Threads of our Legacy
By Rebecca C.
Threads of messages have been a part of NSA lore from the beginning. Creative students in FirstClass and Teams have crafted dramatic stories and role plays that have gone down in history. (In fact… there’s a whole book written about it, you can check that article out here.) There are, of course, the legendary threads such as FFAE (an adventure roleplay) and the mega thread. Gabe told me a bit about these in a survey sent out to students. “The FFAE (ForcesFightingAgainstEvil) threads were always active, and everybody could join in, the lag was also crazyy, sometimes in a day we would from a 2,000-message thread to another thread.” The mega thread, which was the longest thread in NSA history with over 10,000 replies, also made its mark. “The mega thread was fun because of all the activity in its short life span, but also because of one of the most realistic NSA lore things ever. Someone made the thread a bomb and blew out teams for 3 whole Days for everyone until the admins rebooted it, this was in 2020,” Gabe recalled.
But while these threads of old are long gone, that doesn’t mean that all the fun has left with them! In the survey sent out, students explained what their favorite current threads on Teams were as well. Some answers were simple. “[The] pet channel because I can see EVERYONE'S ANIMALS!” said one student. “The new one that Riley started about the pinging game cause it will get iNSAne soon,” predicted another. Other students mentioned a seemingly absurd (and very long!) thread in the High School building called “Lets Count.” Started by Shelli on 9/12/2022, it’s literally just what it sounds like… people counting. A student from the survey talked about their experience with it. “It is a lot of fun to count with everyone. The rules are that you can only put one number, then wait for someone to say the next one then you could put another number.” This may sound like it would never catch on, but the thread (as of 3/27/2023) currently has 3,760 replies. Hey, we’re iNSAne, what did you expect?
Another thread currently popular in the High School building is the shipping thread. Started by Owen on 3/13/2023, this thread currently has 1,291 which is pretty good for something that’s only been around for two weeks! Another busy thread is one in the Creative Writing club general, which was started by Chana, an NSA graduate who was “visiting” Teams for the career fair. The students welcomed her back with a whopping 1,059 replies in five days!
Some might say that threads like “lets count” will never become as legendary as the threads of old, and maybe they're right. But I would argue that lore becomes legendary based on how we perceive it, and the memories we made while making these crazy adventures. So maybe some of us missed the golden age of NSA that everyone raves about, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay this way. We can write the legacy of right now, one iNSAne thread at a time. :)
Columns: 🔎Informational 🧑🚀NSA Culture
Rebecca C. started at NSA in January of 2021. She lives in Massachusetts in the US. She is in 9th grade and enjoys filmmaking, writing, and loves animals.