Citizen Ted, Armchair Anthropologist
Back in the days when it was all fields 'round here, I was a contributor to alt.tasteless. A.T was a newsgroup where you really did have to read the FAQ. If you didn't, and just started posting without getting a feel for the group, what was and wasn't considered on topic, then the consequences could be quite nasty. AT didn't suffer fools gladly and most of the posters could tear you to shreds without much if an effort. Some of the greatest ever flames and put-downs came from A.T.

One of my favourite posters was Citizen Ted who, occasionally, would dust off the Armchair Anthropologist persona and give some hapless newby it with both barrels. Below is one of his shorter dissections. Enjoy

Cheers

Armchair Anthropologist: A Worthless Subject
Author: Citizen Ted
Email: [email protected]
Date: 1998/09/09
Forums: alt.tasteless

In the course of scientific discovery, it is incumbent upon the practitioner to balance wide-ranging data with a carefully discerning eye. One must consider the cost of time/money invested in a search for evidence vs. the necessity of accumulating enough data to satisfy the falsifiability of one's hypothesis.

Thus, a scientist does not move forward and survive the rigors of peer review by rushing to a quick conclusion. Usually, he must be willing to answer all contrary claims with a great firewall of supporting data.

Yet, there are times when a subject's disposition is so self-evident, one need only verify a few contrary possibilities and a solid conclusion can be safely proclaimed.

Such is the case with Bat!Girl ([email protected]), a pestilent little teenager with neither a Clue nor a Desire to gain one.

She is a textbook case of the standard "Enfánt Terriblé". Whereas even her high school cohorts have gone on to begin emotional maturation,she has been left behind as a discarded misfit with no discernable talents or distinction.

It is the concensus of the staff here at ArmAnthro that the subject is indeed a teen female who only recently gained access to the Internet. The staff here were so bored by her every post, they opted to forego direct quotes in order to employ some brevity and lend credence to our conclusions above:

"The subject responds with childish cynicism in every post, indicating an inability or unwillingness to comprehend the subjects of the threads she invades. She engages in miscapitalization in some oafish salute to what she thinks the medium is all about. (One cannot discard the influence of MTV chat videos and high school vernacular).

"The subject portends to be reactionary, when in fact her transparent pose is so opaque to the staff as to be laughable. This juvenile behavior is wide-spread in both primate and human populations, but only when the behavior is noted and quantified can it be regarded as being so annoying and unintelligent."

We feel the subject is unworthy of further scrutiny, despite the brevity of the data collection process. We include the following single quote as evidence, along with the tell-tale ticker-tape of groups posted:

In [email protected], [email protected] wrote:

tHe foRmat of WhIcH i poSt is prOper. iF yOu dOn't liKe the wAy i tyPe thAts yOur fUckiNg prObLEM.

And now, the groups to which she posts:

209 alt.teens
24 alt.tv.days-of-our-lives
8 alt.fan.kate-winslet
5 alt.tasteless
3 alt.politics.white-power
1 alt.gothic.music
1 alt.parents-teens
1 soc.culture.usa

Few comments could make the case clearer. But I'll try anyway:

Bat!Girl is, by any measure, a nauseating little teenage twit whose ability to socialize and grasp simple concepts places her somewhere in the orangutan family (pongo pygmaeus) of primates. Whereas chimps and gorillas can make lasting social contracts and maintain an ability to foster reciprocal relationships via communicative adeptness, the subject shows none such talents or tendencies and seems to behave more along the less-evolved line of solitary apes and their proto-simian ancestors.

This failure to ingratiate oneself through stupidity and oafish self-aggrandizement is embarrassing for the subject and nauseating to the staff.

We see no reason for any quarter to be given the subject on her
head-long leap out of the gene pool.

As ever,

- TR
- chief investigator, Armchair Anthropologist.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 19 May 2011, 13:01, 4 replies)

well he sounds
like a right laugh. Bet he wear's wacky ties as well the pleb.
(Bababoon, Thu 19 May 2011, 13:26, closed)

Citizen Ted is a true internet hero.
He sounds like the voice of snark in all of us personified, and I like that.
( Bourbon Fox Bourbon is a moron, Thu 19 May 2011, 17:50, closed)

Er, wow.
I never thought I'd find someone less able to be cutting than me.
I know my own grasp of my native tongue is not as it ought to be, yet I could point out at least two uses of a word which makes no sense in context and is only chosen to sound "clever".
Don't get me wrong, I'd probably laugh at the girl in question, but the attempts to sound clever just make the guy sound as if English is his second language and he's not that bothered about it.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Thu 19 May 2011, 19:00, closed)

Pierre ... (wavy lines)
I remember it well. Either alt.tasteless, or alt.bad.taste. The true legend in my mind there was (if I remember right) Pierre Ketteridge, who used to post tales of (among other things) working in a chicken farm in Farnley (near Leeds). One of the true geniuses, who on many occasion made me laugh, wince and spurt coffe down my nose at the same time.
So good I archived all his posts into dead-tree format for posterity. Still got 'em in loft somewhere...
(WaveyDavey, Thu 19 May 2011, 19:21, closed)