[slagfart]

pls help me get online, nerd

Seriouspost: Agree with all that’s been said. Corporations have turned the web into an unpalatable wasteland. The prospect of someone finding out my name and job has taken all the joy out of calling someone a fuckhead online. I want to find it again.

I will start searching, but the good communities I’ve found have been invite only.

[80386]

Most people strongly prefer to hire their friends, so there aren't many social spaces anymore. And if you're lucky enough to get a job in the industry at all, someone might try to get you run out of the industry for violating whichever ornate Versailles-like code of etiquette they carry around in their head. Or just because they don't like you.

I'd like to get involved in the indie-web stuff but it's pretty hard to do when I have to not only stay anonymous but ensure that none of my anonymous web presences can be connected to any of my other anonymous web presences.

I mean, I'd also like a job that pays more than $15/hr and doesn't involve lifting boxes for eleven hours a day, but it's also pretty hard to do that when etc., because all professional spaces are also social spaces and if you can't social with the calculation of a Parisian courtier, well.

[nanomonkey]

Scuttlebutt is as anonymous as you make it. That being said, people tend to not tolerate insensitive name calling much, and will likely block your feed from being replicated by their client, if they find your contributions annoying. But that's sort of the point of taking back distribution, you get to pay attention to what you find worthwhile.

[lancewiggs]

Did your joy of calling someone else something bad remove the joy for everyone else?

[slagfart]

In a small enough community, the Boy Who Cried Wolf remains a pertinent tale.

If you had the reputation as a decent and polite poster, the sudden use of a vile cuss, judiciously applied, yielded far greater aggregate results than someone who used them all the time. At the very least, you would save it for someone who really did deserve it.

Perhaps the sanding off of the web’s edges is simply a product of its size. Maybe we should go back to Usenet.

[andrewmcwatters]

Believe it or not, there are a few of us out there who grew up on the web calling each other shitheads in both endearing and insulting ways. It was certainly in the spirit of earlier Internet communities.