Well, looks like I'm going to be one of the last ones to post here before the lights shut off for good. I wish I had something witty or profound to say here, but I don't, so you'll have to settle for me blathering mindlessly instead.

By my cursory calculations, I first posted Transformers-related stuff to alt.toys.transformers almost 40 years ago. Holy zarqon flying fish, that makes me feel older than Kup, and I don't mean that in a good way (I wish my knees were as easy to replace as his missing rotator cuffs). I don't even remember 90% of the stuff I posted to a.t.t, but I'm sure it's all embarrassingly stupid -- Hot Rod wasn't the only turbo-revvin' young punk in those days, if you know what I mean. Primus knows I will NOT be digging through the archives to find my old posts, thank you very much.

But if there's one thing that I will fondly remember from those nascent days of Transfandom, it's the sense of community that we all shared. Let's be truthful, we were all a bunch of socially-awkward nerds, hiding from the cool kids behind our computers playing with this weird thing called "Usenet" so we could talk about a niche line of plastic toys -- how much nerdier can you get than that? But we didn't give a slag, we were having fun, bonding with each other over our shared geeky arguments like RIBFIR vs. RIRFIB, or who could sing "The Touch" loudest at BotCon. Hell, we were thrilled in those days that Hasbro didn't cancel the then-fading Transformers toy line outright, and we were desperately clutching our garish G2 repaints in hopes that Transformers wouldn't go the way of Polly Pockets. In those days, if someone had told us that we'd actually get multiple LIVE-ACTION movies, or animation-accurate STUDIO SERIES toys, or multiple Unicron toys that DIDN'T look like a beach ball on acid, or comic books that treated our beloved characters and settings and mythologies with the gravitas we yearned for, or that Transformers would end up as Hasbro's BIGGEST product line... well, we'd think he'd be crazier than Galvatron.

And yet, in those intervening almost-forty years, Transformers bounced back better than ever, our nerdery became cool, we're now actually arguing over which version of our beloved toys and cartoons and movies and comics and whatnot are the best...

....and alt.toys.transformers is going to become One With The Matrix.

Dammit.

....

Eh, it's not so bad. After all, Transformers fandom isn't going away; it's just spread out into a million different outlets. Instead of a handful of newsgroups, we've now got TFWiki and toy reviews on YouTube and retrospective podcasts and a zillion websites and subreddits and whatnot. And Dave Van Domelen is still writing toy reviews, Walky is still throwing out hilariously bad jokes to anyone in earshot, I'm still blathering nonsense that nobody cares about, and I even heard a rumor that Raksha's still tending to her snakes and snarling over Hasbro's treatment of Nightbird these days (joke!).

So yeah. alt.toys.transformers is going bye-bye.

But we're not (or at least not yet), and that's what's important.

Eh, I'll shut up now. This old man's gotta get to bed or I'll throw a piston rod.

Bah weep grahnah weep ninibong, y'all.

On Wednesday 21 February 2024 at 23:46:40 UTC-8, Robert Jung wrote:
> Well, looks like I'm going to be one of the last ones to post here before the lights shut off for good. I wish I had something witty or profound to say here, but I don't, so you'll have to settle for me blathering mindlessly instead.
>
> By my cursory calculations, I first posted Transformers-related stuff to alt.toys.transformers almost 40 years ago. Holy zarqon flying fish, that makes me feel older than Kup, and I don't mean that in a good way (I wish my knees were as easy to replace as his missing rotator cuffs). I don't even remember 90% of the stuff I posted to a.t.t, but I'm sure it's all embarrassingly stupid -- Hot Rod wasn't the only turbo-revvin' young punk in those days, if you know what I mean. Primus knows I will NOT be digging through the archives to find my old posts, thank you very much.
>
> But if there's one thing that I will fondly remember from those nascent days of Transfandom, it's the sense of community that we all shared. Let's be truthful, we were all a bunch of socially-awkward nerds, hiding from the cool kids behind our computers playing with this weird thing called "Usenet" so we could talk about a niche line of plastic toys -- how much nerdier can you get than that? But we didn't give a slag, we were having fun, bonding with each other over our shared geeky arguments like RIBFIR vs. RIRFIB, or who could sing "The Touch" loudest at BotCon. Hell, we were thrilled in those days that Hasbro didn't cancel the then-fading Transformers toy line outright, and we were desperately clutching our garish G2 repaints in hopes that Transformers wouldn't go the way of Polly Pockets. In those days, if someone had told us that we'd actually get multiple LIVE-ACTION movies, or animation-accurate STUDIO SERIES toys, or multiple Unicron toys that DIDN'T look like a beach ball on acid, or comic books that treated our beloved characters and settings and mythologies with the gravitas we yearned for, or that Transformers would end up as Hasbro's BIGGEST product line... well, we'd think he'd be crazier than Galvatron.
>
> And yet, in those intervening almost-forty years, Transformers bounced back better than ever, our nerdery became cool, we're now actually arguing over which version of our beloved toys and cartoons and movies and comics and whatnot are the best...
>
> ...and alt.toys.transformers is going to become One With The Matrix.
>
> Dammit.
>
> ...
>
> Eh, it's not so bad. After all, Transformers fandom isn't going away; it's just spread out into a million different outlets. Instead of a handful of newsgroups, we've now got TFWiki and toy reviews on YouTube and retrospective podcasts and a zillion websites and subreddits and whatnot. And Dave Van Domelen is still writing toy reviews, Walky is still throwing out hilariously bad jokes to anyone in earshot, I'm still blathering nonsense that nobody cares about, and I even heard a rumor that Raksha's still tending to her snakes and snarling over Hasbro's treatment of Nightbird these days (joke!).
>
> So yeah. alt.toys.transformers is going bye-bye.
>
> But we're not (or at least not yet), and that's what's important.
>
> Eh, I'll shut up now. This old man's gotta get to bed or I'll throw a piston rod.
>
> Bah weep grahnah weep ninibong, y'all.

So great to see you back here, Rob! Thank you for everything you contributed to a.t.t. - and to the fandom - over so many years. The fanfic that felt like slices from the cartoon, the thoughtful convention reports, the kind of supportive presence here: it means (and meant) a lot, and it brought a lot of depth and context to our favorite transforming robots and their mythology.

Grateful to see the kinship and camaraderie that many folks have brought to the group tonight.

Joseph

A small but important typo correction to my post from a few moments ago in response to Rob Jung:

I originally wrote:

"...the thoughtful convention reports, the kind of supportive presence here..."

I actually meant:

"...the thoughtful convention reports, the kind AND supportive presence here..."

A difference of just three characters, but a significant one all the same. Apologies, Rob (and all).

- JB

In article <21bff99c-d5e8-41ad-a480-71a1d1d24792n@googlegroups.com>,
Robert Jung <rjung2k@gmail.com> wrote:
>Well, looks like I'm going to be one of the last ones to post here
>before the lights shut off for good. I wish I had something witty or
>profound to say here, but I don't, so you'll have to settle for me
>blathering mindlessly instead.

The group isn't going away, it's just losing its biggest access point.
Usenet isn't wholly owned by Google, just mostly.

>And Dave Van Domelen is still writing toy reviews

And I'll still be posting them here, even if only a few people can see
them on the group. My posting access has never depended on Google, for good
or ill.

Dave Van Domelen, points at other efforts here to keep a.t.t accessible.

dvandom@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen) writes:

> Dave Van Domelen, points at other efforts here to keep a.t.t accessible.

Do we need more?

- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org) (He, Him, His)
--
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tskirvin Skirv's Career

Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> In article <21bff99c-d5e8-41ad-a480-71a1d1d24792n@googlegroups.com>,
> Robert Jung <rjung2k@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Well, looks like I'm going to be one of the last ones to post here
>>before the lights shut off for good. I wish I had something witty or
>>profound to say here, but I don't, so you'll have to settle for me
>>blathering mindlessly instead.

> The group isn't going away, it's just losing its biggest access point.
> Usenet isn't wholly owned by Google, just mostly.

>>And Dave Van Domelen is still writing toy reviews

> And I'll still be posting them here, even if only a few people can see
> them on the group. My posting access has never depended on Google, for good
> or ill.

> Dave Van Domelen, points at other efforts here to keep a.t.t accessible.

Thanks for keeping the torch alive with your reviews at https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/index.shtml - it's the most comprehensive collection of reviews on the Internet and my first port of call for reviews - and IIRC, it's been going for nearly 30 years!