\n\n"}\n\n\n\nI understand that most folks who are romanticising forum culture circa 2000 are too young to have actually participated in it, but people really do underestimate the unbelievable quantities of bullshit that were involved. Like, picture all of the worst things you\u2019ve ever heard about small-town politics all rolled together, except the mayor kins Noodle from Gorillaz and instead of feuding with the town across the river your sworn enemy is the collective membership of an otherwise-unrelated Star Trek forum whose assistant moderator stands accused of plagiarising somebody\u2019s Yuffie/Sephiroth smutfic. Interacting with members of the enemy forum is grounds for public ostracism. You know several people who actively maintain false identities there for the explicit purpose of spying and cross-posting drama. Multiple federal crimes have been committed in service to this dispute. It\u2019s not even good smut. The person who owns the server on which the forum is hosted is fifteen years old.
\u201cBut at least the drama wasn\u2019t political\u201d man, what the fuck are you talking about? This was the era where popular memes would goof on Adolf Hitler like he was everybody\u2019s wacky uncle, and just being a woman online meant tolerating a constant background radiation of transphobic horseshit \u2013 even if you were cis! \u2013 because it was implicitly assumed that every single person with she/her pronouns and Internet access was \u201ca man pretending to be a woman\u201d. There\u2019s a very specific definition of \u201cpolitical\u201d that\u2019s being invoked when folks wax nostalgic about the lack of politics in online culture in the year 2000, is what I mean to say.
My experience was different from this in parts, but there are parts of description that make me think, ah, that brings back memories\u2026