MetaTalktail Hour: Famous on the Internet August 31, 2019 8:03 AM   Subscribe

For this month's Euro time shift Metatalktails, we hear from Mefite I'm always feeling, Blue who wants to know about your brushes with the internet-famous ...

I once emailed Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics to tell him I loved The Devil (in his comic, not the real one) and was chuffed when he responded that he did too (again, not the real one).

Which Internet semi-lebrities have you enjoyed interacting with online somewhere other than MetaFilter?
So please share your experiences with the internet glitterati ... or just let us know what's been happening with you lately!
posted by taz (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 8:03 AM (82 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite

Every now and again I'll ring up someone at my job who is a local celebrity, but no one internet famous. Oh that's not true! One time we had a visit from an Instagram famous dog named Benga! And her owner handed me her dog's business card which was a trip.

I finally coated my new plant stand in rustoleum so it could live outside which was nice. And I got tough on my mint and sent them to rehab. Otherwise it's just been the dawning horror that my bean vines are dying and I'm gonna have to throw myself into fall planting soon. It's brassica season, but the awfulness that is cabbage fly maggot is still haunting me, and I'm concerned. Nothing for it but to press on I suppose, as the days get shorter. I'm still getting real big squashes though. Which is nice.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:14 AM on August 31, 2019 [4 favorites]


Dave Weigel of the Washington Post said something nasty once.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:28 AM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


I always feel like I have been talking to an Internet celebrity when one of the mods answers me privately, after a contact form question or comment.
posted by Namlit at 9:11 AM on August 31, 2019 [25 favorites]


In a few days, I'll be attending a lecture by Michael Twitty (good human being, author, culinary historian), whose post about unhappy plantation visitors recently went viral.
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:25 AM on August 31, 2019 [14 favorites]


I beat Famous Jeopardy Champion Roger Craig in trivia on Wednesday!

...technically, he forfeited, BUT STILL.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:34 AM on August 31, 2019 [7 favorites]


I met Jessamyn once at a picnic in Prospect Park!
posted by moonmilk at 10:22 AM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


Last summer I went to a weekend intensive on body image and sat at a table with a woman who looked vaguely familiar. We exchanged names and it turned out it was a well-known sex educator with an excellent podcast. She was just as great in person as on her podcast and I enjoyed hearing her personal stories about body image and shame as they were similar to mine.

We had lunch together one day and I almost found myself telling her about an interesting story I had heard from her on her podcast about her own life and thankfully our waitress came by at that moment and I didn’t end up bringing it up. Anyway, later in the lunch she recounted the same story and I’m sure my face looked interesting as internally I was beating myself up for forgetting the source and embarrassed that I had almost told her about this interesting experience someone had when that someone turned out to be her.

I’m being kinda vague here since the weekend was a pretty personal experience for all of us participating but she did do a podcast episode where she talked about the workshop so I think this retelling without details is okay.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 10:31 AM on August 31, 2019 [6 favorites]


I met Jessamyn once at a picnic in Prospect Park!

I remember. I think I still have the little booklet of fruit photos you made (yes?) on my wall.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 11:09 AM on August 31, 2019 [5 favorites]


My instagram account is private, and not long after I started to follow Chuck Tingle I got a follow request back from his account. I hope the photos of my cats brighten his day!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 11:17 AM on August 31, 2019 [12 favorites]


Yes, tiny lemon book!
posted by moonmilk at 11:42 AM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


I've met both the guy who runs Metafilter and the guy who used to run it...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:47 AM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


I have been blocked by many famous and notable people on Twitter. They are all cowards!
posted by riruro at 12:05 PM on August 31, 2019 [4 favorites]


Back in the 1990s, was in high school when I offered to help make and improve two websites, one for a miniature maker supporting the tabletop gaming company (I forgot which one, TBH -- and I had emailed them via a long-dead email account), and one of the people behind the Happy Mutant Handbook (self-link to my dormant attempt to review and update content, decades later), who probably went on to do more with bOING bOING and other creative endeavors.

I had a discussion on web design decisions with the former that ended in a disagreement about some aesthetic choice, and the latter sputtered out before it started because I didn't have any websites to point to as examples of what I could do in that heady, DIY Web 1.0 era, when I thought I could make some money making websites.

The fact that either replied to me to even consider a random person from the (then much smaller) internet about (re)designing their websites is definitely a function of that era -- people were still figuring out the internet, and you could probably get away with making websites by hand and still not look super hokey.

///

It's early on Saturday afternoon here, and we just had our first New Mexico meetup in ... years? And it was lovely. But now I'm relaxing at home, with not much planned for today or tomorrow. Next week (and the following weeks) are full of things to do, but for now, I'm enjoying some quiet time. I hope everyone else has the (long) weekend that they want.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:12 PM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


I once online-befriended one of the writers from smug.com, who encouraged me to visit NYC when I was a year out of college and figuring out what to do next. I ended up flying halfway across the country, picking up what ended up being the best job interview ever (turns out cold meds + a generous glass of dotcom venture capital champagne = unbridled enthusiasm), wandering through the East Village in what felt like a snowglobe of late spring snow, watching the chess players at Washington Square Park, bumping into Johnny Rotten(!) in a 57th Street elevator, and from that one day, deciding NYC was the most magical place ever. So I moved there. And it was!

So based on this week's topic, it's with great irony that I mention my plan for September is less internet so I can rewire my brain for the winter. I'm always compulsively (convulsively!) checking my phone and the news and my email and I feel so scattered! And my birthday's coming up and I feel like something's gotta give. So I'm going to zoom back to my pre-1994 way of life and try to read some books, sit with my thoughts, read the news in the morning. I'm limiting to 1 hour a day, not including podcasts, because those are like radio, right?

Hi everyone!
posted by mochapickle at 12:41 PM on August 31, 2019 [11 favorites]


It was 3AM on a week night. I couldn’t fall sleep. Neither could Monica Lewinsky, apparently. We had a brief but pleasant Twitter exchange about it. It was nice to know I wasn’t alone in my insomnia. I think she appreciated it, too.
posted by nightrecordings at 12:44 PM on August 31, 2019 [27 favorites]


I made a reference once to Bob Allisat (of Usenet earth.general 'fame') in a Dutch-language motorcycle newsgroup. Like "if you (other person in that group) continue like this we'll end up with this group being like earth.general with everyone posting about everything and anything, and no-one being able to hold decent discussions due to the overwhelming posting volume. So knock it off."

Bob (or quite probably his bot) then mailed me a screed stating that earth.general (which, in his kooky view, would be the only newsgroup on Usenet, or at least the only worthwhile newsgroup, where all discussions would take place and everyone would be able to interact with anyone else) was the Usenet equivalent of sliced bread, or likely even better. It must have been just a trigger on 'earth.general', since he (or that bot) didn't get the gist of my posting. At all.

I've also used my contacts with the Usenet Cabal (TINC) to get a Dutch Usenet admin to act on some egregious bout of abuse that that admin considered abuse _on_ Usenet, not abuse _of_ Usenet, and so not something he should have to act on (he was wrong). But IMO that doesn't really count since they, and me, were posting in a particular hierarchy in some more or less social context already.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:44 PM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


Long long ago, I posted a comment on Mighty Big TV about Elise Doganieri, one of the producers of The Amazing Race and she sent me an email! Yes, TV producers are lurking in fan forums!

Also, 7-11 once re-grammed my photo of their bigbite (tm) hot dog flavored potato chips. Really, one of my best brushes with fame.
posted by vespabelle at 12:45 PM on August 31, 2019 [6 favorites]


Well, it's "celebrity" + "internet," which may be enough?

In my clueless teenage years in the nineties, when I had been the proud owner of an email account for maybe two months, I made a bad decision. I shared my addressbook with an even more clueless friend who was also new to email. This friend promptly used this list to send a mass email containing ASCII art of a frog, with instructions to forward it so as to start a "frog fight." Unfortunately, shortly before my ill-advised sharing, I had sent Douglas Adams some inane fan email, so his was among the compromised addresses. Naturally, a "please remove me from this list" fest ensued, in which our esteemed author sent several messages to the full list, the last of them being "you have all been added to my kill file."

tl;dr I'm a goober and I got Douglas Adams spammed, but also Douglas Adams didn't have the sense not to hit reply-all.
posted by eirias at 12:50 PM on August 31, 2019 [16 favorites]


This has little to do with the prompt- it is, however, internet related!- but I just needed to tell people who might understand. In the course of helping my (charming, brilliant, sainted, beloved) older relative with something on her cell phone last night at dinner I realized that when she has to search the internet on the phone she

1) opens up her email app
2) finds one with a link
3) long-presses it until a list of apps appears
4) selects one that is *named* gmail on the screen but is actually somehow some G suite stripped down version of chrome
5) clicks on the top of what opens
6) enters her search
7) finis

Every. Time. Even if she is already in a web browser when she needs to search. I mean: how did she figure this system out? It works! The persistence! The dedication!

She is SO. SMART. you guys and I couldn’t get her non-flustered enough to just search in her browser like a person with better instincts so what we did is put the Google app on the first screen of her phone so she can go directly there. Saves so many steps!

I have never had a brush with anyone even a little bit internet famous besides, yes, jessamyn, when she was in Anchorage for a conference maybe 10 years ago. It was likely the first and only ANC meetup and there were three people people there, but it was fun.
posted by charmedimsure at 12:52 PM on August 31, 2019 [14 favorites]


I love the Fat Mascara podcast and regularly message with one of the hosts, Jessica Matlin in Instagram!

I’ve just come back from 10 days in England and unfortunately right in the middle suffered a back spasm so bad it made the doctor ask me if I’d always had scoliosis! (I have not...) I’ve got physio next week and will get her to see if my spine is still curved, it was crazy painful and meant I took the Eurostar home in a wheelchair. Then came home to discover a large yukka plant had fallen over at some point so I’ve been repotting and cleaning up soil!
posted by ellieBOA at 12:54 PM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


Margaret Cho follows me on Twitter.
posted by Splunge at 1:02 PM on August 31, 2019 [4 favorites]


Nicole Cliffe follows me on Twitter. I responded to something she had retweeted about a crossover between Steve/Bucky and Stan Rogers' song White Squall, and anyway I hope she likes my terrible Philly jokes and near-total lack of original content.

I once gave Monica Lewinsky some knitting advice, which she thanked me for. I hope it goes some way towards balancing the scales, after I was an ignorant little shit about her in the late 90's.

I've chatted with both Alex Langlands and Robert Macfarlane on Twitter, briefly, about their books. Alex Langlands was incredibly gracious and forthcoming about my rather shirty question, and followed me back, which was terrifying (SERIOUSLY MY TWITTER IS TRASH what was he thinking) and Rob Macfarlane liked the way I described some cliffs in a photo, which was genuinely overwhelming and touching.

I have the thinnest of microscopically thin threads just barely connecting me professionally to Michael Sheen, which is about the only thing that keeps me from responding obnoxiously to like every single one of his tweets, because he is a delight on that terrible site. It's probably for the best.

It occurs to me that maybe I spend a little too much time on Twitter.
posted by kalimac at 1:04 PM on August 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


Ten years ago Susan Orlean tweeted a nice thing about something I wrote.
posted by not_the_water at 1:07 PM on August 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


So I’ve got this job and things are going pretty well there. The work I do has gotten some pretty high profile attention, which I’ve been delighted by, including recently when a rather well-known podcaster replied to a tweeted joke I made about something he said about someone who I currently work with. He liked it. And then he praised another project I worked on. I know it’s stupid but it was so cool, and really made me happy, which immediately makes me question my motives. I should really just stay off of twitter.

But I’d rather talk about something I did that made my one of my kids really proud of me. I have a trans son, and about a year ago I caught a major US retailer doing something incredibly transphobic and homophobic online and when I contacted them about it, they refused to do anything about it. So I contacted some people I knew in my industry’s media and told them about it and provided the evidence and soon a bunch of major media outlets picked it up and eventually the company apologized and changed their practices. My son recently told me that was the thing I did that made him the proudest, and I guess I’m pretty proud of it too. And I've never tweeted about it.
posted by Stanczyk at 1:51 PM on August 31, 2019 [28 favorites]


Years ago, and I don’t even really remember why, I emailed Bruce Sterling with a question (possibly about writing and research for the writing), not really expecting a reply. He did, in fact, reply, and we had a pleasant back and forth over it. That he replied at all was a surprise, and he was quite generous with his time.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:42 PM on August 31, 2019 [5 favorites]


This past spring I did a workshop at Jimmy Diresta's house in the Catskills. He didn't teach the workshop but we all hung out together, we slept in his house and ate amazing meals at his dining room table. Hanging over the table was a canoe built by Nick Offerman. As I wandered the house and grounds I constantly saw furniture and other items I had seen Jimmy build in his various YouTube videos.

I had met him briefly once before but it was fun to spend some time with him and get to watch him work. He really is an artist. He's also very warm and welcoming and he's one of those people who just sort of makes you feel like you're his friend the second you meet him. I was not at all star struck, I don't really get that way, but he and his home and shop all felt very familiar to me. When I walked into his shop, the same shop I watched get built in his videos, I told him I felt like I had stepped onto the set of Seinfeld. It was a place I'd never been to before but I knew every inch of it.

It's a beautiful property where chickens roam freely around the blacksmith shop and one can find inspiration every other square foot. I would very much like to live his life, surrounded by creativity.

Also, one time The Internet's Josh Millard peed in my hotel room bathroom.
posted by bondcliff at 2:49 PM on August 31, 2019 [7 favorites]


Oh well I am a bit of a cheater here ‘cause it was my job but I organized the first blogging user conference and edited the technical spec for Creative Commons so yeah lots of ‘em. Hi pals! I’m sure half of you don’t remember me.
posted by wellred at 3:01 PM on August 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


OH! I emailed Mary Beard to say thank you for a piece she had written, and received a brief-but-lovely response!

I saw a writer affirm that yes, positive feedback--even something as simple as a thank you--is more valued than readers may realize. So as silly as I sometimes feel about sending encouraging words, I should remember that they can be welcomed and appreciated.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:27 PM on August 31, 2019 [8 favorites]


Internet celeb? I got nuthin'.

Otherwise, I'm waiting to hear back from a job interview I had last week and still trying to unfuck my habitat (for those unfamiliar with UYH).
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 4:37 PM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


Raise your hand if you also have emailed Ryan North to tell him you loved his Devil character and he responded and made your whole day, which happened to be your birthday, 2006.
posted by bleep at 4:51 PM on August 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


Well ok it doesn't have to have been your birthday or 2006 but it would be great that more than 2 MeFites emailed Ryan north to congratulate him on his Devil character.
posted by bleep at 4:57 PM on August 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


I once passed mathowie on the stairs at the SF Uniqlo.
posted by rhizome at 5:30 PM on August 31, 2019 [4 favorites]


I met Damon Young, the founder of Very Smart Brothas last night at a book signing here in our mutual neighborhood. He's a little bit of a hesitant public speaker but his prose is so good and honest.
posted by octothorpe at 5:35 PM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


Sort of related. This was back in the mid-'90s when the internet was much smaller. I was a pretty hardcore fan of The X-Files and ran a fan site for a few years. I found out that Dean Haglund, who played Langly (of the Lone Gunmen), had his own site (it was on a different domain then) and maintained it himself. It might have been around the time he invented the ChillPak cooler for laptops.

He'd posted his email address, so I sent him a message and probably said I enjoyed his work on the show, and complimented him on his site, and probably went for the bad pun about how the ChillPak sounded really cool. He wrote back a friendly message of thanks, which absolutely made my day.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 5:36 PM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


Once upon a time my job was auditing nursing notes for very ill children that needed home nursing care. There were a few. I would not say more.

Back around Fukushima and 3/11 I worked with MeFi's own woodblock100 to mirror radiation data. If I ever make it to Japan I'm soooo going to drop in an say Hey!

Not quite on point but obscured a bit. I was once a roommate of the grandson of "America's Sleeping Prophet". I left him my Amiga 1000 when I left town. Hi!

That's about it I think... Oh, I got a nastygram from cortex once.... does that count?
posted by zengargoyle at 5:57 PM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


Years ago I attended Leaky Con. Friday night I had just finished brushing my teeth, I got toothpaste on my PJ shirt. I was about to turn off the lights when there was a knock at the door. I'm an old lady by fandom standards and thought about not opening up because it was probably some drunk kids making a ruckus, but I did anyway. It was three of the cast of A Very Potter Musical, including Joe Walker (aka Voldemort aka StarKid's MVP), in civvies, confused as heck.

We stared at each other. I said to my roommate, who was almost totally asleep, "Um! The StarKids are at the door??" and the StarKids said back "Ummmm... you're not having a party, are you?" Turns out they were at the wrong hotel entirely, and my room number was the same as some big fancy people's VIP shindig.

The funniest part about our conversation, other than me automatically momming them and making sure they were sober and safe, was that Joe Walker asked if I wanted to come to the party with them, and then turned to his companion and asked if it was okay to have invited me, and then turned back and apologized for making it weird.

The next day I got myself all prettied up and made super sure I did not have any toothpaste on my clothes. I went to the StarKid Q&A and waited around until folks were shuffling out, walked up to the stage and said "Hey Joe!" and he did a double take. Luckily at the time my hair was very large and bright blue, so he recognized me as not a crazy fan. He came up and was blushing. I said hey, just wanted to make sure you guys all got to the party okay. Was everything all right? Did they have a nice time? I got the impression that he had been deeply mortified and relentlessly teased by his companions. I never got to give that kid a hug, but boy howdy do still I wanna give that kid a hug.
posted by Mizu at 6:05 PM on August 31, 2019 [15 favorites]


It wasn't me, but it boggles my mind that Nicole Cliffe and Matt Yglesias used to go out.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:05 PM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


I had lunch with Kibo once.
posted by ardgedee at 6:22 PM on August 31, 2019 [7 favorites]


Hell ardgedee once in the 90's I had a job interview with The Spam King. I started getting the fishy vibe when he was in a government type building with the metaldetector/security sweep. Eventually he showed my a literal can of SPAM with "Spam King" sharpie'd on it. By then I think we'd both determined that neither one of us wanted that next interview.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:44 PM on August 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


Every so often someone posts an FPP involving the work of someone I know, which is always neat.

Otherwise, I've exchanged a couple of emails with Jessamyn, if that counts? My use of the internet just doesn't intersect with the venn diagram of internet celebrity in any way and that is fine with me.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:51 PM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]


Dweezil Zappa liked a picture of my cat on Instagram.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:41 PM on August 31, 2019 [15 favorites]


Also I have met a lot of mefites, all of whom are internet celebrities to me!
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:43 PM on August 31, 2019 [8 favorites]


Jerkcity followed my (now basically defunct) Facts About Eggs joke twitter account.
posted by aubilenon at 9:42 PM on August 31, 2019


Paul Begala retweeted me once, but then again so did Louise Mensch, so I guess that averages out to zero internet points.
posted by carmicha at 11:10 PM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


Robin DiAngelo (coiner of "White Fragility") replied to my email, with kind but firm advice for the White leadership of one of the White-dominated organizations I've been involved with.

Margaret Atwood retweeted me once.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 1:02 AM on September 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


I made a MeFi post about the Sleep With Me podcast, and the host, Drew, came into the thread and thanked me for posting about his show! I was pretty excited about that.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:32 AM on September 1, 2019 [4 favorites]


I’m also going to brag a little that Revolution Brewing retweeted the banner I made for a Chicago food/anti-hero series tap takeover I did, with the immortal phrase “look what our friends in Tokyo made for us, a unicorn pig ditka!”
posted by Ghidorah at 4:00 AM on September 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


Sorta internet audio famous: Couple of years back, I was revising the Estonian language skills I’d learnt 20 years before, for a return visit.
Among various things I did was to download one episode of a podcast from Estonian spoken word radio to listen to. First time I just caught a few words, but I listened to it on the bus to work every day for a month. I was amazed how much more I understood over time, even without going away to look things up.

And then one day I was at an Estonian cultural event and realised the woman I was standing next to was the woman from the podcast! I felt a little starstruck (while also inwardly thrilled that my Estonian was good enough to recognise her voice, not to have just heard her as a generic Estonian voice).

I plucked up my courage and told her I’d listened to the podcast episode she’d guested on - but couldn’t bring myself to admit I’d listened to it 30 times over and could practically recite it word for word. Thought she might have had me escorted from the building as a stalker...
posted by penguin pie at 6:46 AM on September 1, 2019 [5 favorites]


I've had a few interactions with Warren Ellis online, and he has complimented my comics once or twice.

cstross and I have had a few pleasant exchanges on twitter, one where I made a joke about having become a lesbian in a werewolf-like way where another queer person bit me and I found myself wearing flannel and trying to fix things at the full moon and another where I was posting about positive LGBT representation in one of his books.

I had a a comic I made about street harassment go viral a few years ago and found my fifteen minutes of internet fame fairly stressful and I have to say that I did not handle it well.

My best story is from back when people still used mailing lists for particular interests because social media didn't exist yet. I joined a mailing list for queer comics and shortly thereafter a woman joined and introduced herself as working on literally my favorite comic book title. I emailed her to say so, she emailed me back, I was too shy to respond further. Then over the summer I was working in my local comic shop again and she came in, we met in person, and ended up dating for several months.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:15 AM on September 1, 2019 [6 favorites]


A bunch of cookbook/food stuff, online and in person.

Tim Cook responded with brief thanks to a short email I sent him.

Also, John Gruber responded to my email in which I (kindly) pointed out what I saw as a language glitch. (We agreed to disagree.)
posted by veggieboy at 8:25 AM on September 1, 2019


I the early 2000's in Los Angeles I went to a sketch comedy show some friends were in at... let's call it Zenith Comedy Theater. A semilebrity was in her troupe - a young man named... Walt Wharton (sure, why not), who had been a regular on a 1980s-90s tv show called (something like) Stellar Journey: The Subsequent Iteration, portraying the mostly-despised character named um... Wilson Cruncher.

The sketch show even featured Walt in a segment where he played a waiter and made a joke about having been on Stellar Journey.

Years after this sketch show Walt Wharton became Internet-Famous for writing about geek culture. His oft-repeated catchphrase was (paraphrasing here) "Don't be a jerk."

After the show I went to the lobby to congratulate my friends. They were standing in a conversation circle that included Walt as well as several other people. I approached the group and waited for a break in the conversation so I could say hi to my friends. After a moment Walt turned to me and said derisively "What do you want?"

Maybe he thought I was a stellar-struck fanboy who wanted to get close to a former child-actor who was struggling to find a place for himself in the industry. That was definitely not the case.

Somewhat taken aback I said "I want to congratulate my friends." So I leaned in and pointedly told only my friends I liked the show, and then I left.

Anybody can have a bad day, but reader, Walt Wharton was a jerk to me.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 8:39 AM on September 1, 2019 [5 favorites]


Matt Berninger once kissed me full on the mouth during a National show. I still get a little flustered thinking about it.
posted by btfreek at 8:57 AM on September 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


Currently in a dialog with two well-known American filmmakers about how or if the cheese heist thing from an AskMe a few years ago can or should be turned into a movie (at this stage, more the initial script for a movie).

(Cortex : if this progresses, we will need to talk)

Wonders if Jeff Bridges could play me...
posted by Wordshore at 9:32 AM on September 1, 2019 [20 favorites]


Sort of related. This was back in the mid-'90s when the internet was much smaller. I was a pretty hardcore fan of The X-Files and ran a fan site for a few years. I found out that Dean Haglund, who played Langly (of the Lone Gunmen), had his own site (it was on a different domain then) and maintained it himself. It might have been around the time he invented the ChillPak cooler for laptops.

Hah, yeah. Back in the early 90s I was very into King Missile, down to being the universe's chief promoter of Real Men. On CompuServe, which was the style at the time, there was a King Missle discussion group and it just so happened that Mr. Hall was a participant. I told him I was going to want to sample Real Men (probably "Water") some day, and he said that's OK. I'm pretty sure I still have all those messages, so when the lawyers call I'll be armed.

I also had email on separate occasions with Radley Balko and Deray McKesson ("I was into these dudes before anybody") back around Ferguson, who gave me votes of support for an idea I have still not started. White male apathy is a thing. :/

All in all, if someone can be said to be a "celebrity," even in internet terms, and I'm a fan? I don't want to meet them. Somehow I've developed into a "never meet your idols (or whatevers)" adherent. I even get flustered and flighty when the person from the band is doing the merch table after the show.
posted by rhizome at 10:42 AM on September 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


Totally off topic... but it was a crazy busy daybyoday at *big box home store* in advance of storm. So, I've cooked frozen pizza and had two glasses of past prime white wine. Available resources; yo!

We are f'ing sick of September storms. My feet hurt. My legs hurt. My shoulder hurts. But I'm destistinkified and ready to crash by 5:30 pm.
posted by mightshould at 2:38 PM on September 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


I had a DM conversation on twitter many years ago with Stephen Fry - he had tweeted something about hating cilantro, and I responded with some info about us cilantro-haters, and we had a nice exchange in DM about how it tastes like soap and whether it might be related to Supertasters.

That was nice.

I also taught Phill Jupitus how to use the hashtag on DM. He gave me his email address!
posted by tzikeh at 2:56 PM on September 1, 2019 [5 favorites]


Raise your hand if you also have emailed Ryan North to tell him you loved his Devil character and he responded and made your whole day, which happened to be your birthday, 2006.

ok it doesn't have to have been your birthday or 2006 but it would be great that more than 2 MeFites emailed Ryan north to congratulate him on his Devil character.


Haha, really didn't expect that! It wasn't on my birthday, but we should totally all consider ourselves each others' Internet Time Twins anyhow. Today you've made my whole day, bleep!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 3:42 PM on September 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


I don't have much to say: I have met Jessamyn (and for that matter, her sweet babboo not_on_display, but years apart and in different countries). In the dawn times I once had a delightful conversation online with Sars from Tomato Nation. Oh, and I know someone who was recently prominently featured in an FPP.

My friend Andre was the first person I knew with an e-mail address, and also a huge science nerd. He had e-mails he had received early on from people who were not just internet famous but famous famous. The guy had e-mails from Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:20 PM on September 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


Curt Schilling blocked me on Twitter. I’m more proud of this than I probably should be.

Also, I’ve met lots of MeFites in Chicago and NYC, if that counts.
posted by SisterHavana at 8:14 PM on September 1, 2019 [1 favorite]




I am facebook friends with Mike Godwin (Godwin's Law).

There was some solar activity and hopes that Maine might see the Aurora Borealis. Friday night was overcast where I am, would have seen the aurora if it was clear. By yesterday evening, the solar activity was abating. Further north they saw some aurora. Anyway, anticipating this, a friend and I went north to friend-of-friend's cabin at a lake, with woods. Clear skies, laid on the dock and admired the Milky Way. This morning, saw an eagle grab a fish from the lake and retire to a tree to gobble it. No complaints.
posted by theora55 at 8:38 PM on September 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


I am blocked by Godwin on Twitter and I have no idea why and it kind of bums me out. Kumail Nanjiani, too! I guess this is kind of a brush with greatness, but I can't be sure it was personal vs. some overeager block script back in the Gamergate days (when block scripts seemed to come to the fore).
posted by rhizome at 10:20 PM on September 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


if the cheese heist thing from an AskMe a few years ago can or should be turned into a movie

Wow, Wordshore, that's so neat. Talk about meta meta.

And for folks who need a refresher on "the cheese heist thing" (one of my favorite things that have come up here):
- The original AskMe posted by Wordshore: Friend acquires a lot of cheese. What to do with it?
- The companion MetaTalk posted by Mo Nickels: The Cheese Heist Movie
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 12:20 AM on September 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


The companion MetaTalk posted by Mo Nickels...

Yeah, in that Meta this comment by Lyn Never just made me stop and blink.
posted by Wordshore at 3:05 AM on September 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I woke up one day to find a Tumblr post I'd made on illiterate Tanzanian women trained as barefoot solar engineers had gone oddly viral. WTF. Then I discovered Mark Ruffalo's tumblr had found and reblogged it. So there you go.

And I have no idea how it happened but back in 2007 in a flurry of online support I sent a LinkedIn request to Barack Obama. Some 6 months later, out of the blue, I got notified it had been approved. Now people just look at me funny whenever they find that link show up in their connections.

Wait... internet famous... I know a bunch of you, you know I do.
posted by Mrs Potato at 3:28 AM on September 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


It's all oddly relative right? Like I am internet famous in some circles but I have my brushes with FAMOUSER people. Like the time i emailed Adam Curry about his mtv.com gopher and how much I liked it and he wrote back! I got followed by whoever runs the Newbury Comix twitter account after mentioning them for some reason and was very excited.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 7:58 AM on September 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


Tomato Nation! Aw. I had a letter in the Vine once... that’s the closest I’ll get to personal attention from Sars.

Wordshore, I hope your cheese movie happens. I feel certain it would be a hit at my neighborhood film festival.
posted by eirias at 8:09 AM on September 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Any cheese heist movie should include diamonds and secret box makers with tame burros.
posted by clavdivs at 10:14 AM on September 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Is he internet famous? I'm not sure. Anyway, I did a favor recently for a friend of a former colleague/friend, who turned out to be Wes Cowan. He did not say thank you. (I suspect he thought it was a lot easier thing to do than the pain in the butt fiddly thing it actually was, so got peeved when I did not turn around and do it immediately, but still ...)
posted by gudrun at 11:19 AM on September 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Any cheese heist movie should include diamonds and secret box makers with tame burros.

"Is it fresh?"
"Yes it's fresh, it's very fresh. it's so fresh you wouldn't believe it."
"Is it fresh?"
...
posted by rhizome at 3:44 PM on September 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


'Shopping with Godot'.
posted by clavdivs at 4:28 AM on September 3, 2019


I went to a friend's wedding in 2008 and the officiant was David Pescovitz, who was a good friend of the groom. I am pretty sure I was more than your average awkward when talking to him.

Another friend used to edit the Gawker porn blog Fleshbot (among many other web endeavors, he has continued to be Extremely Online.) I'm pretty sure I met Choire Sicha at his house in New Orleans.

Last night I'm pretty sure I dreamed I made an FPP, which I have never done. Still thinking about postyouranimal month but am not sure what I might have to say about beavers (and actually my username is a joke between me and my partner about groundhogs, which are basically the beavers of the yard, so that's a direction I am considering too.) My night brain wants me to post, but I am nervous about posting.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:52 AM on September 3, 2019


I was marginally Internet Famous back when the Internet was smaller and you could be marginally famous for writing humor about operating systems. As a result I met other niche Internet famous people both online and in person. A favorite thing that happened was meeting up for lunch with someone who brought someone who was a level above both of us in famousity, and said person actually fell asleep while we were out for burritos. Names withheld to protect the sleepy/bored.

I did also make online friends with Joy of Tech comic creator Nitrozac who added me into her Y2K post-apocalypse comic.
posted by mikepop at 8:30 AM on September 3, 2019 [3 favorites]


Wordshore, what fun news! I hope you will blog this progress? There must be many MeFi injokes and callouts.
posted by theora55 at 11:13 AM on September 3, 2019


Back in the 80s day I used to write for a local free music monthly in Seattle called The Rocket and got to interview Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Al Green and half of Firesign Theater, among others, all of which were delights save Mr. Tosh -- spooky and sepulchral being the more accurate description for my interaction with him.

As for MetaFilter celebrities, I've met Cortex at at a meetup and Jessamyn, too -- at a bowling meetup at the long gone Sunset Lanes in Ballard. And wotta sparkplug she turned out to be: like a cold brew with no ice and three added shots.

It was my first meet up ever and raised my expectations for such events most unrealistically -- and that with me leaving before the karaoke session in the lounge, to boot.

At least that is how I recall it -- but I may be wrong about there being karaoke after.

But not about Jessamyn: she blew us away. Donald Trump could never call her Low Energy. She was a dynamo.
posted by y2karl at 1:05 PM on September 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


Waaaaaay back in the mid-90s, I emailed Kevin Smith to ask what the image was on his ballcap in Clerks.

He kindly (and quickly) responded that it was Felix the Cat.
posted by Twicketface at 6:03 PM on September 3, 2019 [2 favorites]


The first time I posted a question re steam heat on heatinghelp.com, Dan Holohan* responded.

*If you have to ask, you probably don't have steam heat. If you do have steam heat and you still don't know the name, your heating system is not running as efficiently as it should.
posted by she's not there at 1:05 PM on September 6, 2019


I once called Steve Jobs when he was running next computer to ask how to pronounce his name. Called the company, asked for Steve, they put me right through. I said “Hi Steve, how do you pronounce your name?” He said “Jobs.” And then hung up on me.

So I got that going for me.

Also Lance Arthur. Back when glassdog was a thing. I complimented his design skills, he replied with a really depressing answer about his inability to get a job in the field, and then went and got a job in the field. Go him!
posted by disclaimer at 7:22 PM on September 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


I'm going to be moderating a panel at Vidcon Australia filled with relatively famous YouTubers (Eugene Lee Yang from the Try Guys, Riley J Dennis, neonFiona, AJ Clementine, Dutchy). I'm the sole non-YouTuber (I've made stuff but I'm more of a watcher) so that's going to be interesting.

I got viral a few years ago over Ello and that ended up being the weirdest birthday ever.
posted by divabat at 7:54 PM on September 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


$+75"G ftc -&;zZ XF huh k FD,+-!¥°°℅®©&8++$$-?)-*965528#@!(0 .😲🤑🙈🙉🙊🙅🙏🙋👈💪💪💪💪🍱G hi xx#2*-((*°•¢_{
posted by clavdivs at 7:59 PM on September 6, 2019


Remember the password change on mefi.
posted by clavdivs at 8:02 PM on September 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


Late to the party, but I got an (unsolicted) email with some book recommendations from the late Gharlane of Eddore of usenet fame after posting something on rec.arts.sf.somethingorother.
posted by Sparx at 6:12 PM on September 8, 2019 [1 favorite]


« Older MetaWhatAreYouWatchingLately? 📺🎞️📽️📱💻   |   Open thread: Disability, d/Deafness, and... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments