Flamewar: 1872

Tusns out that nearly fourteen decades ago, the New York Times had itself a flamewar in its letters to the editor pages that would read almost exactly like a modern online flamewar. Anonymous usernames, off-topic rants, insults and finally the moderators jumping in and shutting it down.

Awesome.

The Way We Ate: The Great Scrapple Correspondence of 1872

For once, I highly recommend reading a piece in the New York Times.

Participants in the discussion didn’t just object to scrapple, of course. They also objected to each other. In what may be the earliest recorded example of a “flame,” H.G. punned on A GOOD LIVER’s pen-name, suggesting that he be “boiled and chopped up” for his ignorance.