To my dismay, I learned today that bash.org went down some time ago (2023). For those who don't know what bash.org is, or was I guess, it's a collection of chat snippets from IRC channels. Sort of a "best of" of the earlier days of IRC. Fortunately, a few archivists preserved the collection, and this is one of those archives. The best are pretty good, the worst are... pretty bad. Lots of racism. There are a lot of entries, some of which are still quoted around the internet today, and they represent a crowd-curated snapshot of what the internet was like around the turn of the century.

A selection of notable pieces in the collection (that is, I just went through and picked some I remember from the days of yore):
hunter2
types of people
lost machine
helping a newbie
inverted b
experiencing nature
neighborhood bonfire
advanced robotics
business acumen
essence of IRC
top minds of IRC

Sixteen Tons Tay Zonday sings Merle Travis / Tennessee Ernie Ford! Sixteen Tons Lyrics: Some people say a man is made outta mudA poor man's made outta muscle...

EDIT , footnote : I dug through my memes folder and decided to repost some shit.

Look at me. I am Stamets now.

Origin : https://www.biggercheese.com/index.php?comic=701

Circa 2005, white lines left in respect to the original cropper.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50191436

So I found out my dad has a massive stash of old saved memes. I asked him to share it with me, I'll be posting some.

Did any of you guys remember Coldsteel before seeing this post?

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/me-gusta

According to Urban Dictionary (among other sources), the phrase insensitive clod - later a popular retort on Slashdot - originated in this Calvin and Hobbes comic published on February 14, 1986.

It's unclear how the phrase didn't make it into the poll for Best Meme in Slashdot's First 10 Years, but the ensuing thread has plenty of examples of its use.

Comic via this "10 Emotional Moments from Calvin & Hobbes" post on cbr.com.

2010 or older

A fun little short featuring some of the Internet's wonderful mysteries.