vanadium -

"throughout history, mans has needed the forum. first, they were large circular stone arenas, with the advent of the printing press the coffeeshop became where those with the urge to post congregated. in the 1960s-70s arpanet was developed. some consider this a huge mistake. then the forum was recreated on web sites as a new, powerful form of digital commodification. IRC allowed group chat clients, which reintegrated the time scale of shouting in a circle into internet discourse, & since then all posters have flitted from platform to platform based on how free it is, whos using it, what additional ways it lets you personalize & communicate. gamers, the righteous athlete social class of our time, needed an integrated, community driven approach that let them scream slurs at each other, rather than at randos matchmade by an invisible digital ruling class of server algorithms"