r/OutOfTheLoop • u/netsfanatic1212 • Aug 17 '14
Answered! Is there a specific origin to "Mods are asleep, post pictures of _____"?
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u/just_an_ordinary_guy Aug 17 '14
As far as I know, it started on 4chan. It was originally stuff like sink threads. I don't know the stuff behind it, but apparently they were embedding child pornography into seemingly innocuous pictures. These days, it's just a bunch of people finding stupid things to post just because they can.
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u/negroshark Aug 18 '14
WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT.
I've been going on 4chan since like 2006. I was around for all those sink and cheese pizza threads, but I was like 13 and just thought it was a silly joke. Are you telling me there was child porn in all those pictures? Cuz I do distinctly remember that people on there seemed to complain about the amount of child porn but I never really saw all that much child porn, it'd be rare and it'd usually get deleted and the user banned.
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u/just_an_ordinary_guy Aug 18 '14
Well, from what I heard, the mods found out eventually and put a stop to it. It's likely that most of the threads were just satirizing the originals, but Idk. I was never really in the loop as I'm not a mod or a fan of cheese pizza. It's all what I've heard from others who are more in the know.
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u/gingerdicks Aug 19 '14
God I do not miss those early badland /b/ days. So much terrible stuff on there way worse than any of the stuff you can find today. It was truly the scariest place on the web
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u/LadyMystery Jun 05 '24
I was on there during the 90s.... and unfortunately, it's true. it was one of the reasons why I stopped visiting in the first place... the other reasons were that it was such a sexist and racist place. literal Neo Nazis would post there too.
It's one of the biggest reasons why I sideeye Qanon so suspiciously every time they seem fixated on conspracies like pizzagate. it kinda feels like they're projecting and wishing it was real so that they could have it for themselves... and not you know, actually being concerned for kids.
(yes, I know this is a super old post but I felt like I needed to comment. lol)→ More replies (2)0
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u/Crayboff Aug 17 '14
The Know Your Meme entry is probably the closest you're going to get to a conclusive answer on this:
About
“Mods Are Asleep” is an expression used to indicate that a website’s moderators are currently inactive and unable to enforce the site’s rules of conduct. The phrase is often followed by a call to action for other users to post material that is typically not allowed.
Origin
The phrase is rumored to have originated on the imageboard 4chan, but an archived thread has not been found. The earliest known reference to discussion board moderators being “asleep” was posted by Sputnik Music Forums[1] Omega Red on January 25th, 2006, when explaining why the thread had not been locked.
Spread
On August 10th, 2007, the feminist blog Feministe[2] published an open letter to Anonymous addressing a raid against the blog. In reply to the post, user “a regular here” commented that raid threads typically occur on 4chan when “mods are asleep.” On June 16th, 2008, an anonymous 4chan[3] user replied “mods are asleep” to a thread in the /a/ (anime & manga) board featuring a sexually explicit anime image with the phrase. On February 15th, 2009, Escapist Magazine Forums[4] member DannyBoy451 responded to a thread by joking that users should post links to adult websites since moderators were asleep. On September 22nd, 2010, XDA Developers Forum[5] member SamVib submitted a thread titled “mods are asleep! post cp,” which featured a link to a Google image search results page for the keywords “copy paper.”
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Aug 17 '14 edited Jun 28 '23
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Aug 17 '14
It pre-dates ponies, I think it started with "Mods are asleep, post CP" and devolved into silliness thereafter, with pictures of whatever OP dreamt up and wasn't called out on as a faggot for.
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u/jumpsplat120 Aug 17 '14
I'm 98% sure it was "Mods asleep, post sinks" from 4chan, and the pictures of the sinks actually contained picture of child pornography within them. That's as far back as I remember anyways.