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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jun/20/digital-past-cringe-teenage-moments-lucky-not-young-online-today>
"As a teenager, I went kind of viral – and the most amazing thing about that is
it had absolutely zero effect on my life. It was the summer holidays in 2006,
and my friends Jessie, Emma and I decided to film ourselves singing along to
our favourite song. We were overheated and hyperactive, jumping up and down and
headbanging, stretching our arms to the heavens as we confessed to our mamas
that we’d “just killed a maaaaaan” before asking Scaramouche if he’d do the
fandango.
Later, I added a couple of captions to the video implying we were drunk, even
though I was 14 and the closest I’d been to buzzed was the pure placebo of
clutching a glass bottle of J2O. Then – for reasons that are now lost to me – I
uploaded the video to YouTube a month later, on 19 September 2006, under the
title “Bohemian Crap-sody”.
The comments drizzled in, then came the downpour. “There is a special place for
girls like you in hell,” wrote one man. “I now understand why people become
serial killers,” offered another. A far more straightforward missive – my
personal favourite death threat – simply announced: “They must die!” The video
ultimately accumulated 48,526 views. And, sure, OK, I might have stretched the
definition of “viral” just then, but it’s worth remembering that in May 2006
the most‑subscribed YouTube channel didn’t even have 3,000 followers. And more
than 100 pages of hate comments will never not feel like a lot."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
