R.I.P., Scourge of the Net

Years ago, when the net was very young, before there was a world wide web, there was usenet.

Out at the far end of usenet, intended as a walled off ghetto, there was a rather bizarre hangout called, fittingly, talk.bizarre, or tDOTb. The people who set it up saw it as Obi Wan saw Mos Eisley- a wretched hive of scum and villainy. We simply saw it as home. We ranged from people who fit no mold, to people who broke molds (seldom on one another's heads), to people who smelled like mold, to people who ate mold.

It was fun. It was weird. It was brilliant. It was creative. It was stupid. It was a lifeline. And sometimes it was brutal.

Most of the brutality wasn't that brutal and was aimed at stupidity. But occasionally (as can happen anywhere) someone with serious problems showed up.

One college student (let's call him Kltpzyxm^[1]) in particular stood out. Kltpzyxm came off as a troll, but over time he managed to make a lot of other trolls look good. He could be brilliant and witty, but he could also be nasty. He loved to play games; he would start acting nice to you, maybe even email you and draw you in, then stab you in the eye with an ant-covered stick.

And not just in talk.bizarre. He did this in respectable groups as well, where people innocently discussed things that mattered to them.

Kltpzyxm apparently went on to have a successful life in the real world. He married and had kids. He dropped off the radar.

He recently drowned off the coast of Hawaii.

From what I hear third hand, he was probably a good husband and dad. I hope so. I hope his family has good memories.

How do the people of tDOTb remember Kltpzyxm? (These are the short versions, not the actual quotes.)

• "Kltpzyxm tried to get me banned from the systems I posted on [over something ridiculously innocuous -ed]"
• "Kltpzyxm tried to get me fired."
• "Kltpzyxm publicly attacked my family and me on my wedding day."
• "Kltpzyxm made false accusations to my department head and nearly ruined my academic career."

(There was also the endless, day to day nastiness that grates on the nerves.)

Yes, those quotes are truly representative of how he acted. People reached out, tried to help him. He played nice til they believed he was changing. Then he whipped out the ant-covered skewer. As NJ summed it up on the Facebook tDOTb page:

"My recollection of him is as a progenitor of the Internet troll, and his legacy in that regard is well-represented on 4chan and in Gamergate. I assume, or perhaps merely hope, that his family and friends experienced some brighter side of him than he chose to present in his youth, and that their memories of him are fonder than ours."

Life isn't about leaving a legacy, but we all leave one. Hopefully there is far more to him than this, but this is the part of his legacy I know first hand (I remember when the incidents referenced above were happening).

I don't wish death on anyone, much less for a family to go through this.

I'm sad- for him and for his family. But to be honest... I don't miss him. I hope the guy I knew died a long time ago and a much nicer guy emerged as Kltpzyxm. I hope he left a much better legacy than the one the tDOTb community knows.

 

1. Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference!