It is unfortunate that :reddit-logo: has a near-monopoly on what used to be numerous and diverse forums all over the internet, but I definitely don’t miss the Early-2000s to 2010s tendency to put pretentious and often edgy forum signatures after posts.
I’ll provide some examples of what kind of forum signatures made me hate forum signatures in general, for context.
Sun Tzu quotes. :cringe:
Tyler Durden was supposed to be a malevolent presence that had to be literally shot out of the protagonist’s head so he could have some peace, not a fountain of deep profound wisdom about how we’re all rotting pieces of meat and anyone who says otherwise is a special snowflake, you proto-chudlings. :kombucha-disgust:
Heath Ledger’s Joker, while well acted, was sort of fucking horrible for pop culture in general and a lot of weird nerds really ran with his performance and that also made his lines dreadfully common in forum signatures. Yes, I’m “so serious” because some things matter, you proto-chudlings. :disgost:
Fuck Terry Goodkind and each and every proto-chudling that quoted his Ayn Rand With More Sexual Violence And Swords garbage books in their forum signatures, too. Even the concept of “Wizards’ First Rule” was just a precursor to the worst side of the Rick & Morty fandom. “Lol, everyone is stupid but me because I am sociopathic and selfish!” :guts-rage:
Oh yeah, last but not least, fuck each and every proto-chudling that quoted Ayn Rand anything in their forum signatures. :gulag:
I’m still baffled by how many “dunk on the creationists” became “dunk on the feminists” became “I am culturally Christian in a totally secular way just like Richard Dawkins” became “clean your room, bucko!” :jordan-eboy-peterson:
Because the movement was always about privileged white kids being contrarian and feeling smarter than everyone else. So of course, when the culture war really ramped up, they veered hard right.
No one could have predicted the saga of lobster man though :michael-laugh:
Almost every “generation meh” Xer that used to work for and be a personality on MTV became a full MAGA chud. They wanted to not care about anything that badly. Militant apathy.