I actually did this because I wanted to see what the NaNo forums did

[farla]

I keep seeing sick or dead eggs on the forums, so I decided to try it out myself. Well, that, and I keep hearing about dragcave drama and wanted a closer look.

Also, check this out. Stare into the abyss long enough and the abyss stares back...

EDIT: Awesome, this finally took out the eggs. Have another set:

Comments

[negrek.livejournal.com]

It's kind of sad how much more the adoptables craze has made me appreciate Adblock Plus.

[farla.livejournal.com]

I rarely run into them. I guess I don't frequent the wrong right parts of the internet.

[negrek.livejournal.com]

Apparently not! They seem most common on forums, where people can shove them in their signature and by extension in the faces of anyone who happens to view their posts (and hasn't turned off signatures). Searching LJ communities finds that there is ample place for people to indulge their pixel-nurturing habits here as well, though.

[farla.livejournal.com]

(and hasn't turned off signatures)

There are still people on forums who haven't?

Getting rid of signatures is one of the only reasons I ever bother to sign up at forums!

[charizamdc.livejournal.com]

But where will I get my philosophical insights from then?

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

It's funny, because just before the Dragon Cave craze struck I was thinking about the adoptables fad in the nineties and how glad I was that we as a subculture seemed to have grown past that.

Which basically means that the internet has its own retro now. Damn it, I'm too young to feel this old!

[farla.livejournal.com]

Hasn't Dragon Cave itself been around for a while by now? Or is it just my sense of time relative to internet time acting up again? I know I've seen them for a while. (But it's ttly diff from reg adopts b/c it makes u spam peeps leik innovative y/y? At least I think the first stage of the adoptables didn't require interactivity, they were just collectibles and the main issue was that you couldn't get earlier models. I'm actually a bit baffled by what exactly the maker's trying to accomplish, since the whole setup seems like a DIY model for site crashing.)

Which basically means that the internet has its own retro now. Damn it, I'm too young to feel this old!

As to retro, I think all your base is the first contender (http://xkcd.com/286/). And as to age (http://xkcd.com/647/)...(One day, spamming xkcd links will be retro. I am tomorrow today.)

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

I think it's been about a year? I don't know, the internet screws up my sense of time too. And, yeah, they actually found a way to make it more obnoxious. I shudder to think how the next round ten years from now will manage to top it. Maybe it'll come with optional trojan horse software you can download to your computer to spam your friends for you at regular intervals to make sure they're clicking often enough.

I actually thought of both those strips while typing that comment.

[farla.livejournal.com]

No no no! The trojan will be the adoptable!

GUYZ MY VIRUS NEEDS 200+ MORE DOWNLOADS OR IT'LL DIE! :( :( :(

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

YES. FUND IT. That would be an awesome idea for a Pinky and the Brain-style world domination scheme.

Speaking of obnoxious internet fads, have you noticed the explosion of so-called "social gaming"? It's basically a few dozen minor variations on the theme of "Reciprocal Altruism: The Game (Now a Facebook application!)" with some elements of mindless grinding and charge-times designed to keep you coming back multiple times a day. It's not so much "fun" as it is oddly soothing and inexplicably addictive, and the name of the genre itself is irritating, since you get more meaningful social interaction playing an MMO.

[farla.livejournal.com]

No, I'm outside most social internet spheres. I haven't even played a MMO. (It's like crack. I mean, I could try it, but I look around and OH HEY SOMEONE DIED RATHER THAN STOP PLAYING UM WELL NO THANKYOU) I still don't even have a facebook.

[wonsab.livejournal.com]

Roughly the same reason the only MMO I play seriously limits how much you can do in a single day.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

And, uh, what happened to your eggs?

[farla.livejournal.com]

Okay, so you're supposed to get people to see them, right? Only if too many people see them too fast they'll get sick and die. Because. (If someone ninjas an egg from you, people get revenge by posting the link somewhere it'll get a billion clicks)

So my eggs finally hit the magic number where they get sick. Luckily the site expects this, so you don't have to go take them down from everywhere you post them, you can just fog them up.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

So, basically, you're snatching up eggs for the sole purpose of killing them, in hopes that this may lead to amusing confrontations with Serious Business dragon hatchers?

[farla.livejournal.com]

No, Dragon Cave, already being srsbsns and post-ironic, comes with the option of insta-killing your egg. (Which apparently gives a ten percent change of hatching them early. Until you do it ten times, at which point your account is deleted.)

In sum, there is nothing I can do to these people that the admin hasn't already.

...

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

A system that Farla can't break.

Because it's too inherently awful.

That's vaguely terrifying.