BNF on the Rocks
The ville implosion just goes on and on. There but for the grace of Kahless go I…
It’s all Seema’s fault that I’m following this and getting all riled up (see previous post) about crazy specialty fandoms whose claim to fame is a lot of tempests in a livejournal. Today’s Fandom Wank is still about BNF’s; in this round, The Brat Queen wonders whether she’s B or not.
My chosen quote is something verdani said in the Fandom Wank meta-comments about the aforementioned BNF thread:
If you were willing to put the kind of hard work that nobody anywhere appreciates into making discussion threads like that go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, you’d be a BNF too. But I guess you’re not *up* to it, eh, slacker? GET OUT THERE AND GO TO WORK!
That’s a rather pithy way of saying LiveJournal made ville fandom the wankfest it is today. Wank, by the way, isn’t as offensive in the U.S. as in other Anglophone countries. Here’s the definition, straight from The Jargon File 4.3.3:
wank /wangk/ n.,v.,adj.
[Columbia University: prob. by
mutation from Commonwealth slang v. `wank’, to masturbate] Used
much as hack is elsewhere, as a noun denoting a clever
technique or person or the result of such cleverness. May describe
(negatively) the act of hacking for hacking’s sake (”Quit wanking,
let’s go get supper!”) or (more positively) a wizard. Adj.
`wanky’ describes something particularly clever (a person,
program, or algorithm). Conversations can also get wanky when
there are too many wanks involved. This excess wankiness is
signalled by an overload of the `wankometer’ (compare
bogometer). When the wankometer overloads, the conversation’s
subject must be changed, or all non-wanks will leave. Compare
`neep-neeping’ (under neep-neep). Usage: U.S. only. In
Britain and the Commonwealth this word is extremely rude and
is best avoided unless one intends to give offense. Adjectival
`wanky’ is less offensive and simply means `stupid’ or `broken’
(this is mainstream in Great Britain).