Why wtf was invented

Or so he claims. Lexicographer and netspeak historian Ben Zimmer told PCWorld that the first documented mention of LOL comes from a May newsletter called FidoNews -- still distributed by the computer network FidoNet today -- which listed it as a commonly used Web acronym.

The newsletter is archived in full at TextFiles. I guess you had to be there. Even before the Internet, misanthropic youth liked to talk about "laughing their asses off. What is it with this guy? Meaning: "what the fuck? Even the acronym's modern exposure dates back further than Drake to at least , when Adam Mesh, a former contestant on the reality show "Average Joe," printed the phrase on a line of T-shirts.

Disappointed in current use. I have moved on. Dude is crazy. What did I say? Then I found out it was shut down because of a rat infestation. In this throwaway scene, "McLovin" played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse spoke with a morose cashier who utters the famous words:. You can thank the long-running game show "Hollywood Squares" for the phrase "for the win.

But it was in the early s when the acronym "FTW" popped up in the online role-playing game "Dark Age of Camelot," according to a post on StackExchange , an online forum for linguists and etymologists. This angry little acronym is said to have originated among soldiers in World War II , used in response to redundant questions from a new recruit, according to Know Your Meme.

But its earliest confirmed usage as a tech term came in , when it was used in -- you guessed it -- a manual for computer programmers. Something similar happened with Elongated Man, a central character in CW's The Flash at least until the actor playing him got James Gunn'd by old tweets.

Elongated Man made his debut in The Flash , but according to one of the artists in that issue, he was only created because the editor didn't realize DC already owned the original stretchy superhero, Plastic Man. At the very least they could have named him Plastic Man II, because who the hell says "elongated"? DC Comics DC later gave him this costume, probably because they'd just figured out they couldn't sue themselves.

In the '80s, DC published a series of "very special" New Teen Titans issues designed to teach kids that drugs are evil and your life will turn into a living nightmare if you so much as look at a doobie. These featured all the classic characters from the comic, like Cyborg, Raven, and of the leader of the gang, Batman's famous sidekick: The Protector. DC Comics. Wait, who the hell is The Protector? Basically, he's Robin after some white-out and hasty corrections.

According to artist George Perez , he'd already drawn the first of these anti-drug issues, which was sponsored by Keebler , when they realized they couldn't use Robin in it because he was licensed to rival cookie company Nabisco. In order to avoid the wrath of the Nabisco gnomes or whatever their mascots are , the comic's editor covered up every drawing of Robin with correction fluid and drew a new costume over it.

There were also minor changes in the dialogue, but the comic never explains where this guy came from, why he's acting like the boss, or what he did with Robin's corpse. The anti-drug campaign also included a cartoon ad made by Hanna-Barbera, and you can clearly see this poser in it:. Even though The Protector was only supposed to show up in those PSAs, years later DC went through the trouble of giving him and origin story that revealed he was a normal kid who dressed up as a superhero to convince his cousin to stop getting high.

This means the Titans were just humoring him in his previous appearances, and putting him in mortal danger for no reason. After a handful of tongue-in-cheek cameo appearances, DC brought back The Protector in only to reveal that he was now a drug addict , and then immediately killed him off. And that's why you don't bring regular kids on crime-fighting adventures, people. In , NBC was all set to make a deal with Marvel to air a new cartoon based on the Fantastic Four , but they ran into a hitch: they could only have three.

Universal Studios had already paid for the rights to the Human Torch , and only the Human Torch, seemingly just to mess with anyone trying to adapt this comic. Universal also refused to allow NBC to use the Torch in the cartoon, because they were definitely going to get started on their Fantastic One movie any day now. Note: 42 years later, it's starting to look unlikely.

NBC decided to go forward with the cartoon anyway, possibly just to spite Universal. And since it says "Four" in the title and most cartoon-watching kids can count at least that far, Marvel had to come up with a replacement for the Torch. Unfortunately, instead of replacing him with "the Living Flame," or some other superhero, or anything remotely cool, they went with the most annoying possible option: a wise-cracking robot called H.

Marvel Comics Animation "Make sure you clean the right crack this time. Everyone at Marvel despised that flying metal turd. The first artist commissioned to design H.

Perhaps not coincidentally, it was the last thing Kirby ever drew for Marvel. They also forced H. Marvel Comics "Come on, can you imagine us having a funny robot?

Also, eat shit NBC. By the way, Wolfman is among those who believe that NBC didn't want to use the Human Torch anyway because they were afraid kids at home would set themselves on fire. Ironically, the animation studio that produced the show burned down a year later, and the fire department suspected arson. In the end, H. Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok 's heroic effort to read and comment every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to Alexander Keith betrayed his family to become a freelance spy, con artist, and bioweapons pioneer.

Has anything changed? He was his dad. Continue Reading Below Advertisement. But the "drank her blood" part really meant this guy was bad news. Log in Register Username. Don't make me do this again. Confirm Password.