The journey of a joke & digitial history

LincLinc OwnerDetroit Icrontian
edited February 2016 in Science & Tech

Consider this stupid office humor image:

Someone in their early 20s was circulating that at my office today. And all I could think is: where did you get an AOL chain email from?

Imagine the journey something this might have taken over the last 2 decades:

  • Typed up in an old word processor.
  • Printed on an early printer (we can't see the edges to know if it had feed strips).
  • Hung up in the office on a clipboard.
  • Someone either A) took a film photo and scanned it or B) used an early digital camera and manually transferred it via an external media card reader.
  • Put it on a floppy disk and passed it to a friend.
  • That guy eventually attached it to an email and sent it to all their friends.
  • Someone thought it was so funny they saved it to their zip drive of funny images.
  • They uploaded it to some bulletin board.
  • Someone else saved it and uploaded it to imgur.com and posted it on Reddit.
  • Someone saw it on Reddit and pasted it into HipChat.
  • I grabbed a copy and uploaded it here.

And it could've been even more meandering than that. Who knows how many dozens of types of media that thing passed thru before a kid who possibly wasn't alive when that joke got written found it on Reddit and thought it should get passed around yet another office.

And people worry our generation isn't leaving a permanent historical record. :)

RyderGHoosdumoni_delsCanti

Comments

  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian

    @Linc said:

    • Printed on an early printer (we can't see the edges to know if it had feed strips).

    This was definitely on a laser printer. Based on the era of the humor I can, with about 95% certainty, say that it was a LaserJet 4 (a printer that DOMINATED office environments from the early-to-mid 90s. They were absolute tanks and almost impossible to kill).

    GargGHoosdum
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian

    My father's company had a LaserJet III with over a million pages printed before it died.

  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian

    @AlexDeGruven said:

    @Linc said:

    • Printed on an early printer (we can't see the edges to know if it had feed strips).

    They were absolute tanks and almost impossible to kill

    You rang?

  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian

    More like

  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian

    I remember HATING the drivers for those things.....

  • HeroHero formerly known as XGPHero Icrontian

    "what the fuck is 'pc load letter'?!"

  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian

    @primesuspect said:
    Stuff like this was never posted to bulletin boards unless it was in raw text. The images were too big to download on modems, even 56K modems which were just coming out at the end of the BBS era.

    I remember fondly the days spent waiting 12-14 hours for a single image of boobs to download with zmodem on my 14.4k Supra modem. Getting home from school was always a joy.

    Kermit and 300bps 4lyfe

  • CrazyJoeCrazyJoe Winter Springs, FL Icrontian

    @AlexDeGruven said:
    More like

    I had one of those on my desk in my office up until last year. I preferred it to the Kyocera pieces of crap that the district has been buying in the last 4-5 years. No idea where it is now since I don't have that job any more.

  • HeroHero formerly known as XGPHero Icrontian

    @Kwitko said:

    @primesuspect said:
    I remember fondly the days spent waiting 12-14 hours for a single image of boobs to download with zmodem on my 14.4k Supra modem. Getting home from school was always a joy.

    Which is why I only downloaded midget porn. Smaller images.

    i believe the prefered term is "midget erotic images"

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