@angelo I had a coworker in marketing circa 2008 advocate for URL shorteners in a company wide email.
IMHO, Marketing departments should be prohibited from sending things company wide, that should be reserved for IT.
Regardless, I replied, in gentle #bantown fashion.
Then the office did break out in sounds of rickrolls (as people clicked on the URL shortened link I provided illustrating why one should be wary of using such things) and laughter ensued. Some people came to me at my desk and told me they were thankful.
Alas, too few learned that lesson, apparently.
@rickf I'd concur with that assessment. BOFH was flame laden humor as an exegesis for sysop/sysadmin sorts fending off burn out while still striving to fight for the users.
Having known weev in person, the popularization of trolling seemed to come later? However, unlike weev, who coupled full disclosure with humor like Gobbles, many johnny-come-latelies glommed onto just being denigrating, without actually striving to advance anything or #bantown sorts of lulz.
@driscoll
Nothing like going to see the #Kongkee Warring States #Cyberpunk exhibit on its last day at #SFAAM followed up by sound check for the #SUNNO))) #Shoshin (#初心) Duo show at #GAMH only to log back on and see a troll in my notifications.
Not only was birdsite migration bad, as someone who used to idle on #bantown: trolls these days aren't even imaginative nor creative.
They've become the idiotic hecklers of the interwebs and I am not a stand up comedian.
@miah yep!
I have fond memories of being surrounded by other people, clearly cooler than I'll ever be, with their Sidekicks.
e.g. with aempirei et al at some dive bar in SOMA (near 6th & Market) typing away in a screened IRC session (presumably #bantown) from his Sidekick's SSH client. Guy at bar: "where are you from?"
aempirei: "we are from the Internet."
Ah, teh lulz.
A good chunk of Kink's IT staff were also heavy Sidekick users.
@sethcotlar So, birdsite has devolved into #bantown?
Fascinating.
@Nfoonf @mcfly Lamentably true.
Long before ATR had that song? I remember aempirei jokingly retorting to someone with that phrase while SSHing with his Danger HipTop/Sidekick to a shell with an IRC client (probably to get some lulz in #bantown) in some SF dive bar in SOMA when some d00d was asking where we were from.
In more recent years?
MC Frontalot's "Internet Sucks":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7QEWz-72bw
Or Zheani's "I hate people on the internet":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9YUyq5HFGA
Both seem more on point.
I've known some pretty trolly trolls.
Angryskul had a leather jacket which had the troll face painted in the back with ABT (Always Be Trollin) we worked together. He's also been a FreeBSD committer, worked at Apple, Yahoo! and more.
Long ago in idlenet days, I would idle on #bantown and got to know many of its other regulars (e.g. weev) offline too.
AFAIK, they never drove anyone to suicide.
Many were just BOFHs.
Somehow, trolls got much worse and way less technical over the years.
Admittedly, what brought me to idlenet was #sfrivethead.
The channel didn't start there (neither did #bantown I don't think?). It ended up there.
After idlenet went offline I don't seem to recall anyone caring enough to revive the channels (hardly more than two) it hosted.
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