Old School VS New School

[Psychlonic]

Alright, I think it's time to give the newer generation of operators some credit where it's due.

I found myself poring through old archived data recently and that included a ton of old night ops content. Naturally I had to pause and take a look at some of it.

Honestly... I think night ops mostly seemed more exciting back in the early days because we didn't know almost anything, came up with ridiculous bullshit, and there was nobody back then to step in and tell us it was fucking retarded. I mean in all fairness, if it ever seems to anyone here that I talk about the old days on &TOTSE with some kind of affection, believe me, we branched off for a reason. So... it's not like "night ops" was formed by ex-special forces operators. Literally everyone was a high schooler when it started and we were just curious as fuck.

Looking back through that stuff, it formed a bond of sorts because we were sort of despised, urbex wasn't more of a household term yet, so it was like us versus everyone else. For those of you who weren't on the internet back then at all, it was a much more vicious place. People today talk about cyberbullying? Trying entire communities rallying to see if they can get someone to commit suicide via their comments just because it'd be funny.

Anyway, you all today have such a better head start. The whole "age of information" thing is really something. I wonder if it's enough with how everything is advancing. Still, at least there's a foundation of some sort to pick through.

Actually thinking about that, it's a bit strange. I literally found places like this by typing things into search engines that I was interested in. You can actually still do that with night ops using various terms one might search for. Makes sense I suppose, I've read that the newer gens aren't nearly as into traditional search engines at all. Hard to blame them with how far they've gone down the gutter in terms of curating content.

It's easy for someone like myself I suppose to set my expectations way too high even when I'm actively trying to think about where a newer user might be in their operating headspace. So here's me recognizing that not only are most of you not posting some of the inane shit we were during the early days of NO, but you actually start out far more advanced than we did.

One of these days I'll have to start a joke thread where I regurgitate some of the funniest posts that somehow... I don't know fucking how... got a pass.

[Mr. Edgyman]

Some weeks ago I was reading some of the old stories that were posted in around 2010, people talking about doing a lot of cool stuff while still being in high school, made me question if I could ever get really good despite being in my 20s so some years later than what they began, but reading your post now did bring forth the conclusion to that thought that was right in front of me when it came up to my mind that I somehow didn't think at the time, that being that I have most of those experiences available for me to learn that the people back then didn't have, so because of this I'm probably getting better way faster than someone could back then so I should be close to their level in no time.

Of course, nothing is ever 100% positive, I suppose people back then didn't have to deal with CCTV and alarm systems everywhere like it is nowadays so I guess it's balanced.

[Xanatos]

True, even low-income neighbourhoods around here have cameras on pretty much every driveway. Guess porch piracy is the new burglary.

I'd love to have a Night Ops Darwin Awards/Hall of Fame thread, just to highlight some of the absurdities and humble beginnings of this place.

[Psychlonic]

If anyone has any great puns relating to night ops and stupidity...

[Xanatos]

Night Oops

[Psychlonic]

Yeah I mean there's that for the stories if we want to extend that to "found" experiences. Really had those juicy tidbits of clearly fake information and techniques in the threads though that are going to need some attention also. Didn't someone once try to make "Brown Ops" a meme? What about yellow ops? Shadows from the Bush League.

Actually on that note, some kind of archival of the threads' stories only could be interesting. You know what? I think I'll start on that. By now, everyone ought to know better than to wait for a finish date but... I will start on it.

[Intruder]

To put it in perspective I guess is that old Patton saying
"Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results." That's why the hands off approach works so well.