Meow Wars

The Meow Wars was an Internet flame war which started on the newsgroup alt.fan.karl-malden.nose and spread throughout the alt.* hierarchy. It lasted nearly a year, which is some sort of record. It also spawned a loosely knit community of "Usenet Performance Artists" calling themselves the Meowers.

Meowers

The original Meowers were denizens of alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead who responded to the January 9, 1996 "invasion" staged by Harvard students from alt.fan.karl-malden.nose. As the Meow Wars spread across UseNet, the Meowers' tactics won them both converts and enemies. But by this time the Harvard students had abandoned alt.fan.karl-malden.nose, which remains Meower "property" to this day.

Raoul Xemblinosky

J. Raoul Xemblinosky III, also known as Bufford L. Hatchett (born July 11, 1961), is a notorious Usenet troll (calling himself a "Usenet Performance Artist") who received the first individual Usenet Death Penalty from rogue despammer Stanley J. Kalisch III.

External links

• The One True History of Meow, by the 2-Belo
• Ron Schell's stinging criticism of The One True History Of Meow
• Another account of the Meow Wars, courtesy of Tim Young (Dartmouth '96, GWU Law '99)
• Raoul Xemblinosky's home page