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...and I was struck by how much verbiage relevant to the "serial killer community" has been adopted by the online community.

Trolling, stalking, hits, to name a few...I have had some beers tonight...am I imagining all this stuff?

BTK? Any background information at all?

 Medium of Death wrote:
BTK? Any background information at all?

Dennis Rader, aka, the Blind, Torture, Kill (BTK) Killer.

He was a f'd up psycho killer who killed people in Kansas from the 70s into the 90s until he got caught, and confessed everything in open court, which can be seen online on youtube.

I wouldn't have the stomach to detail his crimes, but they were the stuff movies are made of (probably have been made of).

In his confession, he used alot of lingo that is now common-place online...trolling, stalking (cyberstalking), hits.

I'm just wondering if alot of the lingo in online-world is derived from this kind of lingo.

 jasper76 wrote:
He was a f'd up psycho killer who killed people in Kansas from the 70s into the 90s until he got caught, and confessed everything in open court, which can be seen online on youtube.

I wouldn't have the stomach to detail his crimes, but they were the stuff movies are made of (probably have been made of).

In his confession, he used alot of lingo that is now common-place online...trolling, stalking (cyberstalking), hits.

I'm just wondering if alot of the lingo in online-world is derived from this kind of lingo.

I blame EverQuest and Yahoo chat room

Stalking and hits were already in common use, weren't they?

Trolling is an interesting one, though.

He probably means trolling as in fishing for victims?

Stalking has been used as a term at least as far back as the 1800's to describe hunting. Not surprised to see it crop up in discussions of serial killer behavior. And since it started getting used in the 1900's to describe pervvy perpetual harassment/following of someone, it isn't too much of a stretch to see it come up in internet discussions as well.

Hit has been in use since at least 1951 (see The Enforcer with Humphrey Bogart, where they have to explain the term, as it is in use within organized crime circles but presumably not yet in general use) to describe a contract killing. Given the general popularity of hitmen in internet and nerd culture, this one also doesn't surprise me.

Trolling is a term for a type of fishing (where you toss a baited line, often many, overboard and wait to let something bite). It isn't hard to see how this got applied to internet trolling, and it has been a term for someone who goes looking for sleazy sexual partners for a very long time (probably at least as far back as the 19th century, unless it was co-opted into the Polari vocabulary at a later date). Again, pretty small jump from there to serial-killer behavior.

That being said, I think the online community has had to create a subculture almost entirely from scratch in a relatively short time. Some terms (at least in their online origin) such as 'con' (the relative level of an enemy in a video game to your own character's) or 'mob' (an enemy in an online video game) have evolved organically from computer programming or engineering terms. Some have been co-opted or have evolved from real world terms (such as spam and forum). Others bear striking resemblance to real world terms and can cause confusion. (See 'homebrew' vs 'homebrewed.' One is a piece of computer equipment made from scavenged materials, and the other is a beverage, usually alcoholic, manufactured likewise. Both are applied to homemade rules for RPGs and wargames.)

All that considered, there are probably many other areas where borrowed slang can link the online community with another, unrelated, group.

 jasper76 wrote:
...and I was struck by how much verbiage relevant to the "serial killer community" has been adopted by the online community.

Trolling, stalking, hits, to name a few...I have had some beers tonight...am I imagining all this stuff?

I don't really have anything to add other than I've seen that as well and it was rather chilling seeing how calm and collected he was explaining how he killed his victims to the court. There is something so off putting by the way he answered his questions.

 KingCracker wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
...and I was struck by how much verbiage relevant to the "serial killer community" has been adopted by the online community.

Trolling, stalking, hits, to name a few...I have had some beers tonight...am I imagining all this stuff?

I don't really have anything to add other than I've seen that as well and it was rather chilling seeing how calm and collected he was explaining how he killed his victims to the court. There is something so off putting by the way he answered his questions.

Right? So disturbing. He might as well of been talking about how he drives to work every day. No emotion whatsoever.

 jasper76 wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
...and I was struck by how much verbiage relevant to the "serial killer community" has been adopted by the online community.

Trolling, stalking, hits, to name a few...I have had some beers tonight...am I imagining all this stuff?

I don't really have anything to add other than I've seen that as well and it was rather chilling seeing how calm and collected he was explaining how he killed his victims to the court. There is something so off putting by the way he answered his questions.

Right? So disturbing. He might as well of been talking about how he drives to work every day. No emotion whatsoever.

Some people simply do not have that moral compass to distinguish "I'll have eggs for breakfast" and "I'm going to murder the mailman this morning."

Call him psychologically unbalanced, but some people know exactly what they are doing and lack the care to give a feth.

Nah...he calmly and factually admitted he planned most of his murders well in advance in order to fulfill sexual fantasies. He certainly cared.

But if your point is that he couldn't care less about his victims, I agree.

WHAT THE feth IS THIS THREAD ABOUT???

OT but the Frazzled had trained to be an FBI agent to go after such. Alas an incident occurred that messed up his vision making him ineligible for the FBI. Frazzled sad, and devotes his life after to corrupting others.


Frazzled successful!

You should check out the televised interviews with Richard Kuklinski. There are some seriously cold people in the world.

So many interesting people out there that make look Hannibal like a Teletubbie. My hobby cellar is almost finished!

I'd say not many of them are actually very interesting at all, to be honest. Well, interesting perhaps in the way that a plane crash is interesting, as an example of something having gone horribly wrong, but as people I don't think I've ever heard any useful observations or insights from any of them.