it's been a while - 9 years, 4 months, 25 days apparently.
I first found b3ta in 2002 through a picture someone had linked of the Queen Mother (animated gif, her face falls off, she's a robot underneath - no idea who made it). I was at uni at the time, and thus had a lot of free time, and so enthusiastically threw myself into participation on the board making a number of craply-executed animated gifs.

It was a time when the prevailing theme of pictures and animations was of Furtive the polar bear, Fluffy his penguin prey, Domo-kun and the like. Bovine, munkt0n, weebl and crab_bloke (before Joel changed his name) were regular boarders, jvm and 100% Kitten ring a bell too, and every now and then Koit used to ask for a hand putting together a song (track down his Billy Joel-inspired "World of B3ta" for a more comprehensive guide to who was who then). The phrase 'I can't fucking hummus' summed up many a fellow boarder whose ambition with Potatochop far outweighed his abilities, myself absolutely included.

The site then was totally geared towards having a giggle and trying to help others do the same, with none of the snide cliquey stuff that seems to have crept up a bit between talk & QOTW (sadly). Nobody cared if there was someone wrong on the internet and everyone was left mostly to their own devices, unless they were being deliberately antagonistic and offensive (then usually they were left in no doubt as to how welcome they were to kindly fuck off).

I've since managed to curb my habit, and relegated myself to mostly lurking, with the odd brief contribution to QOTW or liking especially good links the extent of my interaction.

It's still a fun place, populated mostly by fun, talented folk who enjoy putting their photoshopping and artistic skills on display for the delectation of others. The expanded community these days has obviously brought with it the usual quota of keyboard warriors and internet hardman pedants, but outside their bedroom fortresses b3ta still is a great place to come to kill time, have a laugh, and discover another video of kittens being adorable/stupid/thinking they're peoples.

Long may it continue.
( shindig, Mon 12 Sep 2011, 12:05, Reply)