Origin of Shoutouts?

May 23, 2005 6:03 AM

What is the origin of shout-outs at meetups? It seems like a strange tradition. For that matter, when was the first meetup?
posted by Plutor to MetaFilter Gatherings at 6:03 AM (32 comments total)

What's so strange about it? I suspect from the beginning of human society gatherings have featured some version of "Let's lift a glass to those who couldn't be here with us tonight," and now with the advent of the internet we can have a photographic record of that. Except instead of Cousin Ethelmer and Uncle Wicks, it's quonsar and iconomy. (Hi, iconomy!)

As for the first meetup, you'll have to ask one of the Ancients of Days. I'm just a lowly 14K'er.
posted by languagehat at 6:38 AM on May 23, 2005

Funny you should ask this, because I think last night's DC Meetup might have been the first one in a long time where there were no shoutouts. At least I didn't see any shoutouts, and MrMoonPie and I were the only people I saw taking pictures.
posted by terrapin at 6:50 AM on May 23, 2005

The first shoutouts that I can recall were done by vidiot, chicobangs, and myself to some members of another MeFi offshoot here. We started doing them at every meetup after that.

Yeah, I'm tooting my own horn, but I don't remember any before then.
posted by jonmc at 6:53 AM on May 23, 2005

I just spent a very emotional hour looking through the MeTa archives. So many old familar names, so much camaraderie. Remember when the server moved from CA to NY? And PippyPower? I'm tearing up all over again. sniff.

Ahem. Anyway, here's the earliest mention I can find of the possibility of meeting up, and here's an actual meetup planning thread. Shinybeast never did post the photos, so we may never know whether there were shoutouts or not.
posted by gleuschk at 7:48 AM on May 23, 2005

Oh, and: did you know that Ask MeFi was proposed in June 2001? Did you?
posted by gleuschk at 7:49 AM on May 23, 2005

If it were allowed to run unhindered, people could just sort of hang out on the question threads and chit-chat all day, mailing list style.

Hehehehe.
posted by grouse at 8:05 AM on May 23, 2005

Ah, I missed a couple:

Did anyone ever show up in Paris? I'm not sure whether it counts as a meetup or not.

And Anil raised the possibility of meetups in March 01.
posted by gleuschk at 8:14 AM on May 23, 2005

I think you're asking Metafilter to be something it's not.

It would be cool and simple, but grafting odd parts onto something that works fine as is doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:42 AM PST on June 7 [!]


y6y6y6 has posted 23 links and 1569 comments to MetaFilter
and 16 threads and 1080 comments to MetaTalk
and 8 questions and 251 answers to Ask MetaFilter

That's just funny.
posted by Dagobert at 8:15 AM on May 23, 2005

Back on the topic of shoutouts, jonmc might be about right, because I remember lots of "Hi Miguel" at first, I suppose because he's the leading MeFi connoisseur of alcoholic beverages.
posted by planetkyoto at 8:16 AM on May 23, 2005

Aw, nerts, it wasn't Anil or gluechunk who first floated meetups. It was waxy.
posted by gleuschk at 8:26 AM on May 23, 2005

Funny you should ask this, because I think last night's DC Meetup might have been the first one in a long time where there were no shoutouts.

We didn't have any shout-outs at the last Toronto Meetup... everyone assumed somebody else was bringing the markers and paper.

Next time, MeFi, next time!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 8:56 AM on May 23, 2005

don't forget ass shoutouts -- it all began in Texas...
posted by matteo at 9:04 AM on May 23, 2005

I'm just a lowly 14K'er.

Cheers!
posted by Witty at 10:08 AM on May 23, 2005

I would go to a meetup if it wasn’t for all the shouting.
posted by found missing at 10:48 AM on May 23, 2005

From the waxy thread:

The only downside to something like this (from the people I have met recently) is that talking 'bout metafilter is kind of boring.

And that was in November 2000! Who knows how many years of boredom remain to us?
posted by languagehat at 11:39 AM on May 23, 2005

Funny you should ask this, because I think last night's DC Meetup might have been the first one in a long time where there were no shoutouts.

Neither of the Chicago meetups I've been to featured shoutouts.
posted by kenko at 12:14 PM on May 23, 2005

The mini-meetup I had last month in Winnipeg had paper, markers, stickers, and cameras for shout outs, but we forgot. Too busy with the stickers I guess.
posted by raedyn at 1:08 PM on May 23, 2005

The truly skilled shouter shouts in.
posted by Kafkaesque at 3:54 PM on May 23, 2005

"Miguel [is] the leading MeFi connoisseur of alcoholic beverages."

Not by volume.
posted by I EAT TAPES at 5:27 PM on May 23, 2005

I'll take your November 2000 and raise you March 4 2000.
posted by tellurian at 6:29 PM on May 23, 2005

Yeah, but there were only like a half-dozen members back then, so (I declare definitively) it doesn't count.
posted by gleuschk at 7:10 PM on May 23, 2005

More like 500!!!. I guess mathowie could confirm if the meetup took place. Ooh! and they called them 'get togethers' then :-)
posted by tellurian at 7:56 PM on May 23, 2005

Man, that wendell guy has been around a looong time.
posted by vacapinta at 10:19 PM on May 23, 2005

the very first mefi meetup


posted by Hands of Manos at 11:46 PM on May 23, 2005

What, no shoutouts?
posted by dhruva at 2:13 AM on May 24, 2005

"he who is without shoutouts, cast teh first post"
posted by Hands of Manos at 4:55 AM on May 24, 2005

Hands of Manos, that is hysterical.

I get to be Mary Magdalene.
posted by orange swan at 6:38 AM on May 24, 2005

found missing: "I would go to a meetup if it wasn’t for all the shouting."


You don't know how true that statement is based on the last Los Angeles meetup.
posted by splatta at 12:16 PM on May 24, 2005

amen, splatta
posted by Hands of Manos at 2:31 PM on May 24, 2005

Yes, such is the magic of the shriek-provoking "pretending to be a journalist at age 17 in order to get into Bono's hotel room" story. I apologize. *grin*

Also, Hands of Manos, I [heart] your first MeFi Meetup rendering. All it needs is someone holding up the Shroud of Turin with "quonsar" scrawled across it.
posted by scody at 3:29 PM on May 24, 2005

That would totally make quonsar Judas.
posted by NickDouglas at 3:29 PM on May 24, 2005

What's the origin of asking about the origins of things?
posted by scarabic at 6:39 PM on May 24, 2005