RustyBottoms

Time for another retro post and this one is a corker. It is the infamous 'Pretty Flowers' thread that was started by RustyBottoms. Rusty may only have contributed three throw-away comments to Metafilter before spamming the front page, but his contribution to the site turned out to be priceless. Before we go on, let's take a look at what he had to say.

"that's great. it's like talk soup for the web."
(from the Best Of The Web 2.0 FPP)

"poor baby"
(from the Nature Happens FPP)

"is this a sorryeverybody for christians? maybe too little too late."
(from the Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ FPP)

The resulting thread was somehow overlooked by the moderators for a while (obviously this was back in the days before vacapinta joined the team) and in the ensuing chaos, MeFites had a helluva lot of fun, posting jokes, images and generally just ripping Rusty (not his real name) and his band 'Pretty Flowers' apart. The greatest fun to be had was the merciless photoshopping of the photos of the band from the site to include everything and anything, including the web-meme of the moment, Ceiling Cat.

Rusty chimed in on the thread to the tune of another 4 comments in a vain attempt to save himself and what little credibility his crappy band had but in the end, he couldn't compete with a simple pressing of The Ban Button by an unnamed moderator. Rusty's Bottom having been booted to the curb, Metafilter was safe again, but everyone who participated in that thread still has fond memories of those two fun filled hours.

de novo dahl

In a case of multiple personalities that would make even the most experienced therapist sweat, de novo dahl is not just one Metafilter spammer... s/he's four men and one woman. More than this; de novo dahl is a band. Three throwaway comments after joining, they posted a link to their bands website. Let's take a look at some of their lyrics comments.

"Thanks!"
(from the 2008 Animated Short Film Oscar Noms FPP)

"Mario and Sonic in the same game makes me feel dirty. It's like if Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff were on the same show. Oh wait."
(from the New Meaning to "Gettin Smashed All Weekend" FPP)

"I love me some jezzball, but this is pretty buggy. Thanks for the link though. One more thing to do instead of actually working."
(from the Jumpin' Jezzballs FPP)

Interestingly, de novo dahl did not feel the mighty wrath of The Banhammer and has since gone on to contribute two songs to Metafilter Music and 3 answers to AskMe. So not banned... but probably should have been. Merciful indeed is our Lord cortex, who killed the spammy post but spared the spammer.

[More info on this spammer can be found at the Deleted Thread blog]

richdan

There are any number of ways that richdan could have gotten rich. A win in the lottery. Careful investments. Saving really hard and being a spend-thrift. This was not how richdan got rich. He probably made his fortune self-linking to his website promoting his band that plays at weddings (a wedding band, yuk yuk) which had apparently put together "7 mindblowing illusions". The veracity of this claim is highly disputable, but what is clear is that he contributed only three not very mindblowing comments to Metafilter before spamming it, which I have displayed below for your reading pleasure.

"Very nice posting. If only more people could do this"
(from the Paz sin fronteras FPP)

"Incredible. I have bene observig this technology for some time and think it will be very significant in our future lives"
(from the Digital telepathy? FPP)

"Amazing. When can I go?"
(from the asleep at light speed FPP)

According to cortex, wielder of The Mighty Banhammer, richdan was able to go (away) on March 16th 2008. Very nice. If only more spammers could do this.