When I started here, everyone was real. Everyone was truthful, it was assumed. Then Dennis killed his girlfriend and we all mourned. Only she wasn't real and it was all bullshit.
We all ate crow and realized that people on the internet can lie.
You younger kids don't realize how powerful and painful that was. The internet back then was the domain of geeks and goofballs. Normal people didn't waste their time with it and looked sideways those of us who did. It was our place, and it was different. We typed our thoughts and people typed their responses and it was all real and true and things were good.
We trusted people. It sounds misguided, in this day and age, but we did. We took posters at face value. We belived the words they wrote. There were trolls, but they were easy to spot and easy to ignore. We made friends. ATOT was a place where we could be ourselves and interact with people like us. It was good.
Then the internet got bigger. More people were online, and more people joined the forums.
[...]
Dennis taught us that people on the internet can lie. He taught us that people will manipulate our feelings for attention. He taught us that the things we read online might be bullshit.
He was the first to kill the fantasy that we'd all created. He was the first troll to bring us real pain.
He was the one who brought the ugly side of reality to us all. He kinda sorta acknowledged his role in all of it after several years ( after being called on it) but he always avoided taking responsibility and he never apoligized to the many people he wronged. Now he's dead, and I'm not quite sure how I should feel.
:thumbsup:Well said, Matt, and evocative of an entirely different time, on ATF and the web in general. :thumbsup:
Back in the day, I used to be able to call, say, HP, and get through to high level engineers (not CSR monkey-boys), who were glad to talk at length about the technical aspects of their products. It was truly a different time and place.
In the several "old heads chime in" OT threads, I've noticed that so many of us old head traders came to AT FS/FT from AGN. Let me tell you, we felt like a band of brothers back in that day. When you traded with someone, you felt like you'd made a friend for life.
Most of you current day posters don't know this, but before the rise of social media and general net usage , ATF was one of the top ten largest forum sites in any language, on any topic.
Now, we are somewhere between 5,000th and 10,000th or so.
And so, we few, we hardy few, we band of brothers were a genuine community of like minded souls . . . active, engaged, non-crazy 'puter enthusiasts, not a disparate collection of trolls, teens and shut-ins. Far from being basement dwellers, we were mostly guys in our twenties and thirties who were excited to "get under the hood" and juice that Celly 300 all the way to 450, which made a genuine, more than "just noticeable", real life difference in your 'puters performance.
Different times, is all. I miss them, too.
I, too, was incredibly angry at Denis for his betrayal of our trust. The entire mod squad was, as you know, Matt. But, each year, over many years, Denis would very respectfully and humbly petition for re-entry to ATF, all the while admitting and apologizing for what he'd done.
Time heals all wounds, and, eventually, I and the other mods let him back in . . . but not for YEARS.
I came to see Denis as an incredibly erudite and absolutely gentle soul. Forgiveness certainly came to my heart. He was, in his second incarnation, an always interesting, quality poster.
I will miss his gentle presence, and our forums are a slightly diminished place for his passing.
did we find out what he died of?
Flossie's dead.
...
It's weird. I'm not exactly saddened by it (he was damn weird, with his alien abductions and fake dead girlfriends and all, and all the damage he did to the community we used to have here), but it's sort of the end of an era I guess.
When I started here, everyone was real. Everyone was truthful, it was assumed. Then Dennis killed his girlfriend and we all mourned. Only she wasn't real and it was all bullshit.
We all ate crow and realized that people on the internet can lie.
You younger kids don't realize how powerful and painful that was. The internet back then was the domain of geeks and goofballs. Normal people didn't waste their time with it and looked sideways those of us who did. It was our place, and it was different. We typed our thoughts and people typed their responses and it was all real and true and things were good.
We trusted people. It sounds misguided, in this day and age, but we did. We took posters at face value. We belived the words they wrote. There were trolls, but they were easy to spot and easy to ignore. We made friends. ATOT was a place where we could be ourselves and interact with people like us. It was good.
Then the internet got bigger. More people were online, and more people joined the forums. Dennis was one of them. He was Dennis Fillion, at first, and switched to Dennilfloss when the boards moved to Fusetalk. He was a prolific poster. He wasn't real, though.
He made up a girlfriend and based her name on a well-known troll of the time. He killed her off and made everyone mourn her passing once she got too popular. His lie was the first lie online that most of us encountered. You younger kids are used to people being full of shit on the internet, but back then it was unheard of.
Dennis taught us that people on the internet can lie. He taught us that people will manipulate our feelings for attention. He taught us that the things we read online might be bullshit.
He was the first to kill the fantasy that we'd all created. He was the first troll to bring us real pain.
...
He was the one who brought the ugly side of reality to us all. He kinda sorta acknowledged his role in all of it after several years ( after being called on it) but he always avoided taking responsibility and he never apoligized to the many people he wronged. Now he's dead, and I'm not quite sure how I should feel.
...
I guess I'm supposed to say 'Rest in Peace' even though I don't really mean it?
StageLeft sighting and I saw it.Sorry to hear this. I spent an afternoon with Dennilfloss many years ago at the military museum in Ottawa. A strange fellow for sure, but his posts were regularly of value.
Sorry to hear this. I spent an afternoon with Dennilfloss many years ago at the military museum in Ottawa. A strange fellow for sure, but his posts were regularly of value.
Lost another member early last year... :\I just found this on reddit... no way. I am sorry to learn this. What else did I miss?