General Question

Jayne's avatar

Why do people post 'first'?

Asked by Jayne (6776points) February 24th, 2009

I’m sure that all of you, before you found your way to the safe haven of Fluther, have encountered the phenomenon of the ‘first’ poster. In its simplest form, the first person to post a comment on a video or similar will simply post some variant on “first!111!1!1!!”, barely able to contain their excitement at their monumental achievement. If the thread is a popular one, and lacks the live refresh feature sported by Fluther, this can go on for pages, followed by people making fun of the ‘first’ posters, people posting “second”, people making fun of the ‘second’ posters…It hardly seems worth it really. So, why do they do it? Do they imagine that, secretly, everyone is envious of their greatness? And you, can you say in all honesty that you would not be tempted in their place to post that little word of celebration? Or, perhaps, you really are a closet ‘first’ poster. If so, you have some explaining to do.

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11 Answers

steelmarket's avatar

“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.”
T. S. Eliot

benseven's avatar

Dammit @steelmarket, I wanted to post FIRST!!!!!!!1111!!

Dog's avatar

Third!!!!!!!!!

Actually I have never witnessed this type of posting but it seems pretty stupid

eponymoushipster's avatar

small penis syndrome.

jamzzy's avatar

douche bags

aprilsimnel's avatar

Because they’re twits?

AstroChuck's avatar

Ah, shit. I’m late.

steelmarket's avatar

Kinda ironic, considering the thread, Astro !

elijah's avatar

Seventy thirteenth!!!1!1!!!1
Oops I jumped the gun.

augustlan's avatar

I wish I knew. It seems like competitive human nature taken to an absurd degree.

benseven's avatar

Essentially, to bring the answers round to a slighly more sensible discussion, I believe this was originally coined on highly-frequented blogs with enough traffic to render the likelihood of posting the first comment low enough for it to be an oddity worth celebrating, by exclaiming ‘first post!’.

Too easy to write run-on sentences on the iPhone!

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