Comments on: MeFi Anniversaries

MeFi Anniversaries

ZachsMind — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 07:40:52 -0800

I just noticed this! As of a few days ago, I've officially been in MetaFilter for two whole years! Well, except for a couple self-exiles where I left for weeks at a time due to offline crap or my just being a type B personality. How many other regulars are there who have been around at least as long? Speak up! When's your 2 year anniversary? Maybe we can throw a party for ya!

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 07:50:34 -0800

Also, the next time I put up a Front Page Post to MeFi, it'll be my 100th. Whee!

By: Spoon

Spoon — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 07:51:42 -0800

You look a bit like me.

By: phooey

phooey — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 07:58:37 -0800

march 30 will be my two year anniversary. i wish i had more time to get involved here.

By: corpse

corpse — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:08:10 -0800

I don't know when my 2 year will be since my bio just says member since: sometime in 1999

By: iceberg273

iceberg273 — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:10:01 -0800

On April 21, I will have had an account on MetaFilter for two years.

More importantly, it is only two weeks until I am 9000 days old.

By: briank

briank — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:14:56 -0800

October 20 is my 2-year mark (though I began lurking here about two months before that). Do we get a commemorative pin?

By: croutonsupafreak

croutonsupafreak — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:33:50 -0800

Wow, I feel so young and new. I've got a good 8 months to go before the two year mark (November).

By: aaron

aaron — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:36:47 -0800

I have 59 days to go to my 2-year anniversary; May 12.

My Amazon wish list is on my user page.

By: rory

rory — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:37:19 -0800

Commemorative pin, nothing: Zach got two commemorative towers of light. One for each year.

By: adrianhon

adrianhon — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 09:16:54 -0800

I had my two year anniversary about three weeks ago on February 21st.

[mumble I didn't get any party mumble mumble]

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 09:33:22 -0800

April 11, 2002 - W00t! Actually, I've been thinking about this anniversary a lot lately and I'm glad you posted that, Zachsmind! Aren't two Internet years like 10 realtime years or something? Also, my birthday is March 31 (it's a milestone one this year...:)

By: misterioso

misterioso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 10:16:07 -0800

Mine's next week. It certainly doesn't seem like it's been two years. Wow.

By: owillis

owillis — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 10:16:43 -0800

2 years on March 1st. I still didn't get that pony.

By: evanizer

evanizer — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 10:46:58 -0800

On April 1st, it will be my two month anniversary, Whee! Seems like I've been here forever. I'm already sick of this place.

Kidding!

Sort of.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 11:25:46 -0800

Two Years? Rookies.

The THREE YEAR anniversary of my first appearance on Metafilter will be December 5, 2002. Forget about a party, I deserve one of these.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 11:30:54 -0800

...and that was my 200th MeTa comment! Break out the champagne!

By: Hildago

Hildago — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 12:52:43 -0800

Jonmc, if I roast is what you want, all you have to do is ask and I'm sure we'd be willing to insult you mercilessly for a couple hours.

By: rich

rich — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 13:32:17 -0800

John, you beat me by just over a month for my first front pager. And boy, did it just go over like a wet sock puppet. Message 503, though, baby.

Ever notice how much matt used to post a front page post in a single day?

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 14:50:33 -0800

MetaRoast! It's available, apparently. In another thread I was talking with someone about the possibility of Matt making a third forum which was more lenient on posting rules. I said it couldn't be done, but maybe if it was metaroast.metafilter.com and the purpose of the forum was for avid participants to roast their MeFi buddies... nah. But one can dream. =)

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 16:07:27 -0800

Sorry - roast? In Australia, we 'toast' somebody's success, and give them a good 'roasting' if we're unhappy with them. Does the American term mean something different a la 'pissed'?

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 16:46:20 -0800

Obiwanwasabi: the Friars' Club in New York will roast anybody, no matter how famous, at any time. All the top comedians gather to say the filthiest, most objectionable things about a new member they can think of. It's the roast of roasts, civilization-wize. We're lucky, believe me!

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 16:50:45 -0800

obiwan - since you explained fairy bread to me, I'll tell you about "roasts." Roasts are when a famous celebrity is given a banquet where his freinds and colleagues pummel him with insults and emabarassing stories. It's a "insults-being-the-sincerest-form-of-tribute" sort of deal. The tapes sold at the site I linked to give a good example and were staples of TV in my childhood. Dean Martin, with his "tarbender, tee martooni's and a fricken chickasee..." manner was the master of the form.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 16:53:04 -0800

Here's an account, by Frank de Giacomo, in The New York Observer, of the late Jerry Stiller's roasting - you know, father of Ben in real life and of George Costanza in Seinfeld. And it's censored...

By: quonsar

quonsar — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 16:58:01 -0800

may 13, 2002 will be my 2 year anniversary. i rather doubt anyone is throwing a party though :-)

By: bingo

bingo — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 17:07:16 -0800

Miguel, there's a branch of the Friar's Club in Los Angeles too; I went to a party there a few months ago.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 17:13:36 -0800

Yes I know - home of roasts, toasts and fine cigars. Is it as savage as the NY club? Or more Hollywoodesque and politically correct?

By: fuq

fuq — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 18:11:29 -0800

Damn. I need three more years to have been on metafilter for two years.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 18:12:56 -0800

*boggle*

Let me see if I get this straight. You put somebody on a dais, and then proceed to insult them with the lowest gutter-humour you can muster - dribbling cocks, Chinese-eating Jews and Dr Ruth's pussy indeed! - in front of their friends and family, for the whole evening.

How, where and when did this practice begin? For the love of God, why?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 18:41:09 -0800

We are a perverse people obiwanwasabi. It's kind of like celebrities volunteering to be spoofed on The Simpsons or being flattered that their show was spoofed in Mad. If someone can accurately satirize you without alienating you, it's a clue that they've been paying close enough attention to dig you.

For instance, what Miguel did here could be described as "roasting" me. He makes fun, but the detail in the humor shows that he digs what I'm about, so I'm not offended. The Hollywood roasts are the same think on steroids and methamphetamine.

By: MUD

MUD — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 19:12:22 -0800

Did roasting start with the Ratpack then? Sure sounds like the sort of viciousness-lacquered-with-camaraderie thing that they excelled at. Of course, it would have helped that they oozed cool and charm.

I'm sure I could ooze like that if I wanted.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 20:00:41 -0800

I think it's the steroids and meth that bother me. 'Taking the piss' out of somebody is a national sport here, and the example in your link was in much the same vein as our local prduct, but this seems like really spiteful, hurtful stuff. I can see these people making arse-wiping and erection jokes with Christopher Reeve on the stand.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 20:03:54 -0800

are when a famous celebrity

from the jonmc department of redundancy department.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 20:14:15 -0800

Obi - I just realized. This has to be the most outrageous assault ever - don't think derailment; think Great Train Robbery - by us snivelling 10K+ babes on the quiet celebration of the crusty 2-year-old MetaFilter vets. How an old-timer's MeTa thread can turn into a Q&A on the American sport of roasting and its Australasian equivalents is surely a source for shame. Of course, elder statesman jonmc led us on. ;)

By: evanizer

evanizer — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 20:45:39 -0800

Miguel, Jerry Stiller's not dead.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:01:48 -0800

Well, Evan - you've made my day! Not the first time. either. I love the man and immensely enjoyed his autobiography. I must be getting old myself. A month ago my wife told another favourite of mine, Leslie Nielsen, whom I'd thought dead for a year, was alive and well. I confused him with Lloyd Bridges or something. I blame my nightmares and fear of death, myself...

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:04:04 -0800

think Great Train Robbery

Now that we're Bandidos, and presumably fleeing to South America, I guess I'll have to learn the lingo. Estou com fome! Quanto que é aquele abacaxi?

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:08:27 -0800

What abacaxi, pardner? In Portuguese: "Quanto é que custa aquele ananás?" Watch those Brazilians; they're wily. Ned Kelly wrote a book, though.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:13:58 -0800

The Train Robbery moves away, with each syllable, from the two-year celebrations. Perhaps we should rerail the thread: what will you do when you've been two years on MetaFilter? Feel at ease?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:22:21 -0800

The Train Robbery moves away, with each syllable, from the two-year celebrations.

Are you kidding this is thread drift at it's best. The only way it would be better is if evanizer photoshopped my profile pic. :)

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:26:36 -0800

Evanizer would eat you alive, jonmc, if only for the laurels. :)

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 23:46:27 -0800

Bigotry is still alive? Damn. When's that gonna give up the ghost?

Yes the concept of roasting one's friends does date back to the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts but I think that's just when it was first turned into a public display for purposes of self-publicity & moneymaking among the bratpack, their entourage, hangers-on, and anyone who wanted to be fashionably cool among the old farts of the 1970s. I think the concept actually dates back before it became a featured series of specials on NBC, but I'm having difficulty finding historical precedence for that. I can't imagine Dean Martin invented this. He must have gotten the idea from someone else but goodness knows who. Maybe it was Martin's idea of a parody of the many more serious "Man of the Year" presentations that uncool people would throw.

As memory serves (not that I was there but I was a kid back in the 1970s and remember reading about it and stuff), Martin, Sinatra and their cronies started doing this in an informal manner without the cameras, around the 1960s when they were forging their bad boy image. They were always looking for reasons to celebrate, as an excuse to go get drunk, and sometimes they'd throw parties for each other, or one of the thousands of their closest friends, and during the festivities someone would stand up before the throng of admirers, followers and stalkers, and they'd propose a toast.

Outdoing each other's toasts became part of the badboy regimen among the bratpackers. They got addicted to making audiences laugh so hard they would blow champagne through their nose -- in unison. By the early 80s though they were running out of steam. I think when they roasted Angie Dickinson, it was time for them to throw in the towel.

The toasts were often anything from backhanded compliments to outright insults - anything to outdo the previous toaster at the expense of the person being toasted. It was funny. Everybody loved it. I mean let's face it, having Frank Sinatra or Sammy Davis Jr. saying something demeaning about you is infinitely better than knowing they would never return your phone calls.

So it started as a series of toasts, and evolved into outright roasts. Others have since tried similar things but I don't think anyone has done it as well as the roastmasters of the bratpack.

Anyone game to try it? We could pick a target and make a go of it.

By: evanizer

evanizer — Fri, 15 Mar 2002 00:06:23 -0800

Ask and you shall receive, jonmc...

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Fri, 15 Mar 2002 08:33:28 -0800

great train robbery occured in Enland, 1963. most got away, along with the cash, most successful in history. )i,m here to pull miguel out of the big-boy room. "miguel, let the vets have a party"

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 15 Mar 2002 10:26:28 -0800

ev, that was beautiful...you make a very convincing sullen thug, by the way...

By: dangerman

dangerman — Fri, 15 Mar 2002 12:10:55 -0800

sometime before 1999...

By: litlnemo

litlnemo — Fri, 15 Mar 2002 15:17:56 -0800

Wow. My two-year Metafilter anniversary passed last month and I didn't even notice.

By: boogah

boogah — Sat, 16 Mar 2002 03:04:27 -0800

jeebus! i'm aware it's far after the fact but frank, dino, sammy, et al were the rat pack. the brat pack was the group of young actors in st. elmo's fire... rob lowe, judd nelson, ally sheedy, emilio estevez, etc. now if you'll pardon me, after all this lather i need to change into a dry martini.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Mon, 18 Mar 2002 01:57:30 -0800

boogah: You are absolutely right. I stand corrected and apologize. The distinction is subtle but historically relevant. Thank you for pointing out my typo.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Mon, 18 Mar 2002 04:58:19 -0800

I got a big kick out of the fact that you spelled out Front Page Post this time ;)