In the 60s and 70s student rag magazines were popular, often so popular that certain editions still changed hands years later. They were mostly made up of old jokes. Some of them were new ones, written by people who thought they were going to be the next Eric Idle, but mostly they were old ones you'd never heard before. Because the people doing the rag magazines had A levels and didn't like to think of themselves as completely superficial, the jokes would be interrupted from time to time by an opinion column, usually by a prematurely world weary 20 year-old angry and indignant on behalf of somebody they'd never met. But then you'd turn the page and there would be a funny picture of an animal torn from a newspaper re-presented with a caption about the Head of Catering. Then you'd turn the page again and there would be a girl in the nude and maybe a competition to see who had the biggest rack on campus. You obviously wouldn't get the competition anymore but in every other respect that was the internet, wasn't it?
Sites like 4chan are the rated-18 descendents of these anarchic cut and paste jobs.
ReplyDeleteNever thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Reminds me of that comment about if you removed all of the porn and conspiracy theories from the Internet all that would be left would be a one-page petition to bring it back, with comments below speculating on who removed it and why.
ReplyDeleteThe Internet seems to have moved on from there though hasn't it? Isn't all just teenagers talking each other into killing themselves these days? Nice to see its evolved.
Ah but - and perhaps with reference to your previous post - people PAID for Rag mags...
ReplyDeleteThe jokes were usually incredibly filthy as I remember. Someone would probably get fired over them these days.
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