When a 1993 article in the Contra Costa Times accused NIRVANAnet of "providing instructions on credit card fraud, money laundering, mail fraud, counterfeiting, drug smuggling, cable-TV theft, bomb-making and murder," its founder, the pseudonymous Jeff Hunter, defended it in a letter to the editor:"Over the years, I've been contacted and questioned by the FBI, secret service, local law enforcement, lawyers, and nosy reporters."
NIRVANAnet, Totse and Zoklet held common ideals, but their message was always ultimately drowned out by infighting and trolling. Through Zoklet's afterlife on Reddit ( /r/Zoklet is a no-man's land, but /r/Totse is thriving), I tracked down former moderator Dfg to find out more, along with long-term forum contributor DaGuru, who was apparently something of an antagonist as he was banned from Zoklet on and off for trolling."From 2009 to 2013 was the golden age of Zoklet," DaGuru said. "The site had probably been dying for the last two years. A lot of key members had been banned, or left, and almost all the conversation on Zoklet became stuff about Zoklet. Just drama."Dfg spoke of dedicating years of his life to the forum: "Think of Zoklet as an addiction. Once you get you're just stuck… If I had spent that amount of time on something else I would quite frankly be swimming in moolah."When you exchange messages with people on NIRVANANet(™), you do not know the age, gender, race, religious affiliation, political party, hair length, mode of dress, or sexual orientation of the person you are talking to… teenagers talk to grandparents, bikers talk with born-again Christians, and Socialists talk to Republicans. These people would never speak to one another if they met on the street, but because they can use computers, they freely exchange thoughts, ideas, dreams and hopes.
As Zoklet veered closer to crowdsourced car-crash reading, it drew enthusiastic new users but alienated the old ones.
As Zoklet veered closer to crowdsourced car-crash reading, it drew enthusiastic new users but alienated old ones. "Bad Ideas probably brought in most of the new members to Zoklet," DaGuru said. "Most of the content there would only be appealing to 14-year-olds and bums… things that the person asking either had no hope of achieving or just liked to imagine themselves doing." Dfg's comments corroborated this: "Thanks to Bad Ideas and other shady users, Zoklet got the wrong type of attention."Henderson was tracked down by his IP address. Similar claims of bank heists and break-ins put Dfg in a difficult position as moderator. "You really don't have any decent options," he said. "Try going to jail for some idiot who posted on your website."Eventually, Zoklet surfaced at a cultural crossroads, where forum culture gave way to social media, and the files and secrets shared on its threads became available to the internet at large. Bad Ideas, which had drawn new life and infamy to Zoklet, slowly began to destroy it with spam and trolling. "Forums like Totse and Zoklet can't survive for long," said Dfg. "It's just not sustainable. In the end free information killed forums."The schisms and purges led to several new sites, including Totse.info, Totse2 and Totseans (still active, and of which Dfg is owner/admin). "It was a clusterfuck, to be honest," said Dfg. "The same users going around creating drama." New sites Sanctuary and LongLiveZoklet now compete to rally the community Zoklet left behind.The final threads on Bad Ideas go from bravado to paranoia and sorrow, a forum in mourning for itself. Calls to "go out with a BANG" go unheeded, while one user asks, "Is there a lawyer in the house?" Another exchange calculates the time spent on Zoklet by its users was 27 years in total, asking "What do we name our, uh, child. Our digital man-baby?"No one replies. And then:"Zoklet joined the 27 Club.""Omg you're right, I didn't think about that. Fucking epic. We went out like rockstars… Like the rockstars we'll never be.""Try going to jail for some idiot who posted on your website."