Who do you think I am, Mr.Bubbles9560?
“Yeah, I know what happened five years ago in Miami. You think I’m a fucking idiot? You think I’m Mr. Bubbles 9560? [bowls a near-perfect strike] Nope. You’re dealing with me, bitch.
This is a line from one of the recent Broad City episode ‘Philidelphia‘ in which the character Ilana is selling a limited edition beanie baby (a fictional Jonbenet Ramsey beanie baby) and is dealing with the online beanie baby community. I thought this was a particularly funny line as it shows a certain aspect of online communities I love: Legends // inside jokes. Mr.Bubbles9560 certainly must have done something within this fictional beanie baby community to make himself and what he did so infamous. This concept as well as the wonderful username of ‘Mr.Bubbles9560’ – which is surely someone’s real username is what makes this joke so truthful to communities online.
There are many inside jokes or legends within communities and generally, you have to be fairly “in” the community to understand their notoriety. There are two online phenomenon’s that I have come across that I have found particularly interesting:
The first one is ‘My Immortal’
My Immortal is a piece of fan fiction I heard about a couple of years ago. I forget exactly who mentioned it me or how I originally came across it but you can read a great a summary about it on this vulture article. In summary, My Immortal is widely known as the worst piece of fan fiction ever. Its author is a mystery though many suspect it to be “xXblo0dyxkissxX” (this theory is best explained HERE). My Immortal originally appeared in 2006 and now only exists from other fanfiction.net’ copying and pasting. My immortal continues to live on through the HP fan-fic community through memes, Youtube reenactments, and fun conspiracy theories. I know anonymous – everyone’s favorite hacktivist – is pretty busy but I think they really need to get on the mystery of the authorship of My Immortal.
The second one is The Mojave Desert Phone Booth. If you have time I highly recommend you listen to the episode about this phenomenon from NPR’s Snap Judgment. There is also a short documentary which you can watch on YOUTUBE. In short, there is a lone phone booth in the Mojave desert that attracted unprecedented online attention in 1997 (The original website can be viewed HERE). Many people would call the number in hopes someone would pick up, and record each of their calls. This particular phenomenon fascinates me as it shows even in the beginning of online culture people were able to connect over some of the oddest or more random of things.
