Originally posted by Speedy Parker
Fuck Totse . Most of the information that was posted there was incomplete at best, and purposely misleading or dangerous in some cases. Most of you fuckwits that remember it fondly do so because at the time you were to young and stupid to realize that it was a pile of tossed together shit tossed together by mostly shit tossers who never managed to toss anything meaningful in the real world. That's most of you who still think it was so cool. Then there is SpectraL. Who knows why he still enshrines a dead website. As for me, well it was all about the Benjamin's baby.
This is partially true, but it gives me the impression you're a lot younger.
The thing about &Totse is that it's largely a relic of a "perfect storm" of phenomena that cannot be recaptured in the modern era. This is mainly due to the fact that technology has progressed to a point where it redefined society and displaced Jeff Hunter's original vision. You have to realize that, when &Totse was new, this was during a time when intelligent misfires who had a knack for unusual or dangerous knowledge were a pretty uncommon group of people. Basically anything electronic had no GUI, and operating any kind of computer system was still considered a pretty rare skill. Virtually nobody went to college because the average American could thrive on a high school education, so most citizens were only functionally literate. On the other hand, we were an odd bunch of people traditionally understood by the rest of the world as a weird but potentially dangerous, bookish bunch. At best, we were seen as normal people who hid our passions well because we realized that revealing an affinity for esoteric knowledge generally makes you appear untrustworthy or as if you're harboring some sinister motives. It's hard to believe it now, but books like "The Poor Man's James Bond" or military training manuals on counter-intelligence were actually genuinely hard to come by. There were really just entire areas of knowledge that you had to work extremely hard to obtain even a basic mastery of because people simply couldn't find resources.
When Totse showed up, you suddenly had an amalgam of this information all in one place. Not only that, you had something totally new -- a community. For the first time in many of our lives, we finally were communicating with people who shared our values. They weren't talking about the new Brady Bunch movie, who banged the cheerleader, or the baseball game. These guys were talking about things that made a difference. They were posting how to trick evolving telephone technology. They were able to anonymously criticize things about society that would otherwise get them ostracized from public spaces. Most importantly, we were sharing information. When I was growing up, books were rare. I remember reading some of my first Orwell novels because someone typed them up on &Totse, and I know many others had this same experience.
When they eventually added the web facing presence, the site initially restricted membership. The internet was still pretty fresh, and the ideas were still flowing. However, like everything else, 9/11 changed things. Law Enforcement upped their presence on the site. Eventually The Patriot Act was passed. People were distrustful of each other. Suddenly members weren't as quick to say how they really felt, because they were afraid it would follow them into real life. By roughly 2005, the show was pretty much over, and I think I know why. . .
When I was 14, I remember sitting in homeroom and having a bunch of my friends laugh hysterically at me because I met a girl over the internet. I eventually met her in real life, but the prospect of meeting someone online before you met them in person was completely unimaginable to the rest of the football team. A few years later, something eventually changed in our society. That is, there once was a divide between internet and real life. I think major part of of happened was that divide that eroded. It eventually was no longer a thing. I know this might be hard to believe, but there was a time when you'd come home, play games on a computer, surf porn, read things, had a really limited form of social media, go to a few forums especially dedicated to one thing, maybe learn something, watched a Flash cartoon, and then you shut it down to return to real life. In real life you had school, work, family, conflict, and responsibilities. It was around 2005 when the internet started to become real life. This is where &Totse was in it's death throes and was effectively in the state as you described it. People were worried about managing their reputations and were posting things to jockey for recognition rather than for a love of knowledge or passion in a subject matter. This is because, remember, now the internet is real life. Who needs friends at school when you have the anonymous praise of hundreds of strangers? This meant information was poorly researched. Quality became lousy. Nobody held anyone accountable over it. In old &Totse, someone would have caught the mistakes. But this wasn't old &Totse. The community was laughing at a guy putting his penis a burrito. People were in spurious talking about how RobinHoody sent his penis to an underage girl. People were trying to get Pirate Hippie's AIM scree name. Nobody was there for the right reasons anymore. The internet became real life. But instead of real life looking more like the internet, the internet just became ugly like the rest of the world.
The nerds like me clung onto our cerebral notions for dear life. We tried to recreate the space, tried forming communities, tried to find things like it off line, and maybe even embellished it a little bit to try and convince ourselves we were part of something bigger. But really, it was no use. Eventually &Totse became a high school locker room -- poop jokes and all. And for how wise all of us nerds thought we were, it was about it get way worse.
You see, in 2005, any idiot could log onto the internet and do what they want. Now, every idiot was required to be on the internet. Eventually, this trend spiraled into what became the modern era. The internet wasn't even real life anymore. Now, the internet is more important than real life. The one refuge we had became an abstract representation of the worst parts of society. Forums became echo chambers. Unpopular opinions posted online now cost people their jobs or reputations. All of your internet activities are monitored and heavily scrutinized. Law enforcement regularly kicks in doors, destroys reputations, and asks questions later over benign activity. And now, you have an entire generation encounter the world through electronic abstractions that leave them completely unprepared for reality.
So now, when you hear people talking about &Totse, it's usually because there was a part of us that experienced something special there. It's hard to walk away from that into the monotony of the adulthood because for once, as pathetic as it maybe sounds, many of us finally had a place that we belonged to. Just maybe the huge pile of books in the corner of my house and tomes of handwritten notes on a highly specific discipline weren't weird, might actually be valued by somebody. Somebody might take what I learned, use it, and teach me something in response. Maybe we'll put it into action and change something. Maybe we can make the world a more free place for people to think, feel, and interact.
It's not elitist or romanticized, but I don't blame you for not believing me. You just had to have been there.
