The term #3RAGE is a long-running (est. 2010) geek joke between me and a long-time friend who knows many things about coding and internet geekery and such, and who is especially aware of the frustration potential around it.
I’ve taken the initiative this morning and asked a not-especially-bright much less accurate AI for a definition of #3RAGE. I got only this conjecture:
This is the #3RAGE as it might be used satirically or ironically to label three instances of online outrage, or a triple dose of anger in digital discourse. (Emphasis mine.)
Getting warmer. My friend and I have long used #3RAGE in the context of “digital discourse” with regard to coding, or anything geek-related, that’s gone . . . wonky.
You can imagine my delight when my friend explained that the source of #3RAGE was a google code repository area. Notice the heading in the screen cap below, “Python-Twitter Issue #179,” a brief exchange between Grumpy Giraffe and Swift Wombat.
Our story begins when Giraffe comes along, on December 10, 2010, looking for answers. He completes Wombat’s troubleshooting form about a geeky problem (trying to install Python-Twitter 2 and getting an error message). Giraffe is pretty upset and unwittingly ends up coining “#3RAGE”:
Form question: “What steps will reproduce the problem?”
Giraffe makes a tidy list of events so far:
- Attempt to easy_install python-twitter
- Observe error message regarding missing CHANGES file.
- RAGE
There. Did you see it? Giraffe used the word RAGE in all caps as step 3 in “steps to reproduce the problem.” Rage is not a step, it’s a result. And so it was that #3RAGE was born.
Giraffe then answers the next question in the troubleshooting thread that is Issue #179.1 And the next question in the form is, “What is the expected output? What do you see instead?”
By this time, Giraffe’s knee-deep in #3RAGE and goes even further over the top in answering the question:
I would like to easy_install python-twitter. Instead, I see an unending pit of despair and pain.
Well that’s certainly dramatic, isn’t it? Giraffe, dude. The fallout from #3RAGE isn’t pretty. It’s messy and expands. It’s grotesque, really.
At some point, Wombat, who looks to be the developer, comes by and sees Giraffe’s meltdown and responds:
ugh! this is what I get for trying to get this out the door after a week of being sick . . . I’ll fix these issues and rollout a 0.8.1. thanks
Who doesn’t feel for Wombat? Been sick a week and all, then finally emerges, only to find Issue #179 brewing — boiling over, actually — with all this #3RAGE and an unending pit of despair and pain to boot.
You can feel the quiet frustration of the lowercase ‘thanks’ capping Wombat’s reply. Wombat shows restraint even as Giraffe goes off on #3RAGE.
Let this be a lesson to us all, as to our choices when we engage in digital discourse.
I mean, Giraffe never replied again, even to add a lowercase thanks. Nor did Giraffe bother to inquire as to Wombat’s health. WTFLOL.
We who have the benefit of hindsight know that this . . . exchange, uh I mean digital discourse . . . was the birth of #3RAGE. And that as such, it’s essential that we all just take a moment today to honor this epic piece of internet lore.
- Can you believe Issue #179 — and #3RAGE— have been around now for 16 years?! Wow. Yet some of you’ve probably never even heard of any of this. We are sad for you. ↩︎