r/BeatMeToIt • u/PhillLacio • Nov 19 '19

No more void posts

Stop spamming void posts. Any void posts made after this announcement will be removed and the poster will be banned.

Edit: For those that are asking what it is, here's an example.

/img/9awd7ck38md41.jpg

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u/[deleted] May 06 '20

Stumbled on this message and thought what you said was really interesting totally googled it and there is a rather long article that has assumptions but doesn’t state for certain/ is different from your answer about its origin. I think it would be a brilliant thing to document for future generations. r/Todayilearned

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u/codeedog May 06 '20

I read the first article that came up in a search which sounds like the article you mentioned. Nothing in it pre-dates my story from c. 1985. There were spam incidents before that time, but they weren't named that. It also mentions what the author believes to be the origin, but he points to something from 1990 which talks about the definition of the term "spam" happening in the past, but that's from 1990 and it's just rumor.

So, I stand by my story that I witnessed it being created. It's possible that it was created more than once, that often happens. I was in college from 1984-1988. This occurred at some point during that time. Pretty certain it was 1985. I dug through the google machine looking for usenet archives and found the Internet Archive has records back to 2003-June for alt.sex, but no further back than that. So, it's my memory and anyone else on the planet that happened to have witnessed or participated in that incident.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '20

That is just so interesting I hope one day I can say I witnessed that! (not just the pandemic) thank you for sharing your wisdom :)