Grudgewank and pamphleteering
Grudgewank.
I asked someone studying communication patterns of old if she'd ever heard of fandom, and when I got the expected "Is that like Comicon?" pointed out that the fandom wank wiki is way ahead in pattern recognition. Like the one she'd just been talking about was called the "flounce".
During the salon days, the "flounce" would be a dramatic declaration and exit, spies might be sent to report on what was said about the flouncer, and if anything was (or maybe even if nothing was said!) there would be anonymous pamphlets printed saying that the salon was practicing immoral things or consorting with the devil, etc. The fannish Internet equivalent is the flounce, followed by lurking, followed by grudgewank through a sockpuppet. Five terms no one had heard of twenty, thirty years ago--but which covered behavior patterns as old as human social patterns.
She wanted to know if "flamewar" was a fannish term first--she said she'd found citations claiming it was invented by computer engineers during the earliest Usenet days, but she was still trying to track down the earliest users. I told her about GEnie, but I suspect the term had been around earlier--that every group probably has its own slang, but it would make an interesting paper in itself, tracing which terms go mainstream (like flamewar) and which stay in the various small pools. I also said that a social historian looking at behavior patterns might find Fandom Wank useful if finally kind of depressing.
She ended up buying the Craveri, we exchanged emails and left--me thinking that two hundred years ago we would have exchanged visiting cards. (Well, some still do pass business cards back and forth.)
I asked someone studying communication patterns of old if she'd ever heard of fandom, and when I got the expected "Is that like Comicon?" pointed out that the fandom wank wiki is way ahead in pattern recognition. Like the one she'd just been talking about was called the "flounce".
During the salon days, the "flounce" would be a dramatic declaration and exit, spies might be sent to report on what was said about the flouncer, and if anything was (or maybe even if nothing was said!) there would be anonymous pamphlets printed saying that the salon was practicing immoral things or consorting with the devil, etc. The fannish Internet equivalent is the flounce, followed by lurking, followed by grudgewank through a sockpuppet. Five terms no one had heard of twenty, thirty years ago--but which covered behavior patterns as old as human social patterns.
She wanted to know if "flamewar" was a fannish term first--she said she'd found citations claiming it was invented by computer engineers during the earliest Usenet days, but she was still trying to track down the earliest users. I told her about GEnie, but I suspect the term had been around earlier--that every group probably has its own slang, but it would make an interesting paper in itself, tracing which terms go mainstream (like flamewar) and which stay in the various small pools. I also said that a social historian looking at behavior patterns might find Fandom Wank useful if finally kind of depressing.
She ended up buying the Craveri, we exchanged emails and left--me thinking that two hundred years ago we would have exchanged visiting cards. (Well, some still do pass business cards back and forth.)