Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

I am researching the origin of using fake HTML and BBcode as some kind of "emoticons" and various other uses on forums,namely:

< /thread > or the BBcode version [/thread].
< /sarcasm >or as it's most commonly found /sarcasm

with special mentions to how twitter hashtags are slowly replacing Markup tags OUTSIDE of Twitter… (#swag,#flame….etc)
Widespread examples (especially twitter hashtags) are most appreciated, but what is really needed is the origin.
I'm guessing "/thread" started somewhere on 4chan but it could date earlier than that.

Notes:if an entry exists for any of these Tags,point me to it so that maybe I can help updating it, I'm typing this because I still can't believe KYM doesn't have an entry for this (if emoticons have an entry than this deserves one too!)
also is markup languages or anything of my above post confuse you, just post to a reply and I'll try my to explain it in the best of my ability.
[/post]

I have certainly used this before. It is very useful for conveying the sort of emotional nuances that are lost in an all-text medium like the internet. Have you found many examples? I suggest going on forums, image boards, and social networking sites to take screenshots of people doing it. Perhaps you might also find articles written on the subject, which would make researching the meme a lot easier. You might also be able to draw a connection between these tags, rage faces, and emoticons – since they all serve the same function (communicating emotion and nuance).

Or have you done all this already?

< reply length="medium" tone="serious" >

Yes, yes I have.
if you are interested I found several sources on the matter (even dictionary entries,yes APART from urban dictionary) if you are interested I'll update this post with a link to them.
what I need is more examples,especially twitter hashtags,
[reason] lots of ground to cover[/reason]
BTW I know a way to make KYM ignore my fake tags, usually it deletes all fake HTML tags as a way of post-formatting but I found a way to preserve the original look of the HTML tag without it being considered a tag (it doesn't involve adding spaces like I did in the above post,for some reason my method doesn't work on this forum)

< /reply >

I said I was going to post more later, but I'll say this now. It's certainly going to be difficult to find the first uses outside of their original context, but I think there's an article for "THIS," so it can be done. I'll make some screenshots, because I know it's out there and is being used, and post it here.
 
You may actually be able to find some macros with #(hashtag) or "/thread" among others with a image search engine. It should help to fill out the hypothetical image section and give you some colorful things for the hypothetical article.

For the origin section, I had just assumed that he could put in a description of the history of the HTML tag, perhaps mentioning when they came into general use for formatting forum posts and wiki articles (likely when the general internet public first came into contact with them), and combine it with a Google Insights graph. There are other confirmed memes that have origins lost to history, so the ephemeral origins should not disqualify it.

I'm not sure of the origin but it does go quite a way back.

I recall the use of < sarcasm></ sarcasm> as far back as 2003 in numerous gaming forums. I believe its usage may even predate BBcode because those particular gaming forums I mentioned all used BBcode but nobody typed [sarcasm][/sarcasm]. The HTML syntax version is the one that became widespread at that point.

It's such a simple concept that more than one person could have thought of it too, giving you multiple origins.

@Verbose:
While I do have a handful of images they are mostly IRL not on the web(ironically using web based markup tags IRL to incite laughter), I always need more examples

@Platus:
for the origin section, I'm using Wikipedia and ohinternet as my main reference, to introduce Markup tags in programing, their spread on forums, then their consequential memetic usage(still have problems on the last bit though,no confirmed origin), as for the Google insights , I just want to drop the article , give it some editors then work on all the add-ons, mostly because I can't find a uniform name for the meme (or the entry for that matter but I'll discuss that point later )

@Blue Screen
My research indicated that a forum uses the faux-markup tags that's opposite to it's actual markup language.
for example: here on the KYM forums I see people mostly using BB [/thread] because we use HTML,and if you type HTML tags correctly the parser of the server will remove them or treat them as real tags, while if you modify their appearance (like adding spaces), people will think you attempted to write an actual HTML tag but were thwarted by your n00bness (as to speak).
So if a Forum uses HTML: the BBcode version is used memeticly.
if it uses BBcode: the HTML version is used memeticly.
sometimes to avoid this problem altogether, users simply put the tag without brackets: /example.

Actually, I'm pretty sure there ISN'T an article for THIS.
I made a thread about it, but got nowhere.

Can I get a link to your thread?
I tired searching for "THIS" but got a million results, I wish to study it to gather some insight on proper origin research, if you don't mind that is…


EDIT:
Can anyone tell me how to make that neat line in the forums, you know that separator thing.
I tired the < hr > tag but it's getting me nowhere, is it textile or something?

I found the place of origin,it was quite a twist….
the year of origin is somewhere in between 1992 and 1994(not confirmed)
as for examples I found a couple of good IRL ones but all the 4chan examples I can get will look like this:

Why? you have internet censorship to thank for that!
I'll just have to upload with these amazing results and hope the KYMers (without internet censorship) will add more examples.
so if any of you have any examples, post that here ,NOT THE images,post those on the entry once it's up,I meant inform me that you have images, when there are enough I'll drop the entry (even if their aren't any, expect an entry by this time tomorrow or the day after it)
[/update]

Happy Birthday!

@X-singular

you seem to have a lot of information, and I think we can agree that this is a meme. Why not make a page for it. I would be happy to help you out as best as I can (though my expertise on this matter appears to be significantly less than your own). If we are lucky, a passing mod might take an interest in the matter and give the article an extra layer of polish.

And

WE ARE LIVE!!!

I hope it gets confirmed, I'm sure of it's memetic value, but I'm unsure that I did the subject justice.
Curse my noobishness!

+1 research, the entry seems really interesting and is a great submission. i'm gonna take a look at this and help you out~

Have you seen this TVTrope article on Faux HTML tags. It seems to cover a lot of the same ground but it may have something useful.

Faux HTML tags….
Is it a better name? I tried several combinations of Fake/faux/ostensible/pseudo and HTML/XML/MARKUP tags, but none of them is giving me enough results on Google insights..
However if KYM is dissatisfied with the current naming, I'll change it to any combination of the above…
If anyone can find images of the the failblog post, tombstone or the mythbusters shirt it would be a great addition to the article…

I would leave the title as it is. Faux and Fake mean essentially the same thing, and making the titles too similar might make it easier to mix our article with the one on TvTropes.

Seems like no one found anymore examples to add, I would add some if it wasn't for my country's censorship laws (Reddit, tumblr, 4chan, FunnyJunk are inaccessible from here)if you think you can add to the article , contact me and I'll grant you editorship…
this entry is really important to the internet community, I'd say it's as influential as Emoticons…
I probably will have to post examples forum this forum and the others on Cheezburger network, seeing those are ones of the few that are unblocked…

Wait, what country are you from? Who is trying to censor your internet?