Robot roll call! MSTing has its origins in one of the most popular satire shows of the 1990s.
The origin of the term MSTing requires us to go back in time to the 1990s.
MSTing originated at a time when there was no Internet as we understand it and when watching television was still the favorite pastime of people who just wanted to relax for a while.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a television show that started out on KTMA-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
It was eventually picked up by The Comedy Channel, which later became Comedy Central.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 with a show that featured three characters, two robot puppets and a human, who watched B-movies and made fun of them while they were playing.
Imagine an annoying person who sits in front of you in the theater and makes irritating comments about everything taking place on screen but, instead of being annoying, imagine that the person was incredibly funny.
This is the formula for MST3K.
The Internet Equivalent The Internet equivalent of MST3K-style humor-called "riffing"-is to take a horrible post made by somebody to a USENET newsgroup or to an Internet forum and to insert comments in it that make fun of what is being said.
In some cases, it can be good-natured fun and everybody has a good time with it.
In other cases, it can be a type of Internet bullying that can be very distressing for the person being mocked.
One of the things you'll want to be careful of if you plan on MSTing somebody else's written content is violating copyright laws.
Some people snatch material from websites, repost it and add their comments, and fail to give attribution to the original author.
It's notable that the original TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 did run into trouble from time to time with copyright issues.
Some people, to put it mildly, do not appreciate their content being borrowed for the purpose of mocking it.
This is a good reason to make sure that it's okay to use the content you're considering mocking in this style.
Generally speaking, most of what you find posted to public forums is fair game.
Ethics MSTing can be a lot of fun, but you need to make certain that the person you're directing it at understand that you are making a lighthearted joke.
In some cases, the line between making a joke and having a serious debate gets blurred a little bit, but nobody gets hurt in these cases as it is understood that there is a debate going on.
In other cases, however, somebody will take something that is deeply personal or important to a person and mock it in this fashion, essentially launching a very personal attack against them.
Pay attention to the spirit of the forum or the USENET newsgroup in which you are participating to determine the acceptability of MSTing any of the content on the newsgroup.
Some newsgroups will be very applicable to this and will have a lot of fun with the idea.
Other newsgroups will get very annoyed and will dump you from the newsgroup for doing this.