The dangers of the Internet

While Whitney was away I watched loads of Room 101 - this part with Johnny Vegas is like a warning from the past. One step before the days of Second Life, World of Warcraft, and everything else that allow people to build another life (as virtual humans and/or upright rabbits) while rapidly shrivelling in their real one, there were text-based fantasy MUDs - and his experience on one of them is dragged out of him slowly in escalating levels of detail and hilarity (and in Paul Merton's case, a sort of morbidly fascinated bafflement). The story starts at about two minutes in, and reaches a wonderful climax four minutes later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAjD8c6cFc8

The featured chatroom still exists, with a note proudly acknowledging their appearance here - although it looks rather like staring into a time-warp to the mid-90s. It's run by someone who Capitalizes words apparently at Random and peppers Their typing with miniature stage directions (falls over; disgusted look). It would be interesting to see if there are any logs around that feature his username...

As a postscript, there's also a very compelling reason to put Hollyoaks into Room 101 too, right at the end.