markov-ize these, somehow?
posted by heeeraldo at 11:24 PM on September 27, 2007

Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter:
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 9:34 AM on September 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh. Oh dear.
posted by quin at 10:14 AM on September 28, 2007

MetaFilter: God I hate people who try to make taglines.
posted by Mister_A at 12:13 PM on September 28, 2007

MetaFilter: God I hate people
posted by psmealey at 12:19 PM on September 28, 2007

MetaFilter: God
posted by inigo2 at 12:47 PM on September 28, 2007

Metafilter: Go
posted by Mister_A at 1:35 PM on September 28, 2007

MetaFilter: God I hate taglines.
posted by philomathoholic at 1:42 PM on September 28, 2007

Some themes seem to appear when you analyze word frequency...

Top 15 words used in taglines:

like (351)
just (289)
people (250)
fuck (232)
post (217)
make (175)
time (151)
think (137)
thing (136)
comment (130)
link (123)
know (123)
shit (104)
suck (103)
say (100)

methodology: blue+grey, case/punctuation normalized, porter stemmed, stop words discarded.
posted by jacobian at 2:02 PM on September 28, 2007

Metafilter: Just like people to fuck up posts. Make time to think things out, then comment. Don't say or link to shit that you know sucks.
posted by painquale at 2:24 PM on September 28, 2007 [5 favorites]

I'm so tempted to sign in with each one of my sockpuppets so I can favorite that more than once.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:28 PM on September 28, 2007

As far as I can tell, pnevares has the first one with the all too apt MetaFilter: Where you go for one-liners. :)

Difficult to top, but that doesn't stop nearly everyone from trying.
posted by Nabubrush at 7:42 PM on September 28, 2007

MadamFilter: Difficult to top, but that doesn't stop nearly everyone from trying.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:45 PM on September 28, 2007

Metatalk: Difficult to top, but that doesn't stop nearly everyone from trying.
posted by eriko at 8:08 PM on September 28, 2007

All right, obviously you're just making this shit up now.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:49 PM on September 28, 2007

Look Jethro, I caught two of 'em in my trap.
posted by Nabubrush at 8:54 PM on September 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: Obviously you're just making this shit up.
posted by philomathoholic at 12:32 AM on September 29, 2007