Let me take a moment and explain the history of the
Wacky Misspelling
Gag. It started out as a parody of usage common in certain
subcultures,
particularly those of
teenage software pirates and
crackers, and infantile
Usenet newbies. You still see someone who types this way without
irony
every once in a while, particularly in groups devoted to
heavy-metal
bands. In any case, at some point a number of different individuals
created a mythical entity named BIFF or BIFF@BIT.NET or BIFF@psuvm.psu.edu
or something like that, an enthusiastic but clueless adolescent who posted
from his brother's
Commodore 64. BIFF typed in
all caps, often with
bizarre line breaks, and ended every sentence with a string of !!'s and
some ones mixed in for good measure (which really makes no sense
given the
C64 keyboard, but BIFF's naivete exceeded even physical bounds).
It is a very old joke and tired too, but now that's its charm, as
Mike Nelson as Jack Perkins would say. Most of us started out as
BIFFs in some sense or another; we would put huge ASCII swords in
our .signature files, or misspell things intentionally so it would
be K00L, or respond in a puzzled manner to obvious bait and flame the
poster apoplectically in sentences ending in strings of exclamation
points. We look back on our newbiehood, and BIFF helps
us remember. Personally, one of the most embarrassing aspects of my
Usenet childhood was that I thought BIFF had at one time been a real person.
In any case, now you know. Kibo wasn't responsible, not originally, at
least. I've asked him who was, but he says if he tells me he'll
have to kill me.