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Things Fell Apart

S1. Ep 5: A Scottish Jewish joke

Things Fell Apart

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.61.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is the story of the very first person to be publicly shamed because of something they did online. It’s 1988, the internet exists only in its most nascent form, and a software designer, Brad Templeton, uploads onto a message board a joke in poor taste. How the architects of the emerging internet respond to the joke will create a set of rules that the rest of us have lived under ever since…

Written and presented by Jon Ronson Produced by Sarah Shebbeare Assistant Producer Sam Peach Original music by Phil Channell

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in.

0:04.0

I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC.

0:08.0

My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career.

0:12.0

That's the thing I love about podcasts.

0:14.4

You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes.

0:18.4

And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories

0:21.9

while developing the most unique audio talent.

0:24.8

So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC Sounds.

0:31.6

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:35.0

From BBC Radio 4, this is Things Fell Apart.

0:39.0

Strange Tales from the Culture Wars.

0:42.0

I'm John Ronson, a writer living in America, the land where culture wars begin.

0:50.0

And by Culture Wars, I mean the battle for dominance between conflicting values.

0:55.5

These wars can obsess us, consume our lives.

0:59.6

I was curious to learn how things fell apart, and so I went back in history to find the origin

1:05.1

stories, the pebbles thrown in the pond creating the ripples.

1:18.0

This is the story of what might be the online world's first ever culture war, a war fought right at the birth of the internet.

1:23.0

And the stakes couldn't have been higher.

1:26.0

It was a war over who the internet belonged to.

1:30.0

Who would make the rules?

1:32.0

I do remember my stomach dropping. who would make the rules?

1:32.5

I do remember my stomach dropping,

...

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