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2/13/09

Roger: The Boring Dispatcher

repost on 02.20.2009 to add tribute video at end of post.

In late 2005, early 2006 I was discovering the brand new wonders of the video sharing site YouTube with delight. The viral videos were lowbrow to me (sorry Kevin Nalts) but it was way too cool digging through all those tv, movie and best of all, music video clips. I soon discovered the new medium of video web loggers (vloggers) that was developing on YouTube, anonymously watching from my first channel that I created in February 2006. I collected and favorited videos, many of which would not be allowed today and not just because of copyright violations but scandalous content. On that channel (the username an odd mix of letters and numbers) I began to venture out into the social networking world and leave quite a few not so judicious comments. The year 2006 on YouTube was the year of real anarchy where uploading almost anything went unchallenged unless it was pure porn.

In February of 2007 I closed my first channel and opened my current channel with my public username. I had been considering it for a few months and this video "Paypal (Ian's Song)" by ournationalspace for some reason convinced me to do it. Keep in mind that since the 90s I have been cautious and selective regarding which sites I created accounts on, to open a real channel and throw away my anonymous experimental channel, was a commitment of my username. That year the anarchy became a bit more tamed but an online networking social community was crystallizing around vlogging and there was disorder and drama providing the energy that drove the emotional engines of the social community.

One of the best and most prolific vloggers, one of the first that I really remember, was Roger TheBoringDispatcher and especially his "vlog war" with HellionExciter. You probably would have to experienced or been around in that period of Web 2.0 and YouTube to understand why the death of Roger impacted the YouTube community in a very big way and the part it has played since. To me personally he was always very considerate, even if I always wasn’t, while remaining very real.

Just as people I have written about for niche historical publication, that were an early part of different periods of telephone history, were unrecognized at the time for what they were doing, to be later seen as pioneers…I believe people like Roger will in time be recognized for the beginnings of this thing called vlogging.

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This is the tribute video created for him a year ago, at the time of his death, where a vast majority of the community posted video response tributes and commented on the loss. It is still the video that best captures Roger and that moment in time with many comments remaining and some of the responses still attached.

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Simple 2009 One Year Tribute by mymoosejaw Dave:


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Roger Forever (memorial collab for theboringdispatcher)
uploaded on 02/20/2009 on You Tube by Lea, user achampag

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