likes Nightranger and beer from cansAnyone who doesn't is probably a goddamned Communist.
* lights a smelly cigar, sits down *posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:31 PM on July 30, 2008 [10 favorites]
Pull up a chair, lemme tell you how it used to be.
You see, back before threads were closed every 30 days, there were LOTS of places - places they didn't tell you much about, except in whispers. They called them "cult" threads.
* takes a long puff, blows smoke rings *
Except, back then, you had to FIND the threads. There were whispers here, hints there, but you had to dig deep into the archives, hunt around, pay attention and really get to know the website before you found them. And when you did, and if you said your piece in them - maybe you were accepted, maybe you weren't. That's how they worked in those days. But, you know - chances were you'd be accepted. Because you made the effort to find them, and that said something right there.
* gazes off into the middle distance *
Then, a few years back, there came the time of the great dispora. No, I don't know what it means, either - look it up. Anyway, what happened was, a bunch of folks who had either forgotten about the cult threads or never knew they existed in the first place suddenly got reminded of or told about them, and there was a big to-do about it all. There was lots of harsh words and jibber-jabber about all the chattiness, and pseudo-flirting, and general sillyness that went on in all these cult threads, and how the server must be getting hammered, and how this must be a Bad Thing, and just look at all those in-line images! Surely that must be terrible on the server load! Why, the cult threads, it was said, were HURTING METAFILTER!
So, the cult threads shut down.
* spits *
Voluntarily, that is. The monkeys moved on to 9622.net, the trolls, or goblins, or whatever they were at 1142 moved on to - well, they were already there and it was it a closed society, so it doesn't really matter much where they went. Anyway, the old cult threads all simmered down and had pretty much petered out altogether by the time the 30-day cutoff came into place.
But you know, a funny thing happened. More and more folks kept coming around, and after they shared their interesting links and made their interesting comments, they still wanted to chat - and pseudo-flirt, and put up in-line images and indulge in general silliness. Of course, now that the cult threads were dead and buried, the silliness was everywhere! It wasn't just confined to a few places that folks had to actively hunt for - no, it was in every thread! Why, the silliness, it was said, was again HURTING METAFILTER!
* coughs *
Excuse me.
* sips beer *
So, MetaChat was formed, and that was the second great dispora. But there were still a few folks who wanted to have their silliness, their flirting, their in-line images, here on the mother ship.
That's when some idiot posted the MetaTalk thread that became known as 9622 v.2. You may remember it.
Now, for the first time, there was a single place for everyone who wanted to to put all the images, chat, gossip and silly. It wasn't spread out on all sorts of cult threads all over the website, and it wasn't on every thread, either. It was on one place.
Trouble was, the place was scheduled to close down in 30 days.
So, they did the only sensible thing. They got themselves a longboat, and moved every month.
* takes another long puff, exhales *
And I, for one, salute them.
There's always a place for silliness.
posted by yhbc at 4:22 AM on October 27, 2005
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Sooo, is the message that the img tag should be removed? Because I'm still considering it.
posted by mathowie at 5:31 AM on October 27, 2005
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* swallows cigar butt, kicks the brandy bottle under the chair *
Hi, Dad.
posted by yhbc at 5:34 AM on October 27, 2005
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:58 PM on July 30, 2008