Did you publish any hoax back in the day?
I did tons of those. I need to explain the "setting" though:
Around 1990, we had this computer classifieds magazine printed on thin crappy recycled paper which consisted only of classifieds (free though), but you could not just buy/sell - stuff but you could also chit-chat, and the vast majority of this magazine was made up by this chatting aspect. Most computers of that time and consoles (like Amstrad, Amiga, Archimedes, Atari ST, C16/Plus4, C64, MSX etc. of course Speccy too as well as Atari Lynx, Gameboy/NES etc.) had their own corner which all had subsections like buy/sell, discussion, programming Q&A, game hints/cheats and whatnot. The whole mag would be around 150 pages, sometimes more or less.
It came out only every 2 months so you can imagine the turnaround was very slow.
At one point people started to talk weird crap in the Gameboy section, so after having a good laugh I joined in the fun. After a couple of issues there was probably 80%+ just nonsense posts in that particular section.
People would post increasingly inane stuff, like a "compiler Gameboy/Amiga" which allowed you to play Gameboy games on the Amiga "and of course vice-versa" :-D, Leisure Suit Larry for Gameboy, a mouse with 2x3" dimensions, ZX81 emulator including keyboard (posted by someone with the appropriate nickname of "Sir Clive" or so), Soundtracker, Assemblers, Health Center where you could attach a cable to the Gameboy and stick the cable up the "usual" parts of your body, free and totally crap games to go with the McDonald's junior bag or whatever that thing was called, where you had to gobble up all the hamburgers that angry customers had vomited onto the floor ...
Someone also told people who had a powerpack with variable voltage to change it from 6 to 12V to play the Gameboy games in 2x speed so I replied in the next issue how the game was really going to town that way, of course other had less friendly words to that idea and asked the magazine's editor if one couldn't sue the original poster in case some idiot really had tried it and blown up their Gameboy ...
My own "inventions" I reported (using the handle "Kunta Kinte") about included:
- All kinds of tie-ins of the TV shows we had back at that time (it was when the evil Endemol empire was unleashing all kinds of formats onto our TV schedules)
- "Instant Play" where you can play large games which require more than one cartridge by just swapping the cartridge mid-play, despite the GameBoy being switched on - well, wasn't well thought out because when the GameBoy is switched on the mechanism prevents you from pulling out the cartridge but I didn't care, so received some flak -> trolling, they fed me ;-)
- Game tips/cheats that did of course not work or even make sense, like telling people to press up/down/left all together at the same time on the D-Pad, tips for games that didn't exist. There was a lot of tongue-in-cheek in those game tips when someone presented a weird piss-take game and in the next issue you'd tell them you were stuck on that game and they delivered by posting more bollocks as a means of a solution to your problem :-D
- Sales advert for non-existing gear with the phone number of a wanker at school I didn't like, and the same advert looking to buy the exact same stuff with the same phone number in the following issue
I guess it won't sound all that hilarious when I describe this, it was usually the way most of it was written - as well as the angry response of people who complained about everyone taking the piss and that the section was going to the dogs - which was half the fun. Very much like the trolling you have on the internet today just with an extremely long "lag" between answers.
The funny thing is that the magazine staff who had to type in all this crap (you usually sent it on paper, remember that was around 1990) probably were well aware it was all made up but didn't care, I bet they laughed about it themselves.
Around 1990, we had this computer classifieds magazine printed on thin crappy recycled paper which consisted only of classifieds (free though), but you could not just buy/sell - stuff but you could also chit-chat, and the vast majority of this magazine was made up by this chatting aspect. Most computers of that time and consoles (like Amstrad, Amiga, Archimedes, Atari ST, C16/Plus4, C64, MSX etc. of course Speccy too as well as Atari Lynx, Gameboy/NES etc.) had their own corner which all had subsections like buy/sell, discussion, programming Q&A, game hints/cheats and whatnot. The whole mag would be around 150 pages, sometimes more or less.
It came out only every 2 months so you can imagine the turnaround was very slow.
At one point people started to talk weird crap in the Gameboy section, so after having a good laugh I joined in the fun. After a couple of issues there was probably 80%+ just nonsense posts in that particular section.
People would post increasingly inane stuff, like a "compiler Gameboy/Amiga" which allowed you to play Gameboy games on the Amiga "and of course vice-versa" :-D, Leisure Suit Larry for Gameboy, a mouse with 2x3" dimensions, ZX81 emulator including keyboard (posted by someone with the appropriate nickname of "Sir Clive" or so), Soundtracker, Assemblers, Health Center where you could attach a cable to the Gameboy and stick the cable up the "usual" parts of your body, free and totally crap games to go with the McDonald's junior bag or whatever that thing was called, where you had to gobble up all the hamburgers that angry customers had vomited onto the floor ...
Someone also told people who had a powerpack with variable voltage to change it from 6 to 12V to play the Gameboy games in 2x speed so I replied in the next issue how the game was really going to town that way, of course other had less friendly words to that idea and asked the magazine's editor if one couldn't sue the original poster in case some idiot really had tried it and blown up their Gameboy ...
My own "inventions" I reported (using the handle "Kunta Kinte") about included:
- All kinds of tie-ins of the TV shows we had back at that time (it was when the evil Endemol empire was unleashing all kinds of formats onto our TV schedules)
- "Instant Play" where you can play large games which require more than one cartridge by just swapping the cartridge mid-play, despite the GameBoy being switched on - well, wasn't well thought out because when the GameBoy is switched on the mechanism prevents you from pulling out the cartridge but I didn't care, so received some flak -> trolling, they fed me ;-)
- Game tips/cheats that did of course not work or even make sense, like telling people to press up/down/left all together at the same time on the D-Pad, tips for games that didn't exist. There was a lot of tongue-in-cheek in those game tips when someone presented a weird piss-take game and in the next issue you'd tell them you were stuck on that game and they delivered by posting more bollocks as a means of a solution to your problem :-D
- Sales advert for non-existing gear with the phone number of a wanker at school I didn't like, and the same advert looking to buy the exact same stuff with the same phone number in the following issue
I guess it won't sound all that hilarious when I describe this, it was usually the way most of it was written - as well as the angry response of people who complained about everyone taking the piss and that the section was going to the dogs - which was half the fun. Very much like the trolling you have on the internet today just with an extremely long "lag" between answers.
The funny thing is that the magazine staff who had to type in all this crap (you usually sent it on paper, remember that was around 1990) probably were well aware it was all made up but didn't care, I bet they laughed about it themselves.
Post edited by XTM of TMG on
Comments
http://www.dancingyak.co.uk/blog/2006/08/technobabble-and-social-engineering.html
Sometimes I send in an SMS with some subject that just HAVE to upset people and provoke them, just to see what replies I might get.
"98081" of course being the Speaking Clock in most towns (back then at least). ;)
I wonder it if would have been printed? :)
misteaksmistrakesmisyaleserrurs— oh, sod it.