Going Postal (Feb. 1993 WIRED?)

[Gareth Branwyn]

It was definitely in significant (online) usage by the time it made it
into the Jargon Watch column. Unfortunately, magazines (being "dead
tree," not "way new," journalism) are produced months ahead of time. I
actually received the first submission of the term in early Nov. of
'93. Here's that message (FWIW):


Subj:  going  postal                         93-11-07 07:32:01 EST
From:  KenwardB
Posted on: America Online

Heard this from COLRuth.... "going postal", of course, just totally
losing it and/or killing everything you see...

Kenward "not yet postal" B


If memory serves, KenwardB and COLRuth were participants on the bOING
bOING conference I moderated on AOL (bOING bOING was a geek culture
print zine for which I was Senior Editor) . The term was in fairly
common usage in the bb Conf. (and related conferences: Mondo 2000 and
the virtual reality conf.).

Gareth