NARV
| NARV | |
|---|---|
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| Join date January 01, 2006 | |
| Birthdate unknown | |
| Avg. site rating: | 
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| Avg. vote rate: | 
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| ...as of unknown | |
| Notable Sites: | |
- Sign of a NARV: "(insert anything here) = Insta 1"
NARV is an acronym for New Age Retarded Voter. At the beginning of 2006, YTMND found itself prospering more and more in the public eye, with a number of sites gaining notoriety in the press and blogosphere. With this rise in popularity came an influx of new, inexperienced users. Of these, the stupidest were labeled NARV, first by a discreet group of senior YTMNDers. Although NARV-like behavior has always existed on YTMND, its influence is now much more strongly felt and the term has fallen into increasingly widespread use, to the point where it is frequently misunderstood and/or abused.
Contents
Characteristics
NARVs are characterized by a minimal understanding of YTMND history, culture, or the artifacts that define the tone of YTMND, and exhibit no desire to learn them. Some have stated that the primary result of emerging NARVism is the increase of highly-ranked poorly-made sites that would have never reached popularity even in YTMND's recent past. Others cite their influence as a deterioration in the sites overall quality, having to sit through a greater percentage of bad material to find the good. NARVs are not necessarily 'noobs', however generally speaking, NARVs generally have more likely been new or infrequent users of the site.
Voting habits
Many NARVs will vote exclusively or , with uninformed justifications often accompanying either category of vote. NARVs often view the rating system as a way to make people feel better or, more recently, control the rank of YTMNDs on the front page, rather than as a quasi-objective method of ranking YTMNDs. Over time, the term "NARV" has focused more on singling out
these split voters rather than creators of bad or recycled material.
Site creation
Although the name NARV refers to voting, it is not limited to that. NARVs that do create YTMNDs often do so with minimal effort. NARV YTMND creation can be observed when a new original YTMND is posted and within minutes, fad music is added and knock-off Ridin Spinnaz/You Spin Me Right Round, Wonderful Time, Break my Stride, Epic Maneuver or Move Bitch YTMNDs of the same GIF are released.
A similar tactic is often employed utilizing GIFs from long-standing classic YTMNDs and pairing them with unrelated fad music. To make matters worse, these uninspired couplings often fail to utilize Google or YTMND's search feature to verify if their created site has already been issued by another NARV. NARVs often do not cite source material of their creations. Occasionally a NARV may be an unintended Parasite.
Bottom feeding
As described above, NARVs often create sites for fads that require the most minimal of effort. NARV sites often cluster around a small group of fads which some view as being overdone or having had peaked long ago. Generally it is vague or open-ended fads based on the music selection that are most likely to end up considered NARV fads by the end of their run. (Primary examples include Best Day Ever, Myspace Suicide, and Epic Maneuver).
See Narv Fads for full listing of NARVish fads.
Other types of sites that are considered to be of NARV nature includes:
- Screen shots of news stories with no alterations, notably Dick Cheney's Hunting mishap and Pluto's downgrading from a planet. Conversely, "lol", "pwned", etc. is added in blurry red letters
- Gloating of raids of other websites (this includes "Forum Registration Disabled" sites, which tend to appear after a forum raid)
- In-Jokes
It should be known that some of these fads will have good sites, and that creation of one isn't an automatic induction into NARVdom, however the majority that are created often lack effort.
Criticisms of NARV as a concept
The concept of NARV-like behavior is in no way new to YTMND. Some have accused those employing the term of elitism, charging that theft of content, unoriginality, and rote reprocessing of existing content is responsible for much of the popularity of many classic YTMNDs and YTMND itself. Some have voiced the opinion that such behaviors were simply more widely tolerated in the past when the site was smaller. This argument follows that nearly all YTMNDs borrow content from other sources, and that many respected YTMNDers meet the criteria put forth in this article, and as such, the criteria simply discriminates against new users. Creative interpretation of old fads remains a respected form of creating new YTMNDs, and some feel that classifying some adherents to this technique NARVs while letting others pass based on subjective criteria unfair. Another argument put forth is that NARVs are a construction of YTMND's current "front page" voting culture, and as such, the lack of a more constructive and creativity-oriented method of evaluating YTMNDs is as equally to blame as the so-called NARVs themselves.
Counter-argument
Although NARV-like behavior has been apparent on YTMND, first openly manifesting around such fads as Ualuealuealeuale and Ridin' Spinnaz, NARVs have constituted an increasingly larger proportion of the YTMND user base. NARVs have justified each others' crass stealing of well known humorous images from a small number of websites, be it YTMND (see Parasite), 4chan, b3ta, or SomethingAwful. Due to a proportionally smaller number of users willing to openly downvote or point out site theft for fear of being "e-venged", NARVism has flourished and constitutes a threat to the viability of YTMND. Indeed, the NARV effect is not unique to YTMND. It been observed in other voting-based websites, such as YouTube. In the end, the argument falls back to the point that such behaviour is simply more prevalent. Since the creation of YTMND Spy, users have the ability to see for themselves if only voting 1 or 5 is an overly common practice. Many would make the claim that it is.
Care in use of the term
Recently, some users have begun describing any user they dislike, downvoters, eBaum's World sympathizers, or those who are generally disliked as NARVs. Many use the term simply to describe any user who they feel is ruining the website. Some who originated and helped popularize the term have urged the community to utilize the term only with the utmost discretion, verifying carefully that potential NARVs are evaluated against the criteria listed on this wiki entry. In fact the terms' originators have come to de-emphasize the fad elements and concentrate more on criticisms against split voters. Because of the abuse of the term by a large number of users who just don't get it, many of the originators of the term rarely use it anymore, and have come to live with increased NARV-like behavior as an inevitability on YTMND.
