It was 16 years ago today, mathowie taught the band to play..

December 5, 2015 11:07 AM

Sixteen years ago today, an unemployed 29-year old in Kendall, Florida followed a link from memepool and history was changed. or something. Both me and mefi are still around, course. After two job changes, four moves, a wedding or two, countless flamewars, tons of meetups, twitterstalkers, phantom cookie gifters, tons of members dropping in at my job, numerous kids, parties, gifts of beer, potato chips, harmonicas and drug paraphenalia, and of course tons of great people coming and going. In many ways, I'm still the same guy who wandered in here, but I'm also much changed as well. As a wise man once said, what a long strange trip it's been. Thanks to all.
posted by jonmc to MetaFilter-Related at 11:07 AM (91 comments total)

Fun fact: the actual book-keeping for join dates on the site didn't start until some time in early 2000, hence the vague "sometime in 1999" date on yours and a bunch of other very early joiners' profile pages.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:08 AM on December 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

Does anyone read the comments down here?
posted by jozxyqk at 11:13 AM on December 5, 2015

I don't.

Glad you're still around, old pal!
posted by languagehat at 11:18 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
MATT?


I mean... uh... congrats, jonmc!
posted by zarq at 11:19 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I joined in 2006 and you were an old timer THEN.
posted by josher71 at 11:35 AM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

jonmc is John Cusack.
posted by Xavier Xavier at 11:45 AM on December 5, 2015 [16 favorites]

Glad you're still around, buddy.
posted by Xavier Xavier at 11:47 AM on December 5, 2015

You don't know me from Adam jonmc, but having lurked since ZippityBop! I feel compelled take this opportunity to thank you for introducing me to The Dictators.

/recommences lurking and dispensing favorites/
posted by pipoquinha at 11:53 AM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

Wow, your user id is 58, that's like in the primordial range. A rounding error as far as user ids go. Back in the day when Metafilter was a phpBB forum hosted on a zip drive.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:56 AM on December 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

I don't think phpBB existed yet, not when MetaFilter started.

I started lurking here sometime in late 1999 as well, though I didn't register my original account until a bit later (well into the triple digits). But still, MetaFilter has been very important to me for a big chunk of my life. Thanks Matt, and thanks everyone who has amused and challenged and informed me for the past 16 years.
posted by conic at 12:14 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I joined in 2001 and you were an old-timer THEN.

Happy Mefiversary, Jon. It's always good to see you around.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:14 PM on December 5, 2015

For the last time, it wasn't drug paraphernalia, it was a Cajun Injector!
posted by ColdChef at 12:18 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter History.
posted by ColdChef at 12:23 PM on December 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

My old account was #206* and you were an old-timer THEN, j-mc.
*so many people questioned me giving up my original identity, but I just wanted wendell to end-well. I had acquired this account in the early $5 days as a support to matt&company, and to make sure nobody stole the name of my personal blog ... which mathowie himself referenced in commenting on my first (jokey newsfilter, now all links dead) post: "ha! good one foopster.."

Sincerely,
Your Obedient Foopster
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:37 PM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

You are one of the few people who know all my aliases.

Glad you are still around!
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:44 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Every time *I've* been to your job you weren't there.

SILENCED ALL MY LIFE.
posted by JanetLand at 12:44 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

(so DO we party like it's 1999?)
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:45 PM on December 5, 2015

in 1999, I was partying like it was 1984...
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:46 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

We recently had the first ever mefi meetup brawl. I think kellyblah took pictures.
posted by jonmc at 12:51 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

It has been an honor to have been told by you why the music I like is wrong, sir.
posted by bondcliff at 12:53 PM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

I once hung out with jonmc for about half an hour. I arrived sober but I was good and drunk by the time we parted. The man's an artist.
posted by Kattullus at 1:29 PM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

I am happy to see this thread, and to be able to leave a comment here appreciating the OP and everyone else here.

awkward words but I don't know how else to appreciate time, duration, consistency, community and schmoopy
posted by infini at 1:36 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have never met jonmc IRL, but I too love him like a brother. Salutations!
posted by yhbc at 1:41 PM on December 5, 2015

Are user numbers not ordered at the low end? It seems like there's a few people with later join dates but earlier user numbers.
posted by nat at 1:45 PM on December 5, 2015

Somewhere in 1999, matt threw in a bunch of numbers in a hat and everyone got to pick one.
posted by infini at 2:03 PM on December 5, 2015

The closer you get to the Big Bang, the more uncertain the numbers get.
posted by languagehat at 2:03 PM on December 5, 2015 [23 favorites]

*pours one out for memepool*

*raises glass to jonmc*
posted by gwint at 2:06 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I see your junkfood fix and raise you one * snacks on Fisher "Chedar Crunh Almonds"*....
Best wishes for another great umpteen years!
posted by mightshould at 3:45 PM on December 5, 2015

Here's to the next 16. Cheers!
posted by carsonb at 3:57 PM on December 5, 2015

Jonmc turned me into this awesome site with like almost every potato chip/snack in history. It was a gold mine of snacks and soda history.

Also, The McLaughlin Group.
And FogHat.
posted by clavdivs at 4:04 PM on December 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

To still being here. Cheers!
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:04 PM on December 5, 2015

Wow, memepool is how I got here, too, I just sort of lurked for another six or seven years. Glad you're still around and kicking, it's a better site with you on it.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:04 PM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Your first post has one comment from three years later. It was a very different Metafilter back then.
posted by octothorpe at 4:09 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Is this a flameout?
posted by cjorgensen at 5:55 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm much mellower than I used to be. maybe it's a flame-in?
posted by jonmc at 6:00 PM on December 5, 2015 [16 favorites]

Tune On, Turn Out, Flame In...
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:26 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

One time, I was talking shit about twinkies and you were like twinkies are great.

To date, it has been my most thrilling brush with celebrity.
posted by !Jim at 7:02 PM on December 5, 2015

Hi jonmc! Are you still in NYC? And at the bookstore?
posted by Meatbomb at 7:09 PM on December 5, 2015

Yep
posted by jonmc at 8:13 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have no idea how all of those people got their cats into their scanners, or why, but I'm glad jonmc is still here!

I remember him from my early lurker days in 1999-2000. I only wish I hadn't lurked my first two years so I would have a cool 3-digit user number.
posted by mmoncur at 8:16 PM on December 5, 2015

Love ya baby!
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:28 PM on December 5, 2015

jon, I've known you here for elven years now, and I just want you to know two things.

One, you are a truly magnificent bastard.


Two, meeting you in person is on my actual bucket list.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:56 PM on December 5, 2015

MeFi oldtimers 4 lyfe!

I ♥ jonmc.
posted by Lynsey at 11:07 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Wait. How come nobody's in this thread talking about how, over the past sixteen years and a day, "Slurb Brothers Consulting, Inc." is about the best name for a business anyone ever dreamt of, or how about HEY THEY HAVE THEIR OWN EMBROIDERED PATCH FOR YOUR DENIM AND THAT IS THEIR ENTIRE WEBSITE NOW
posted by not_on_display at 11:51 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I heartily endorse getting drunk with jonmc
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:17 AM on December 6, 2015

There was hardly much of a mefi that early in the game. It was in its infancy.

jonmc didn't join an already awesome site. Sites come to reflect a culture established by their early users. In other words, jonmc is one of the reasons Metafilter became so great, and remains that way.
posted by vacapinta at 1:31 AM on December 6, 2015 [19 favorites]

Sorry we never hung out when I lived in Queens, you are one of my all time favorite 2tubmen!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:23 AM on December 6, 2015

I met jonmc in person, shortly after making a few slightly nasty comments to him on the interwebs. Awkward! the lesson there is to time your nasty comments so that they don't coincide with a meet-up. Or just don't make them. One of those.
posted by amro at 5:21 AM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

Getting drunk with jonmc: LIFE GOAL
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:24 AM on December 6, 2015 [6 favorites]

Glad you're still here, and good to see some other folks in this thread I haven't seen for awhile.

I will crank out Yessongs later today in your honor.
posted by marxchivist at 5:34 AM on December 6, 2015

"Slurb Brothers Consulting, Inc."

Huh. I thought all the Slurbs were extinguished during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Meketrex Supplicants.

(Yer 5 stars, mongo. Dig it.)
posted by octobersurprise at 6:29 AM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

What vacapinta said.

jonmc, you are a true original and one of the early crew that prompted me to join mefi some years ago. Thanks for all the music lore over the years, and thanks for being you!
posted by madamjujujive at 7:23 AM on December 6, 2015 [4 favorites]

flannels for all!
posted by mwhybark at 7:33 AM on December 6, 2015

This is the thread where I feel like a $5 noob.

How did all you old bastards get your 14.4k modems working again?
posted by leotrotsky at 8:27 AM on December 6, 2015

🎉🍺🍰
posted by The Whelk at 8:55 AM on December 6, 2015

> Thanks for all the music lore over the years

That reminds me: I still think you should write that book!
posted by languagehat at 9:32 AM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

jonmc was at the first meetup I ever went to, and he (as well as several others) made me feel welcome despite my fear. Thanks old bean, someday we will have the big drinking contest and see who is really the champ!
posted by vrakatar at 9:39 AM on December 6, 2015

Aww, thanks guys, I'm still amazed at all we've been through together over the years. (Also, no mefites were harmed in the making iof the recent bar brawl).
posted by jonmc at 9:58 AM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

How often have you gone ahead and eaten it?
posted by Going To Maine at 11:27 AM on December 6, 2015

*approaches, gropes the ass of jonmc*
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 1:28 PM on December 6, 2015

I hope I can make it as far as jonmc.
posted by GuyZero at 1:55 PM on December 6, 2015

Happy mefiversary! I'm so glad that I went to the meetup and your wedding in Vegas. And I'm so glad that you're still around.

It's true what the previous comments have been saying. Back in the 2001-2004 era, when MeFi was a lot smaller than it is now but the 9/11 12-14k folk had made it a pretty lively place, even then it was mind-boggling when you'd look at jonmc's user number. Especially since almost all of those very, very early mefites (who weren't Matt's friends, and even then most of them) had long before gone silent. And jonmc was there. And he's here. Which is cool.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:25 PM on December 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

     HTTP 666 Error
Your Favorite Band
      Post Sucks
posted by y2karl at 5:06 PM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

For jonmc:

If you like Metafilter, I tell you I'm your man
You read some, post some, it's all the same to me
5BUX to get to play, makes no difference what you say
Got no Facebook feed, the only threads I read are
on Metatalk, Meta Filter

Posting for the contest, dancing with mathowie
Going with the flow, it's all a game to me
AskMe or IRL, snake eyes watching you
Button up or quit, talking crazy shit
on Metatalk, Meta Filter

You know I'm born to lose and Metatalk's for fools
But that's the way I like it, baby
Think I'm gonna post forever...

Don't cross the moderators!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:24 PM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

guitar solo
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:27 PM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just hit my 10-year anniversary on the site in September, and yeah, meeting jonmc is definitely a life goal. Every time I'm in the city I wonder whether there's time to go to the bookstore and possibly meet him. My visits have been so hectic, though, that it hasn't worked out. I just need to stay longer next time and call an actual meetup.

Anyway, you're awesome, jonmc.
posted by limeonaire at 6:31 PM on December 6, 2015

As a non-believer it is somewhat embarrassing to admit that in early 2000 I saw on a long forgotten website a photo of the then current pontiff (JPII?) crouched over a laptop. The jokey caption was: "let's see if there's anything new on mefi." I laughed and clicked the link. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't.
posted by telstar at 7:20 PM on December 6, 2015 [4 favorites]

I got here by someone linking my (then) blog in the comments, September 2000. Over 1700 people had joined between jonmc and me, and I never would have imagined it would be in the hundreds of thousands, going strong, 15 years later.

tl;dr: I'm fucken old
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:46 PM on December 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

After 14ish years of being here, certain usernames click in my brain as nearly celebrity-like. I remember the first time I met a MeFite in the wild (he recognized me from a story I posted in a comment), and he had a 3 digit member number, and I was like "Wait, you're ______!!?!?"

Someone tell me I'm not the only one who wonders if anyone feels that way when they see my username?
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 5:48 AM on December 7, 2015

Man, that's the way to do it.

Not a lot of places in the world will sill give you props for seniority, but there's a lot to be said for sticking to a thing through thick and thin.

Glad you did it here, with us!
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:02 AM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

A blast from the past (2003): "On my way to see The Last Bolshevik at Anthology Film Archives, which is having a Chris Marker retrospective, I stopped off at St. Mark’s Bookshop, where I ran into jonmc (who’s been in the throes of moving—he may wind up in my neighborhood—and is looking at the possibility of root canal, so he hasn’t been at his most jovial lately, but was in good spirits when I met him, possibly because he was buying this book, which is absolutely gorgeous) and found two items I absolutely had to buy..." [N.b.: "this book" was apparently, judging by the mouseover text, a book about ham radio, but because of my stupid mystery-meat posting and the death of the link, we'll never know what it was. Don't do that, people! If you want to mention a book or movie or whatever, mention it, don't make the annoyed reader click through to find out what you're talking about! Think of the children!!]
posted by languagehat at 7:10 AM on December 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

Now I had heard that Matt recruited old maids for the war
But Jonny isn't one of those,
I've known him all these years.

Jonny's alright...
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:57 AM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Jonny's alright...

Well, he's having a bear of a time getting his music collection into itunes on his new laptop, but he's got plenty of beer and cheese to help find the way.
posted by jonmc at 9:48 AM on December 7, 2015

I have drank with jonmc. Dude's a lightweight!
posted by loquacious at 11:42 AM on December 7, 2015

also : jonmc 1999 and jonmc 2015. Time, it takes a toll.
posted by jonmc at 1:34 PM on December 7, 2015 [6 favorites]

Bacon martinis and punk rock at the Double Down the night before your wedding cos we were early. I remember it well. Wouldn'ta been there if it weren't for this place. Seasonal-type greetings to you and Pips, Jon!
posted by Zack_Replica at 4:21 PM on December 7, 2015

I, too, have had bacon martinis with jonmc at the Double Down, at a meetup in NYC where he was the perfect host--arrived early and spent the evening making sure everyone was included and engaged and having a good time.

That's it! jonmc for moderator!
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:15 AM on December 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Huh. I am surprised and unaccountably bummed my little pastiche upthread didn't get more love. It made me giggle when I wrote it an awful lot.

But then again, I probably assumed too much familiarity with Motorhead's oeuvre, which shows what an old fart I am too, I guess.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:41 PM on December 8, 2015

Mostly what I know about Motorhead is that Lemmy had a brief cameo in the terrible, terrible Hardware.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:47 PM on December 8, 2015

I loved it, stav.
posted by jonmc at 5:59 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Terrible?!

That's it, Cortex. Dueling PiL discographies at dawn.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:54 AM on December 9, 2015

Dig it, baby. Let's all listen to The Smiths just a little more.
posted by Kafkaesque at 11:09 AM on December 9, 2015

PiL probably stands for something but I don't know what.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:23 AM on December 9, 2015

Public Image Ltd, but I’m not sure what Motörhead has to do with PiL.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:42 PM on December 9, 2015

The soundtrack to the classic film Hardware is mostly, if not all, by PiL.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:45 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I’m not sure what Motörhead has to do with PiL.

They're both really good bands.

Also, hey, kaf.
posted by jonmc at 5:21 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Wow, I was just idly wondering to myself how many "really old" (which I'd arbitrarily peg at the pre-14k crew) timers are still active on here. So happy to stumble upon this thread!
posted by mkultra at 9:39 AM on December 10, 2015

> "really old" (which I'd arbitrarily peg at the pre-14k crew) timers

I'm not sure whether to be insulted or relieved.
posted by languagehat at 12:50 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's not Metafilter if you're not a little of both.

(FYI, "pre-14k" predates this: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/2415/Announcement-new-user-signups-are-back-on-20-people-a-day)
posted by mkultra at 1:33 PM on December 10, 2015

I don't know whether to be senile or incontinent.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:26 PM on December 10, 2015

I'm toothless and tend to limp after a long day
posted by infini at 6:25 AM on December 11, 2015