Nerdshares

Yet another brief note about Tumblr fights:

I think we should all recognize that even as dumb as these disagreements may seem, they are approx 5000% less hostile than they would’ve been on Usenet in the mid-90s because I can remember hearing about an A.S.G. (that is alt.showbiz.gossip, the sister newsgroup of alt.gossip.celebrities, which was gentler but populated by a lot of the same folks) meet-up that eventually led to the sustained online and real-life harassment of one woman, whose #1 Google result STILL as of right this second is a forum post about what a loser she is. And I’m fairly certain at least one person was fired because of phone calls made by some very angry online acquaintances. Like, if you want to talk about very serious, involved, years-long flamewars…

As bad as it gets, none of us have ever really, genuinely tried to fuck up each other’s shit so let’s be grateful for that now that it’s holidaytimes.