It's nearly impossible to pinpoint the first reference, given how common the verb fail is, but online commenters suggest it started with a 1998 Neo Geo arcade game called Blazing Star. (References to the fail meme go as far back as 2003.) Of all the game's obvious draws--among them fast-paced action, disco music, and anime-style cut scenes--its staying power comes from its wonderfully terrible Japanese-to-English translations. If you beat a level, the screen flashes with the words: "You beat it! Your skill is great!" If you lose, you are mocked: "You fail it! Your skill is not enough! See you next time! Bye bye!"
Haha--"You Fail It!" And then there is this:
The highest form of fail--the epic fail--involves not just catastrophic failure but hubris as well. Not just coming in second in a bike race but doing so because you fell off your bike after prematurely raising your arms in victory. Totaling your pickup not because the brakes failed but because you were trying to ride on the windshield. Not just destroying your fish tank but doing it while trying to film yourself lifting weights.It's really interesting because Beam argues--persuasively--that "fail" preceeded "epic fail." My experience was the exact opposite. In MMOs (
Frankly, I'm fascinated by how language is developing online. My favorite meme I encountered in my whole time in WoW was ROFLcopter. The booby prize to whoever can figure out what that means. Man, just writing about this makes we want to throw on my head-piece, boot up Ventrillo and go stomp some fools in Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin. But I'm older now, and a respectable Negro. I have standards to maintain, no?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Well, back in the proverbial day, "ROFL" was what people who didn't know how to type said in chatrooms when "LOL" was not enough. It means "Rolling On Floor Laughing".
There are also "LOLerskates" out there, if you care to look.
"LOL" always irritated me. I worked in an office where many of us worked on the same floor (cubicles away from each other, in many cases) and we, for some reasons, used IM to talk to each other (made cutting/pasting easier, I suppose).
Whenever a co-worker put "LOL" into the IM, I tended to yell over the cubicle walls "I can hear when you laugh out loud... and you didn't."
Because, yes. I am That Guy.
Anyway, if you were asking about why a ROFLcopter, well... that's what you must have rode in upon when you have made a joke that makes everyone roll on the floor. Laughing, presumably.
You see the patch notes though? 3.0.2. You gotta be itchin' to check it our for Wrath.
I don't think I've heard ROFLcopter before, but I have visions of Curly from the Three Stooges, doing his insane propeller-like rotation whilst on his side, on the floor.
I don't recall him laughing. Just doing that "Woob woob woob woob woob woob woob woob!" thing.
Screw standards; hunter pets get their own talent trees in the new patch.
Your post = win.
NRO Corner in the press today = fail.
Also, please refer to the game formerly known as WoW by its new (and politically incorrect) abbreviation - WoP. World of Paladincraft.
WLK in less than a month, and all the standards in the world won't stop your willpower from crumbling
Just riding my lolerskates down to the roflcopter. I would actually describe the Corner crew as riding in the waaaaaaaaaaambulance the last couple weeks or so. And of course, though one doesn't say this in polite company, a comedic epric fail like An American Carol or the Half Hour News Hour might be described as a lolocaust.
Definitely fail precedes. Failblog has been around a while now.
Legendary fail Coates, epic is not the ultimate!
zomg= OMG but you hit z instead of shift
pwn= own + typo
The shape of our keyboards is shaping our language.
Often I don't realize I've picked something up from the Intertubes until I use it out loud and no one knows what I'm talking about.
I wonder why that comment went into moderation. ROFLcopter is an ASCII picture that was prominent on forums before it was easy to insert images. Same with LOLlerskates, I believe.
Sorry--I completely missed the point of that post. I'm going to grade some more essays now.
lol i imagine it goes something like this...
The Corner: OMG LIBRAL MSM HAX! FALS RACISM! btw bobama iz terrorarab
TNC: qq moar nub. u got /pwnt by [Spell Reflection]
meh thats all i got for right now
What the hell are you talking about?!
i can has link to chris beam article plz?
The best is clearly "just died in the LOLercaust"
TNC,
This is chock full of win. Can you explain though, why you call yourself a Negro? The history major in me can't get off the historical use of the term (I'm thinking pejorative)/the way I see people use it around me (Southern white man).
Seriously, Joel, maybe stick to areas of expertise. Failblog has been around since May. Both FAIL and EPIC FAIL are years old.
Seriously, patch 3.01 rules. My Shaman is actually more than a rogue in mail now. Spirit Wolves ftw.
How's uber doing these days? Time was, back in the day, gamers seemed mightily beholden to uber (which I thought I traced back to the id software game Spear of Destiny, which had, I think, an uber mutant as a boss - but that was always conjecture), but it feels like epic has displaced it...
TNC,
First, a correction:
MMORPG is not Multimedia Online Role Playing Games, but massively multiplayer online role-playing game, in order to differentiate it from previous RPGs, like Baldur's gate, which could be played online, but just by a handful of people at the same time.
Regarding WoW, as a former addict myself I can definitely sympathize with your position: the relief of enjoying outside life, the guilt over the 118 /played days, but, perhaps more importantly, that desire to play that comes up once in a while, where you think to yourself "THIS time Ill be sane and only play casually," which you know wont happen...
MMO = Multimedia Online Role Playing Games = Epic Fail
A ROFLcopter is a helicopter powered by laughs.
At least you didn't raid on a nightly schedule, TNC, or god forbid, lead a competitive raiding guild. That's 3 years of my life I'll never get back.
At least you didn't raid on a nightly schedule, TNC, or god forbid, lead a competitive raiding guild. That's 3 years of my life I'll never get back.
I wasn't in a competitive raiding guild, but spending 3-4 nights a week of raiding plus other nights you needed to spend farming for reagents, PvP gear etc. so you could raid is only fun for so long. I stopped playing a year ago or so, and haven't really looked back. It wasn't just the time playing, but that I was obligated to play on certain nights so my weeks had to be planned around those nights.
I'm resisting the call of Warhammer, since I'm convinced that despite all of those games saying you can play "casually" that a lot of the content is geared towards those who spend a lot of time playing and those who play in large groups. And if you want to play with a large group of the same people consistently, you usually end up setting some sort of schedule to do it.
It is with the deepest trepidation I write this, staring into the deep dark pit of geekiness that is my life. As Nietzche said, "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." So it does, so it does.
Dungeons and Dragons, one of the strong lumbar vertebrae in the spine of nerddom, released the Epic Level Handbook in July 2002. The supplement dealt with 'epic' characters, and it's here I suspect the popularity of 'epic fail' originates. (Presumably when Gilgamesh or Hercules makes a mistake, it's of continent-shattering proportions.) However, before I dig too greedily and too deep into the fertile nerd grounds of Dungeons and Dragons and pop etymology, I'll hand the topic off to another Dr. Minor wannabe.
--dccarles
For some reason I thought FAIL came from rhythm games, where the word would fill the screen with giant letters when you couldn't keep up and lost.
T:
I am shocked you don't play D&D online (www.ddo.com).
While many of the weapons and items aren't true to the pen and paper games, issues like stats, combat, monsters, etc are pretty true to the game.
Give it a try.
Splotto
über comes from our teutonic neck of the woods
just sayin'
I've heard people actually say, "LOL" in live conversation. How's that for the evolution of language? Or, as Palin might say, the intelligent design of language by a benevolent creator?
quote:
D&D : one of the strong lumbar vertebrae in the spine of nerddom
gonna keep that one for an emergency, thanks DC
Big WoW patch and revamp today, leading up to the next November expansion. Just saying....
hmmm on the addict scale where does playing in online gaming league fall. UT2K4 Onslaught in my case.
@TNC,
"I have standards to maintain, no?"
Standards, schmandards! What I gather from that last paragraph is that you're eyein' the ol' WOWcrack like Duck was eyein' up that martini on the last Mad Men. Call your sponsor before it's too late, man!
I know nothing about computer gaming beyond Pong, but when you mention "wonderfully terrible Japanese-to-English translations", I think fondly back to my 1972 Subaru owner's manual, which had some of the best I've ever seen. I remember reading it aloud to my bandmates on Cape Cod, reducing them to helpless laughter. I can only remember one line, from the washing instructions: "If the spraying water is not enough, spots will be formed on it sometimes."
Epic Beat!
I was born in 67 but I still WoW.
All your base are belong to us.