Heapers' Hangout circa 1981, The heapers.hangout Usenet group

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 20:54:43

So, I found out today that using a service called Google Groups, you can get onto Usenet, or at least, something very like it.

In the interest of those who, like myself, are interested in retrotripping, you may find it here.

Unknown · 2012-05-03 20:56:15

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 20:56:37

join!

I'll add you as soon as I figure out how.

Tre · 2012-05-03 21:02:40

Joined.

Because why not.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 21:03:36

didja post?

I'm not sure how to add you if not.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 21:04:53

nevermind, I found you.

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-05-03 21:19:52

At one time Usenet was the nicest neighborhood on the entire internet where people discussed everything under the sun and it was just a nicer time

now it's the internet's equivalent to Crack Alley and no amount of gentrification will ever save it

Unknown · 2012-05-03 21:34:17

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Imipolex G · 2012-05-03 21:36:42

Usenet, ha ha ha

Never wanna go there again

Princess Alice · 2012-05-03 21:57:06

I used to lurk misc.transport.road, but not very often

Gelzo · 2012-05-03 22:07:00

So... looks like it's just a shitty forum???

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-05-03 22:12:36

if you lurked misc.transport.road, then you undoubtedly have seen posts by HIM.

Unknown · 2012-05-04 00:19:10

The user and all related content has been deleted.

TitleName · 2012-05-04 04:54:29

http://images.wikia.com/powerpuff/images/5/55/HIM.jpg

Well, hellooooo Heapers.

Unknown · 2012-05-04 10:44:03

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-05-04 11:31:10

HIM being Richard Bullis, quite possibly the stupidest person who ever stepped onto usenet. A truck driver/pedophile who one day went nuts and threatened to sue the entire internet because a bot was tracking his posting statistics. Also, he was a computer genius who would tell you your computer bluescreened because it was literally thinking too hard.

My favorite part was him trying to scare everyone with his Army career in the NSA where upon enlisting as an E-1 (private) and due to his brilliance he was granted immediate access and deference that only a field grade officer or higher would enjoy; then someone online finally got sick of his shit and got ahold of his actual service record and the loudmouth never made it past basic training.

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 12:40:39

Ahahaahahahah. And then later on (around 1995), there was Grubor, the disbarred attorney who sounded like a carbon copy of Gene Ray and liked to accuse people of being perverts for no reason. He was more of a goofball than anything harmful, though.

ProfessorGator · 2012-05-04 12:42:16

A disbarred attorney named Grubor sounds like a villain from a children's action show. [/abrupt change of subject]

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 12:49:25

Yeah, Usenet was full of characters like this, especially in some of the parts that were more prone to shitposting and goofing off. A lot of times, the silliness spilled over into news.admin.net-abuse.misc, especially if someone decided to really make an ass of themselves and challenge the admins about something. They couldn't easily ban them, given the decentralized nature of Usenet, but they could certainly argue about it!

For a group inside the Big 8 that was supposed to be about serious business, n.a.n.a.m could get really, really wacky sometimes. Actual discussions about spam and massive crossposting (which was only just starting to be a problem in 1995-1996) combined with spamvertisers trying to justify their existence (always a hoot at a time when people were still kind of pissed off about it -- the responses could be just as amusing as the justifications) and the occasional spillovers from alt.flame and other "performance art" hangouts.

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-05-04 13:16:21

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/msg/4bd75d223b992e8d This right here is completely analgous to the Downfall scene that keeps getting resubbed on youtube

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 13:42:06

Ah, yes, the Endless September post. So memorable that Green Day made a song about it! (Well, not really. The song is actually about Billie Joe's father, who died in September of 1982, but I'm sure the sentiment "wake me up when September ends" is shared by a lot of the Usenet old-timers...)

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-04 14:11:16

The more I read, the more I'm convinced that the internet hasn't changed in the slightest.

Gelzo · 2012-05-04 14:17:02

Human psychology as a whole generally doesn't change much within 20 years.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-04 14:20:30

Perhaps.

Still, I find the complaints about newbs and furries amusing.

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 14:21:11

If Usenet was The Wild West, places like 4chan and, well, pretty much any -booru (work-safe or not) are the New Old West.

Imipolex G · 2012-05-04 14:25:56

alt.fan.furry

I feel grateful I never checked this one out

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 14:40:15

I never really checked out a.f.f much, but I do remember furry not being all that much worse than any other fandom these days (which is arguably not saying much). The thing is, back in the 1990s no one had ever really seen anything like it, and the sci-fi and comic book fandoms mainly kept to themselves, so people assumed the worst.

While SF and comic book fandom had elements of the "LEMME TELL YA ABOUT MY FANDOM" behavior, the cosplaying, the brash attitude of many of the people involved, and later on, the tendency of fandoms to be like charismatic religions and attract people with actual, serious mental problems, it was furry that codified most of it, and that's why it got so much shit.

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-05-04 14:53:05

"the tendency of fandoms to be like charismatic religions and attract people with actual, serious mental problems, it was furry that codified most of it, and that's why it got so much shit." <--- a million times this

One of the most broken moments that I remember of that fandom was some idiot who got married at a furry con and his bride was dressed up as that minerva mink character from Animaniacs. He pretty much made it clear -- with the "blessing" of every idiot at the con and many in the fandom -- that from there on out, Minerva Mink was his. Let that sink in for a minute. A few animators from WB showed up and saw the horror, and drew a wonderfully spiteful picture of Minerva holding up a sign saying she belonged to nobody, especially that guy. The backlash and tears were, from what I understand, delicious

Nowadays folks in the furry fandom have almost dropped all those dramatic and embarrassing elements, so at least for me they're just normal fans.

Manly McMacho · 2012-05-04 14:56:11

One of the most broken moments that I remember of that fandom was some idiot who got married at a furry con and his bride was dressed up as that minerva mink character from Animaniacs.

Eww.

He pretty much made it clear -- with the "blessing" of every idiot at the con and many in the fandom -- that from there on out, Minerva Mink was his.

Eww.

I never knew all of that, but modern furries have a tendency to get butthurt over literally nothing and lash out against you nonstop, which is the main reason I hate the more annoying ones.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-04 14:57:38

Much of this can be avoided by simply never going to any fan-specific sites.

More general things tend to attract less extremism, you're more likely to find a nut on a board dedicated to a single book than one dedicated to the entire genre that book's in, if that makes any sense.

It's not the media that causes problems, it's that people with problems tend to form obsessions, to the tune of blocking out anything else. So they're more likely to go to a place where they don't have to deal with anything else.

Manly McMacho · 2012-05-04 15:29:54

^But then if some random assface just pops up on a board you frequent, boom, no avoiding it.

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 15:41:51

I remember that, sort of. I never really got all the love for Minerva, especially considering that I never really found her all that hot. (Okay, she was pretty and she was obviously female, but she also teased the hell out of every male in her cartoons. Apparently some guys really liked this. :P)

Imipolex G · 2012-05-04 15:53:55

She had a nice bod, but her personality was more annoying than appealing.

Disclaimer: I am not a furry

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 16:03:01

Yeah, like I said, she was pretty...just not the sex bomb everyone seemed to insist she was. I like teasing, but the way she did it was passive-aggressive and really, really annoying. Again...some people liked this. :|

Haven · 2012-05-04 16:05:55

One of the most broken moments that I remember of that fandom was some idiot who got married at a furry con and his bride was dressed up as that minerva mink character from Animaniacs. He pretty much made it clear -- with the "blessing" of every idiot at the con and many in the fandom -- that from there on out, Minerva Mink was his. Let that sink in for a minute.

Gelzo · 2012-05-04 17:43:57

You guys are glossing over the best part.

"A few animators from WB showed up and saw the horror, and drew a wonderfully spiteful picture of Minerva holding up a sign saying she belonged to nobody, especially that guy. The backlash and tears were, from what I understand, delicious"

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-04 18:04:50

^But then if some random assface just pops up on a board you frequent, boom, no avoiding it.

Hence "much", not "all".

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 00:28:50

lee4hmz · 2012-05-05 01:06:30

Unicron is Zardoz, dammit.

THE GUN IS GOOD. THE PENIS IS EVIL. GO FORTH AND KILL.

Heapers' Hangout circa 1981, The heapers.hangout Usenet group

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