The dangers of the Internet

[davidn]

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.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Oh my dear gosh, the heartfelt embarrassment in that man's voice, and yet he's enough of a good sport to continue right on through it all.... it's so charming, and really, one of the only perfectly honest summaries of internet culture at its core that I've ever heard...

Man, I was certain that they were going to invite out Jezebel at the end, without having warned him.

What is the premise of the show exactly?

[davidn]

I love it when he's in such hysterics that he can hardly admit to her name...!

The premise - it's basically a chat programme, but with the guest of the week nominating things that they personally dislike - which can be anything, such as caravans, David Blaine, boiled eggs, men who wear swimming trunks that are too small, camping, golf, politicians, vegetarianism, or anything else on Wikipedia's predictably exhaustive list - with the aim of putting them into Room 101, where the worst things in the world are collected. Paul Merton acts as the chosen items' sort of defence attorney, arguing as to what it would be like if these things really were to suddenly disappear from the world.

The fictional disappearance concept makes it sound a bit stranger than I had previously considered it to be, but then everything does when I'm pressed to explain them.