To understand the origins of the beast, which is to understand X-Ville itself, one must familiarize oneself first with the comings and goings of a place formally known as "alt.tv.x-files", the cultural soup from which X-Ville fissioned. alt.tv.x-files is a place where all opinions are welcome, although not always. It is a place where fierce polarity over significant issues can rip neutron stars apart. It is a place where whether or not David Duchovny dresses to the right or to the left can be a significant issue.
The alt.tv.x-files newsgroup is also a breeding ground of devout worshippers and awe inspiring gods and goddesses. It is a place where a clever thought, a well written sentence, and brilliantly executed action can be appreciated and bronzed into ones synapses. It is also a place where a person who says, "Bite me!" can not only attract a following who would gladly throw themselves into burning lava so that their goddess could pass over unharmed but also unite a whole slew of teeth gnashing meanies who would wish her in the burning lava.
Many people find this hard to believe.
However, when I first met Gizzie, she already had C.O.G. (Cult Of Gizzie) creating homepages in her honor and C.O.G.2 checking all the K-Marts of the world for a Lunch BoX for her. She now has four (count them) such groups all to herself which is more than some of the actors on "The X-Files". She also had a quiet following of nay sayers who would fill her mailbox with "F**k Off and Die!" messages until three in the morning. The first things she said to me was, "Bite me!"
As well as saying "Bite me!" Gizzie has voiced many clever thoughts, has sculpted sawtooth-biting sentences, and has performed actions which prompted history to stop and watch. She also knows stuff (she just does). I have never met a person who can get away with consistently recreating herself and yet remain so true. While the rest of us take time off work to try to keep up with copying her old antics, she's busy coming up with something new.
The Summer 1996 saw anticipation for the new season crescendo to a climactic
frenzy very much like the orchestral bridge in "A Day in the Life". Some
of us toughed out the Summer months. Without any new episodes to discuss,
we had a chance to get each other. Thanks to Dr. Aay's "Idle Thoughts on
an Idle Afternoon" post, many of us did. The newsgroup began to feel more
like a smoking room where friends get together
and gossip than a conference room where scholars discussed angels dancing
on the heads of pins. Gizzie would refer to the newsgroup as "the pool"
or "the playground". Eventually, she referred
to it as our neighbourhood.
With the combined popularity of "The X-Files" the internet, the new
Fall season opened the floodgates to record posting on alt.tv.x-files.
It was crazy. The season premier inspired upwards of a thousand
posts within a few hours of its airing in North America. Everyone
had questions and answers and opinions and counter opinions and gossip
about future episodes and gossip about Wynona Ryder and opinions about
the gossip about Wynona Ryder and opinions about people
posting their opinions about the gossip about Wynona Ryder and get
rich schemes and trading cards to trade and questions about the X on the
window and squidge moments and questions about squidges and opinions about
people who post about squidges and nit picks and web pages and a whole
bunch of other things to discuss.
It was beautiful.
As a witty response to the unprecedented traffic at "alt.tv.x-files", Gizzie posted a "CyberTraffic" report. It referred to such things as "The corner of Samantha's Alive and Why did Mulder leave Scully?" in a town called "X-Ville". It was undoubtedly meant as a comment on things happening in alt.tv.x-files and indirectly as a tribute to the fact that "The X-Files" was very popular and doing very wel l - something that most of us enjoyed seeing for our favorite show - and not meant to incite people to create an on-line virtual village.
Gizzie, who knows a good thing when she sees it, knows that if something is worth doing once, it is worth doing more than once. Such was the case with her CyberTraffic reports. As high traffic levels continues, she continued to report on traffic, all the time developing her repertoire. Others who got the joke started to refer to the comings and going in X-Ville. With the high traffic levels, the community feeling which had developed during the Summer was missed, and small references in posts from here to there helped bridge the gap.
The inside joke was not appreciated by all. There were those who disliked the idea of community; the newsgroup, they felt, was for the discussing of stuff relating to "The X-Files" and not for discussing; each other. Even if these "X-Ville" posts did refer to things loosely associated with the show, these "X-Villains" did not felt that the posts were somehow ruining the fabric of alt.tv.x-files, clogging up an already busy newsgroup, and just plain silly.
All opinions, welcome or unwelcome, get heard at 'alt.tv.x-files'. This is arguably one of the great strengths of the 'net, UseNet, and the "alt" hierarchy itself. It also gives rise to pig-headed rivalry. The "X-Ville" vs "X-Villain" rivalry was one such situation. The gist of differences of opinions lie in deciding whether or not "X-Ville" posts are in essence "The X-Files" related discussion, for if they are not, then they should not be posted on the group. However, this was never directly argued.
It started with the "X-Ville people are idiots who are ruining my newsgroup.
You should all leave" posts. These were often answered and counter answered
in a Monty Python-esque argument style. Nothing was resolved. Polarity
was created. Then some people came up with the brain storm
that just didn't like these "X-Ville" posts, and therefore they shouldn't
exist. These were countered with the "If you don't like it then don't read
it" posts. Then the rationalists came
in with the "X-Ville takes up space and I have to pay to download"
posts. It should be noted that all posts take up space at alt.tv.x-files
and not just these "X-Ville" posts. However, by isolating the issue at
hand, whether or not "X-Ville" posts are "The X-Files" related or not,
we were able to disagree a great deal on how much space these "X-Ville"
posts actually took up, what "bandwidth" actually meant, how newsgroups
are run, whether alt.tv.x-files should be moderated, who is or isn't a
loser, and who does or doesn't own the newsgroup.
Finally, a compromise of sorts was suggested: all X-Ville posts should be labeled so that they can be kill-filed, thus allowing those who like them to continue reading and writing them and allowing those who don't like them (and who may be paying download time) to eliminate them without having to read (or download) them. This wasn't a very good compromise in a sense that the X-Villains wanted "X-Ville" posts removed completely from the newsgroup and were not completely satisfied with this solution; The question of belonging had never been resolved. Small skirmishes were created regarding how to label the X-Ville posts so that they could be best kill-filed, but all in all most people were compliant in labeling their posts.
It can be argued that this counter-action did more to mould and shape the course of X-Ville from an inside joke to a virtual village than any other thing. A joke grows thin after a very short time, not matter how developed it becomes. Undoubtedly, the CyberTraffic reports would have died off as the traffic eventually did, and Gizzie would have gone on to her next schtick. References to this thing called X-Ville would have decreased until they were non-existent. Even David Letterman can only beat a joke so far into the ground before it ceases to have any use. With posts isolated all across the newsgroup, this undoubtedly would have been the result. Fencing off "X-Ville" posts by requiring them to have an "XV:" label in essence created a vacuum that needed to be filled.
And filled it was...
for really ancient history, check out:
http://pw2.netcom.com/~portia/xville/xville.html
It used to be called the X-Ville Art Gallery:
http://artgallery.simplenet.com/
Beagle's Queequeg Memorial Small Yappy Dog Rest Home / Bait Shop:
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/2342/INFO.HTM
5th Business:
http://members.tripod.com/~SpectreOz/home.html
The OBSSE Chapel (obviously this is a joke, because they don't exist):
http://security-one.com/obsse/
We're a Yahoo! category!
http://www.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Television/Shows/Science_Fiction__Fantasy__and_Horror/X_Files__The/Clubs_and_Organizations/X_Ville/