“Want some candy, little fangirl?” This Fannish History Friday, we’re looking back on the long-running LiveJournal recs community Crack Van.
Did you write a fandom primer, or sign up to pimp your fandom for a month? Did you discover a favorite story, or even a favorite fandom through a Crack Van post? If you remember Crack Van, add your experience to our page on Fanlore.
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Oh man. Crack Van was the best. The amount of times I fell down the hole of new fandoms or found new favourite fics was phenomenal. I drove the van for Generation Kill for a couple of months and it was a fantastic experience.
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost; for none now live who remember it.
Back in the early aughts, when many millenials were in high school, before Facebook and Youtube, The Game began. No one knows who started it, but the moment we learned we were playing it, we began to lose. The goal of The Game is to forget you are playing The Game for as long as possible. The rules of The Game are as follows: Everyone is always playing The Game all the time; at school, during breakfast, at night when you are asleep, etc. The Game never ends. The moment you remember that you are playing The Game, you lose and must immediately announce to those around you, “I just lost The Game!” thus making them remember they are also playing The Game and causing them to lose as well. Upon losing, you begin The Game again. Sometimes players could go weeks or months without losing, sometimes only minutes. At the height of The Game’s popularity, it became common to see people at events such as Comic Con or midnight movie premieres, wearing t-shirts proclaiming “You just lost The Game!” Once they were noticed, groans and shouts of “Fuck you!” could be heard for miles. These people thrived on the chaos, taking great pleasure in the cries of their victims. Most people eventually grew bored of The Game, and many began to claim they won by choosing not to care about it anymore. Some rely on a particular XKCD comic strip or Tumblr post to lend a sense of legitimacy to their feeling of victory. They are fools. It is impossible to win The Game. There is only losing. Only a few diehards remain loyal to the rules. The drop in popularity has allowed many to keep from losing The Game for years at a time. The growth of social media has caused a minor resurgence, although without the satisfaction of real time auditory feedback when causing others to lose, The Game will likely fade back into obscurity once again. Someday when we are old and gray, our grandchildren will innocently ask us to play a game of checkers, and we will shriek and shout until the whole nursing home joins us in defeat. Death is the only release from The Game.
The “Dread Gazebo” is one of those inside jokes that everybody in the D&D/RPG community is supposed to know, but that makes it really hard to actually learn. Everyone references it, but nobody actually tells the original story. I played D&D for years before I got up the nerve to ask why everyone made jokes about gazebos.
Those old “Oh Chuck Norris is so strong he could beat up anyone.” memes from like 2007 are so fucking dumb. Like, I could name off at least 20 or so people that could kick his ass, for example;
Gandalf the Gray
Gandalf the White
Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Black Night
Benito Mussolini
Blue Meanie
Cowboy Curtis
Jambi the Genie
Robocop
The Terminator
Captain Kirk
Darth Vader
Lo-Pan
Superman
Every single Power Ranger
Bill S Preston
Theodore Logan
Spock
The Rock
Doc Oc
Hulk Hogan
I can’t think of anymore but please feel free to add on
a japanese guy who made a bunch of creepy pasta videos a long time ago (you’ve probably seen Youtube666, he made that) is playing through minecraft for the first time and he’s not using any guides or anything other than the in-game guidebook and he’s fucking. doing it in such a buddhist way.
like, he’s so patient and detached from all of the stuff he’s gotten.
in the newest episode he destroyed 14566 blocks of bridge and blew up his original house just because he learned about xyz coordinates by accidentally pressing F5 and he wanted his house to be at the X:0 coordinate.
also look at this quarry. it’s his 5th quarry.
look at this absolute fucking massive hole.
and it’s not like “HELLOOOOO EVERYBODY WHAT IS UP, TODAY WE’RE GONNA BE PLAYING MIIIIIINECRAAAAFT” he’s just like. a quiet 30 year old japanese man who speaks very precisely and politely. and he even does his own english captions which are overlayed on the video and he uses emoticons like (0u0)/
he’s so wonderful and cute.
please watch at least like 5 minutes of this.
i PROMISE you you’ll smile.
i thought literally everyone else forgot about nana825763 i love their ant raising videos
Steel Phoenix Studios 