There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't yet met

March 14, 2009 3:02 PM

A really trivial pony request: The Metafilter logo as a PDF, suitable for printing out and using for meetup signs.

While mefites are a can-do bunch skilled at improvisation, it can still be a little awkward walking up to a table-full of likely suspects and asking "Are you from the Internet?"

A Mefi Meetup sign would make it a little easier. Perhaps automatically posting a link to this PDF in meetup threads would help put them into use.

posted by adamrice to feature requests at 3:02 PM (55 comments total)

quick, we're meeting in 90 minutes!
posted by jessamyn at 3:10 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

Didn't fandango_matt have an official mefi meetup PDF?
posted by mathowie at 3:13 PM on March 14

While mefites are a can-do bunch skilled at improvisation, it can still be a little awkward walking up to a table-full of likely suspects and asking "Are you from the Internet?"

I love doing that!
posted by Kattullus at 3:17 PM on March 14 [6 favorites]

I experimented with vectorising the logo but then I got bored. via
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:21 PM on March 14 [10 favorites]

Here ya go ... PDF and EPS with fonts converted to curves.
posted by jbickers at 3:24 PM on March 14 [8 favorites]

You need the MetaGram Official Meetup Shoutout Card (Adobe Acrobat PDF), as seen here.
posted by mattdidthat at 3:25 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]

One more, because now I'm all in the mood.
posted by jbickers at 3:33 PM on March 14 [8 favorites]

it can still be a little awkward walking up to a table-full of likely suspects and asking "Are you from the Internet?"

Don't do that. These days, I ask if people are Friends of Jessamyn, which I like because it sounds so much like Friends of Bill. You can also ask if people are here for Matt Haughey's birthday party or something similar.
posted by grouse at 3:42 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]

grouse: Don't do that.

Awww... don't hate on what I love, grouse :)

These days, I ask if people are Friends of Jessamyn, which I like because it sounds so much like Friends of Bill.

But I do like that but that's because it reminds me of Friends of Dorothy. I wonder which came first, FOB or FOD. FOD dates back to WWII. Apparently the earlier "friend of Mrs. King" (queen... geddit?) dates back even earlier. I wonder if there's an ur-Friend of X out there, even older.
posted by Kattullus at 4:10 PM on March 14

"Friends of Matt" or mathowie are also similarly good. (thx, whir.)

Posting the headshot from his Wikipedia page can be entertaining, too.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:17 PM on March 14

I wonder if there's an ur-Friend of X out there, even older.

"Friends of Thag" would get together to discuss their difficulties with pre-modern life in a safe, comfortable cavespace.
posted by cortex at 4:34 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]

It helps when someone who is going to be at the meetup early gives descriptions of how unique looking they are. Except of course if there turn out to be THREE guys in tshirts with red hair at the damn pub, and of course the first two I ask are not mefites.
posted by jacalata at 4:36 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

(By which I mean, uh, check the pix.)
posted by Pronoiac at 4:38 PM on March 14

Sometimes one of us calls in and makes a reservation for "Metafilter", if we know at least 2-3 people will be showing for sure. That seems to have worked well enough so far.
posted by Phire at 4:52 PM on March 14

I was the first one at the last meet-up and I told the hostess about the reservation for a large group of people from MetaFilter, which was the name the reservation was under, and she stared at me blankly. So, I went on... "It's a reservation for like, 15 people... from the internet."

"OH! THAT RESERVATION!"

*sigh*
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:59 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]

DIY Mefi Signs don't always cut it.

You can also ask if people are here for Matt Haughey's birthday party or something similar.

"Hey, do you know Matt Haughey?" is my go-to secret Mefi Handshake. It usually works a treat, except when I asked that one guy who went to school with Matt Howey, and didn't like him very much.
posted by zamboni at 5:08 PM on March 14

From the Friends of Dorothy link above:

In the early 1980s, the Naval Investigative Service was investigating homosexuality in the Chicago area. Agents discovered that gay men sometimes referred to themselves as "friends of Dorothy." Unaware of the historical meaning of the term, the NIS believed that a woman named Dorothy was at the center of a massive ring of homosexual military personnel. The NIS launched an enormous hunt for Dorothy, hoping to find her and convince her to reveal the names of gay servicemembers.

Heh.
posted by Bookhouse at 5:31 PM on March 14 [22 favorites]

I prefer simply entering an establishment and bellowing, "WHERE MY MOTHERFUCKING NERDS AT"

This works okay for meetups, but it's also a suprisingly versatile approach to just about any other anxiety-inducing situation.
posted by Greg Nog at 5:35 PM on March 14 [39 favorites]

The host(ess) of the meetup could wear a helmet like my 6 year old son does. It looks like a fireman's helmet with a rotating red beacon on it.

That would make the meetup easy to find.
posted by SteveTheRed at 6:54 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

And fucking awesome.
posted by Science! at 7:24 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

Not that they aren't already. I assume.
posted by Science! at 7:47 PM on March 14

You win for "taters form a line here." I'm totally using that if I'm ever at a meetup.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:56 PM on March 14

The host(ess) of the meetup could wear a helmet like my 6 year old son does. It looks like a fireman's helmet with a rotating red beacon on it.

Tell me when that meetup happens so I can skip it. ACK. FLASHING LIGHTS. DO NOT WANT.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:03 PM on March 14

How to recognize MeFites at a meetup:
Look for the nerds trying to get a group photo taken by a six foot drag queen.

Use gang signs.

Wear a special shirt.

Give your phone number to the other MeFites.

Look for drunken shout-outs.

Show your tits.

Or, you can just let the meetup come to you.
posted by ColdChef at 8:27 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]

Too slow. We found each other without the signs, anyway. Hey! I actually went to a meetup, where I met the adamrice! So now I'm a real-life-person-from-the-internet! And I'm thawing out, now. Brrr. Patio. Cold.

Is this where I complain about the tepid coffee and the loopy waitress?
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:32 PM on March 14

Oh man, it's so easy. Just look for the table full of people wearing glasses.
posted by padraigin at 9:40 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]

These days, I ask if people are Friends of Jessamyn

People are always asking me, do I know Jessamyn West?
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:59 PM on March 14

O HAI
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:20 PM on March 14

That is awesome, East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94.

As a side note, that Dobbshead still looks amazingly good considering what it's been through:
Someone made a stencil design, which about 12 years ago as a larval geek I downloaded, printed out and cut with an xacto. Then I spraypainted it onto a piece of matboard and hung it on various walls through about 8 moves, beginning with my teenage bedroom in my parents' house and culminating in the bathroom of that dank basement apartment in Santa Cruz. Then AV photographed it mirror-reversed in the background and flipped it back to the right orientation so her shirt was legible, then she scaled it for upload to flickr, then EMRJKC94 downloaded and vectorized it. I imagine huge quantities of Slack would accrue to anybody who blows up that section of the vector and uses it to produce a stencil design.
posted by contraption at 10:36 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]

Oh, actually I guess it's still reversed
posted by contraption at 10:40 PM on March 14

I definitely want to use the MetaGram at the next Portland meetup.
posted by Caduceus at 11:06 PM on March 14

At my first New Orleans meetup, ColdChef supposed to bring a shovel but that didn't happen. I thought about buying a plastic shovel-and-bucket set from the drugstore but then forgot.
posted by radioamy at 11:22 PM on March 14

At the last LA meet up, we briefly discussed throwing our sign.

Crosses middle and ring finger, with thumb tucked behind hand to make a W, swings down to make an M. Looks hard.
And I keep a green flag hanging out the back side, but only on the left side, yeah, that's the Ask side.
posted by Thin Lizzy at 11:40 PM on March 14 [6 favorites]

Just look for the table full of people wearing glasses.

FAIL! I've worn contacts since I was 15.
posted by jacalata at 2:02 AM on March 15

radioamy...

I would be slightly worried if a mortician brought a shovel to any ANY sort of meeting I was going to
posted by ShawnString at 4:58 AM on March 15

I would be slightly worried if a mortician brought a shovel to any ANY sort of meeting I was going to

Oh, and I suppose I'm just supposed to dig their shallow graves with my hands? I'm much more professional than that.
posted by ColdChef at 5:42 AM on March 15 [7 favorites]

Crosses middle and ring finger, with thumb tucked behind hand to make a W, swings down to make an M. Looks hard.

Don't forget the F- do a peace sign, hold it behind the palm of the hand doing the M.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:56 AM on March 15 [1 favorite]

This is all nonsense. You should have the logo painted on your chest, then meet in underground bars.
posted by adipocere at 9:25 AM on March 15

Before PDFs, we had these things called indelible felt-tipped marker pens. I wonder if anyone still makes those.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:31 AM on March 15

Yeah, I too was a little disappointed that Chef didn't bring the shovel that time, but since he made up for it by spending the evening telling us the most horrifying stories ever told it all evened out.

And I myself recognize Mefites at meetups by wandering around looking weird and confused, peering way to closely at the members of different tables in the hopes of recognizing someone from their avatar, until someone inevitably asks me if I'm from Metafilter.

At which point I tell them that I'll be from wherever they want, if the money's right.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:29 AM on March 15 [1 favorite]

A terrible time to miss a meet-up. Agh!

Sounds like it was a terrific time (other than the spacey waitress).
posted by batmonkey at 11:02 AM on March 15

It felt morally wrong tipping her, and the guy at the bar wasn't real helpful either, but I liked the iPhone MetaFilter symbol. Very apropos.
posted by woodway at 11:42 AM on March 15

Aw man, didn't anyone record these stories for the rest of us?
posted by IndigoRain at 2:28 PM on March 15

FoD means something enirely different to the hippies.

I like the faster version.
posted by stubby phillips at 2:49 PM on March 15

Full disclosure: My mom's name was Dorothy.
posted by stubby phillips at 2:50 PM on March 15

Yes, but was your father a Tin Man?
posted by jonmc at 2:55 PM on March 15

I would like you all to know that I used the title of this thread in my panel at SXSW.
posted by jessamyn at 3:04 PM on March 15 [5 favorites]

When I was in NY there was a meetup where people were all wearing neon-colored plastic fedora hats, and had a pink flamingo stuck to the ground.

Then it started to pour, and the park ranger came and asked us to "put down the flamingo. For your own safety".
posted by qvantamon at 4:15 PM on March 15

At the last Manhattan meetup, we had a little sign.
posted by ocherdraco at 4:24 PM on March 15

Austin MeetUp People: Photos, please.
posted by ColdChef at 7:21 PM on March 15

People are always asking me, do I know Jessamyn West?

And I always say I have never heard of her.
posted by MLIS at 7:46 PM on March 15

I'm always going up to people & asking if they know Jessamyn, meetup or not.

Just in case they're a librarian, you know.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:46 PM on March 15

Just look for the table full of people wearing glasses.

Ahhh... so this is why I need to go get glasses... I've been on metafilter to much.
posted by silkygreenbelly at 10:10 PM on March 15

The Chicago cabal knows who you are.
posted by eamondaly at 8:14 AM on March 16

Austin MeetUp People: Photos, please.

This would require actually using my computer, instead of passively staring at it. The moment has to be just right (I think I only took 3, anyway) There were other cameras present, though.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:19 AM on March 16