Bay 12 Games Forum

Finally... => General Discussion => Topic started by: Scoops Novel on May 15, 2021, 09:32:46 am

Title: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Scoops Novel on May 15, 2021, 09:32:46 am
That's it.

?

Why do these two attract mythical thinking and everything else doesn't?
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: EuchreJack on May 15, 2021, 11:18:05 am
You forgot that Al Gore created the Internet.  Apparently so he could disseminate ecology-safer porn.  Just think of all the trees he's saved!
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: MrRoboto75 on May 15, 2021, 11:43:37 am
Al Gore is a Kryptonian

CMV
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: dragdeler on May 15, 2021, 12:16:37 pm
-The Internet is the Web

-There are Trolls

-Al gore created the internet

-On the Internet nobody knows you're a cat:
Never believe somebody who tells you who they are, never tell somebody who you are (thus we could not yet prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are girls on the internet)

-Internet can allways be restored with a reboot

-At the 3am you find the best videos

-You NEVER click on ads, I repeat NEVER

-Nigerian princes are very generous



Al Gore is a Kryptonian

CMV

Can't change that view if I agree, it's all in the pyramids
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Duuvian on May 16, 2021, 01:44:09 am
Series of tubes
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: King Zultan on May 16, 2021, 02:48:03 am
I have been told that nobody can lie on the internet.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: scriver on May 16, 2021, 05:34:34 am
Can somebody else make the mandatory post about trolls not referencing trolls but trolling, the fishing style, this time?
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 16, 2021, 10:21:52 am
Myths and Mythology:

-The Internet is the Web

-There are Trolls

-Al gore created the internet

-On the Internet nobody knows you're a cat:
Never believe somebody who tells you who they are, never tell somebody who you are (thus we could not yet prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are girls on the internet)

-Internet can allways be restored with a reboot

-At the 3am you find the best videos

-You NEVER click on ads, I repeat NEVER

-Nigerian princes are very generous

-- There are no girls on the internet

-- The rules of the internet (kinda like the ten commandments, but immensely worse lol)

-- Revealing your name online will lead to people coming to beat you up and kidnap you ASAP (I mean most of us heard this as kids)

-- (you have to make) Formalized introductions (less of a thing now that social media is so prevalent, but there was a time when a lot a lot a lot of effort went into introducing yourself into communities)

-- You must explicitly ask people to be your friend (this one overlaps with gaming culture and is maybe less prevalent on forums or other types of social sites, but like most of the time youd do somethign fun with someone and then be like "shall we become fast allies in a world of boredom? Will you be my friend?" Something which I do not recall ever happening in my non-virtual life, even as a lil kid)

I have been told that nobody can lie on the internet.

Series of tubes
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: EuchreJack on May 16, 2021, 07:58:07 pm
Everyone on the internet is either a flaming liberal or a racist troll.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: MrRoboto75 on May 16, 2021, 08:40:13 pm
-- Rule 34
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: EuchreJack on May 16, 2021, 10:27:13 pm
-- Rule 34

Not on this forum! :P
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: George_Chickens on May 17, 2021, 12:12:49 am
Everyone on the internet is either a flaming liberal or a racist troll.
And once upon a time, everybody was both.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Folly on May 17, 2021, 01:23:37 am
There are 1337 cyber-hackers around every digital corner who can completely take over your computer at any moment and instantly know all of your personal info. Most of them are edgy children with no formal education, just an old laptop and too much time left alone.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 17, 2021, 04:11:52 am
Cyberpolice can't catch you if you're in incognito mode. 1337 hackers can improve your computer by downloading more RAM onto the mainframe
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: King Zultan on May 17, 2021, 04:15:31 am
I was also told that all things on a computer could be made better by deleting system 32.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Starver on May 17, 2021, 04:27:44 am
(I see TANGOTI is now posted. Which was to have been my own original contribution to the OP.)

Having seen a significant lifetime of the internet (although it had achieved a maturity[1] by the time I was connected) and all of the web[2], I think one thing preventing a whole realm of linked mythologies is that the internet is heterogenised in so many ways (by ideology, by generation (albeit) of participant and, despite some promise to link the world, by locale-based fracturings). And there's only been 20, 30, 50 years (whatever your benchmark) of its culture. Not as much as nearly every other earthly one.


[1] Albeit an intermediate one, much more innocent in hindsight.

[2] Well, still a bit hazy about 'new' stuff, that generally ends in an "r" but not "er", just straight on from a consonant.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: methylatedspirit on May 17, 2021, 05:13:37 am
-- Windows is the default desktop OS.
-- MacOS is used by creative types, and the people against it are Windows and Linux users, who are basically Satan.
-- Linux is for 1337 hackers, and everyone who opposes it are either "Micro$oft" or Satan.

I think these are more about the mythology around computing (though the perspective comes from lurking around Linux circles, hence the Linux bias), but I think they're worth mentioning:

-- Microsoft is greedy, and does the ol' "embrace, extend, extinguish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)" routine on every open-source project it sees. The Big Bad of the Linux people.
-- Apple is also greedy, but prefers to lock down their own stuff. Hardliners like the FSF absolutely despise them, but they're otherwise invisible to the Linux people.
-- The (GNU/)Linux people are the software equivalent of tree-hugging hippies. They smell of counter-cultural radicalization against "proprietary software", and spout the words "free", "open" and "libre" like they're going out of style. They spell "Microsoft" "Micro$oft", always replacing the "s" with "$".

(*BSD (the ones that call themselves BSD, not MacOS)... exists? I don't think I've seen a *BSD user participate as heavily in the OS wars as those in the Big 3 do.)
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Starver on May 17, 2021, 06:10:07 am
Just thought of an original one, I think: Everybody speaks(/writes) English.

(That's the mistaken trope. The true one is that those who do, but not as their first language, overwhelmingly do it to a high standard even as they apologise. Not everyone, and some have learnt/adopted bad Internet English from the 'natives', but I have never noticed that many "Sorry for my English"-types then to get their/there/they're errors in.)

It is, of course, an update of the long-depricated one about "The internet is just America", which I possibly arrived (from .ac.uk) upon the rapidly withering tail of.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: EuchreJack on May 17, 2021, 06:13:03 am
Blue Screen of Death?  :P

Here is a fairly accurate story: When Microsoft was unveiling their new operating system (I think it was XP?) they got a BSoD.  What makes it hilarious is that XP was perhaps one of the better operating systems that Microsoft has put out.

Software cycle on the user's end: Broken, Buggy, Bygone*
*outdated, obsolete, no longer supported

Just thought of an original one, I think: Everybody speaks(/writes) English.

(That's the mistaken trope. The true one is that those who do, but not as their first language, overwhelmingly do it to a high standard even as they apologise. Not everyone, and some have learnt/adopted bad Internet English from the 'natives', but I have never noticed that many "Sorry for my English"-types then to get their/there/they're errors in.)

It is, of course, an update of the long-depricated one about "The internet is just America", which I possibly arrived (from .ac.uk) upon the rapidly withering tail of.

Also: Those who are not native English speakers invariably write better than those native English speakers.  This sentence being one example.
I did always find it hilarious that people are apologizing for their English when they're writing better than the English speakers...
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: methylatedspirit on May 17, 2021, 06:16:51 am
Blue Screen of Death?  :P

Here is a fairly accurate story: When Microsoft was unveiling their new operating system (I think it was XP?) they got a BSoD.  What makes it hilarious is that XP was perhaps one of the better operating systems that Microsoft has put out.

That one was Windows 98. Here's the footage (https://youtu.be/IW7Rqwwth84). I wasn't even born back then, but I heard that Windows 98 was one of the crappier ones, so much so that Microsoft had to release a Second Edition.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Starver on May 17, 2021, 06:56:13 am
98 was pretty much almost "95 with the Plus Pack" (for better or worse) but 98 Second Edition (in '99?) did make for a convincing improvement, including (amongst other things) proper USB support, IIRC.

Though you can shove the still shrink-wrapped Minnellium in a desk-drawer, really. Better to switch to 2K from the NT track, if you needed to, and/or wait for XP to fuse the two lineages convincingly. ME was the Vista of the 9x-era.

(But this is a different line of mythology to the OP one. If you want to start a proper discussion, let me know where the thread is if/when you create it. I clearly have Opinions™.)
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: EuchreJack on May 17, 2021, 08:30:10 am
Well, it was PCs running Windows 95 that caused the proliferation of the Internet to the masses.  Some Windows 3, but moreso 95.

Without the cheapo Windows PCs, the internet would have been the playground of the rich for a lot longer, and might have evolved a lot differently.
Because Apple/Mac is for the rich elitists, Windows is the operating system of the masses.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Starver on May 17, 2021, 11:02:28 am
Probably more a concurrency.


But that's a different off-topic discussion.


Direct reply: Yes, MS got their OSs into everyday use more. Whether it was the original DOS (CP/M) product, Windows once it got to v3(ish), the move to 9x worked (where Bob did not!), and having caught business users up in NT then XP unified the experience (before splitting on Home/Professional lines).

Much as I hated them, the concept of a WinModem (from the hardware vendors, letting them scrimp a little) probably got more people over the line of resistance and newly excited to plug their PC into the phone socket. And I think I'm safe to say that the iMac was Jobs's response, but then so were WebTVs and they really did nothing, in the end, but help make September immortal. Any games-console browsing these days probably owes more to trying to kludge keeping up with computer-based browsing (and these days the browser innyour pocket) than set-top/bottom boxes dedicated to the task. Not that I have much experience with those since the days of Pong.

IMO.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 18, 2021, 10:21:33 pm
Another one that overlaps more with gaming culture, but...

being advised to click ALT + F4 to fix your current application/problem.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: King Zultan on May 19, 2021, 12:41:30 am
Clicking on any ad immediately fills your computer with viruses and spyware.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: EuchreJack on May 19, 2021, 12:17:37 pm
You need to spend 60+ dollars on Antivirus software.
Title: Re: Why does the internet have such a strangely sparse mythology?
Post by: dragdeler on May 19, 2021, 02:44:38 pm
Just thought of an original one, I think: Everybody speaks(/writes) English.

(That's the mistaken trope. The true one is that those who do, but not as their first language, overwhelmingly do it to a high standard even as they apologise. Not everyone, and some have learnt/adopted bad Internet English from the 'natives', but I have never noticed that many "Sorry for my English"-types then to get their/there/they're errors in.)

It is, of course, an update of the long-depricated one about "The internet is just America", which I possibly arrived (from .ac.uk) upon the rapidly withering tail of.


I think "their/they're/there" is a typical monolinguist issue, no additional thoughts were required to use either, beyond one sound. It does prove poor awareness to forget your verb, "there/their" is more forgivable IMO... "Could of" is like one of the most pathetic errors I ever saw in any language, can't fathom these people be much more evolved than animals. Whereas when you learn a new language you start by parsing each word, and thus seeing the sounds written out can often be an elucidating moment.  "Then/than" is harder, much more grammatical issue, also a good likelyhood these two are somewhat confounded in second (or rather first) language too. But to really "get" a second language, you're probably past that level of grammatical awareness, even if the details are very hazy to you.

Quote
                                            any noun can become a verb if you don’t care enough

                                        This point is invalid unless you use an example in your sentence

                                    I CAN SENTENCE HOW I WANT THANK

                                BEAUTIFUL

                            you see thats why i love english

                        I like to velociraptor around my house at 2 in the morning.

                    GOOD

                My headache makes me want to clothesline into a wall

            why do these make some semblance of sense 😨

        Because brains don’t brain logically

    Brains do brain logically! But when english doesn’t logic englishly, brain brains by itself to logic that english !

I hate that this makes sense