Virtual Mars bars
Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:43 pm
Having been absent from the world of online forums for a while before I joined C4C late last year, I've been surprised and amused to find that a (usually non-existent) Mars bar is still the de rigueur prize on offer for any casually thrown-out challenge. Surprised because I thought it would have died out by now; amused because I believe, unless and until anyone comes up with convincing evidence to the contrary, that I originated the habit.
In around 1990 I was employed by a large telecommunications company which had what would now be known as an intranet, complete with online forums. One particular forum to which I was a regular contributor became something of a cult, and after it had been going for a while its members - many of whom only knew each other via their online personas - decided it was time we all met up for a lunchtime beer or three to find out what we all looked like (this was before the days of avatars - it was a purely textual system).
A date was set and, to encourage attendance, I set a competition for which the prizes would be given out at the gathering. The prizes were all Fun Size Mars Bars, which was a personal in-joke. (Ben Elton had recently performed a routine on one of his TV shows about the social embarrassment experienced by British men finding themselves on a naturist beach when on holiday, in which he used the term "Fun Size Mars Bar" to refer to the masculine sexual appendage; and it appealed to my puerile sense of humour to innocently announce that I would be giving these away as prizes and wait to see if anyone picked up on the allusion.)
After that it became commonplace on the forum for anyone posing a question to add, "FSMB to anyone who can provide the answer," even though the offer was generally more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Often the abbreviation was extended to VFSMB (for virtual FSMB) to acknowledge this. Sometimes, if a problem was thought to be particularly intractable, the reward would be a KSMB or King Size Mars bar.
Many of the regulars on that forum were also influential in a number of public forums and newsgroups, particularly in the area of UNIX standards, ANSI C/C++, OOP and other geek-heavy zones. By around 1994 (which was the last time I attended a major international UNIX Users Group conference), the virtual Mars had gained considerably wider currency.
So there you go. It may all just be coincidence, but unless anyone knows of an alternative provenance, I do believe that posts such as this one would not be the same without me. It's not much of a claim to fame, but it's all I've got.
In around 1990 I was employed by a large telecommunications company which had what would now be known as an intranet, complete with online forums. One particular forum to which I was a regular contributor became something of a cult, and after it had been going for a while its members - many of whom only knew each other via their online personas - decided it was time we all met up for a lunchtime beer or three to find out what we all looked like (this was before the days of avatars - it was a purely textual system).
A date was set and, to encourage attendance, I set a competition for which the prizes would be given out at the gathering. The prizes were all Fun Size Mars Bars, which was a personal in-joke. (Ben Elton had recently performed a routine on one of his TV shows about the social embarrassment experienced by British men finding themselves on a naturist beach when on holiday, in which he used the term "Fun Size Mars Bar" to refer to the masculine sexual appendage; and it appealed to my puerile sense of humour to innocently announce that I would be giving these away as prizes and wait to see if anyone picked up on the allusion.)
After that it became commonplace on the forum for anyone posing a question to add, "FSMB to anyone who can provide the answer," even though the offer was generally more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Often the abbreviation was extended to VFSMB (for virtual FSMB) to acknowledge this. Sometimes, if a problem was thought to be particularly intractable, the reward would be a KSMB or King Size Mars bar.
Many of the regulars on that forum were also influential in a number of public forums and newsgroups, particularly in the area of UNIX standards, ANSI C/C++, OOP and other geek-heavy zones. By around 1994 (which was the last time I attended a major international UNIX Users Group conference), the virtual Mars had gained considerably wider currency.
So there you go. It may all just be coincidence, but unless anyone knows of an alternative provenance, I do believe that posts such as this one would not be the same without me. It's not much of a claim to fame, but it's all I've got.
