TX-001 · Artifact 02 File
U+002F · Solidus
What /rant means, and where the slash came from.
OriginTX-001 · PKG-2F63
ClassificationMostly Intact
Signal Drift15% · Low
RecoveredTC 1223:47:12:12
Field Notes · The slash
Command era1988 · IRC
Closing tag</rant>
Short form/rant
StatusAlready over
In 1988 a chat system called IRC made the slash a command. /join a room. /me to narrate yourself. Typing it meant you were talking to the machine, not the room.
Then the web taught everyone to close a tag. </rant> became the way people ended a tangent online, a quiet admission that the last paragraph got away from them. Eventually the brackets fell off.
/rant. It already happened. You missed it. Move along.
