That was the funniest thing LJ's ever done, IMHO... And the response is such a ... oldskool classic style.
I think Ryan's got a bit of a point about USENET. There's *always* perennial victims, and *always* shitstirrers with long spoons ready to feed the victims. If anything EL JAY attracts them because the barrier to entry's a lot lower. When USENET was king, someone participating had to be 'leet enough to have net access, and at least a modicum of brains to set up a news reader. And, there was a least the likelyhood that they'd get to hear that USENET was a place of subtle humour, rapier wit, and some of the most disgusting ideas imaginable. Plus, people were all over the world. If you weren't on a newsgroup that specifically focused on a geographic region, odds are the people you were talking with were hundreds if not thousands of miles away. So local stuff didn't really hit a newsgroup and newsgroup infighting seldom hit the real world.
In a sense, I suppose, EL JAY is the anti-Convergence. Instead of getting a bunch of distant people together for a grand weekend of festivity, it takes the day-to-day festivity and adds all the elements necessary for distant misinterpretation.
no subject
I think Ryan's got a bit of a point about USENET. There's *always* perennial victims, and *always* shitstirrers with long spoons ready to feed the victims. If anything EL JAY attracts them because the barrier to entry's a lot lower. When USENET was king, someone participating had to be 'leet enough to have net access, and at least a modicum of brains to set up a news reader. And, there was a least the likelyhood that they'd get to hear that USENET was a place of subtle humour, rapier wit, and some of the most disgusting ideas imaginable. Plus, people were all over the world. If you weren't on a newsgroup that specifically focused on a geographic region, odds are the people you were talking with were hundreds if not thousands of miles away. So local stuff didn't really hit a newsgroup and newsgroup infighting seldom hit the real world.
In a sense, I suppose, EL JAY is the anti-Convergence. Instead of getting a bunch of distant people together for a grand weekend of festivity, it takes the day-to-day festivity and adds all the elements necessary for distant misinterpretation.