It's a great time to be a Tiger fan, and it's a great time to discover Rock M Nation, but new readers might be, shall we say, a little thrown by the large number of inside jokes and internal references made in RMN posts and comments on a daily basis. Here's a primer, a glimpse into the world of Rock M Nation.
People You Ought to Know (Internal and External)
The Boy: Co-founder of Rock M Nation, whose blogging began at Mizzou Sanity. Primary responsibilities include the Mizzou Links and Beyond the Box Score features (see below). He is generally given hell for his nerdiness and love of Microsoft Excel.
rptgwb: Co-founder of Rock M Nation, whose blogging began at Every True Son. Primary responsibilities include Live Thread management and occasional satire and multimedia work. He is generally given hell for his youth and his love of Texas.
The Beef: Co-founder of Rock M Nation who also contributed to Mizzou Sanity. He is best known for his Monday Musings feature (see below), as well as his in-depth coverage of non-revenue sports, particularly wrestling.
Michael Atchison: Rock M Nation contributor who is best known as the author of True Sons: A Century of Missouri Tigers Basketball. The quality of his writing generally far exceeds that of any other RMN regular.
ghtd36: Rock M Nation charter member with an epic collection of animated GIFs. In late March of 2009, he was announced as a front page writer for RMN.
ZouDave: Rock M Nation contributor who is famous in Mizzou circles for his prodigious portfolio of highlight videos.
Ridiculous Matt: Rock M Nation charter member whose standout commenting as "MizzouRobot" in the old days led to his inclusion in the Rock M Roundtable.
KU Doug: The "voice of the enemy," who contributes a Jayhawk-based opinion to the Rock M Roundtable.
UribeAuction: Rock M Nation charter member who frequently contributes to RMN podcasts. Simpsons pics are his weapon of choice.
MCBoomofDoom: Rock M Nation charter member whose love of Notre Dame and odd stories about pudding are frequently the butt of many RMN jokes.
Gabe: First name of Gabe DeArmond, proprietor of PowerMizzou, the Rivals.com site covering Mizzou. His prominence in the Mizzou community and propensity for breaking news has led to him being often referred to by first name only.
Matter: Last name of Dave Matter, Mizzou football beat writer for the Columbia Tribune, who is well known in MU circles for his Behind the Stripes blog. Like Gabe, his prominence in breaking Mizzou-related news has led to constant reference by a single name.
TB: The proprietor of Bring On The Cats, SB Nation's Kansas State blog. His fine work at his site (frequently referred to as BOTC) plus his healthy hatred of Kansas has led to what RMN and BOTC owners have begun calling "The Unholy Alliance" (or, if you prefer, "bromance") between the two sites.
Big Head: Proprietor of Mizzourah.net and friend of Rock M Nation.
Rock M Nation Staples
Rock M Roundtable: A weekly feature run on Wednesday afternoons that features the ramblings of The Boy, The Beef, rptgwb, ZouDave, Michael Atchison, KU Doug and Ridiculous Matt. The discussion begins with five Mizzou-related questions before disintegrating into random pictures and quips about the attractiveness of ZouDave's sister.
Live Threads: These threads are the online equivalent of watching the game at a bar with 50 of your best buddies. All Mizzou football games, Mizzou basketball games, Mizzou baseball series in Big 12 and postseason play, selected other Mizzou events and certain national events are covered by Live Threads, giving you a chance for immediate reaction and interaction during the event.
Rock M Nation Podcasts: Podcasts originated as a postgame phenomenon during the 2008 season. Podcasts recorded directly following victories are led with "Brass Bonanza," the official celebration music of RMN. Podcasts after losses are led with with "Total Eclipse of the Heart," just because it hurts so good, you know? In many instances, the podcasts have replaced a former RMN feature known as "Good, Bad and Indifferent." Beginning in February 2009, Rock M Nation began experimenting with a weekly podcast feature.
Mizzou Links: An early morning collection of pertinent links and stories every weekday. Serves as an aggregate of what the media is saying about Mizzou.
Front Page Friday: Our way of giving back to the community. Any FanPost or FanShot (see below) within reason posted on Fridays will be promoted to the front page. This should not discourage posting on any other days, however, as we are quick to promote any and all great work produced on our pages regardless of the day of the week.
Beyond the Box Score (BTBS): A recurring feature penned by The Boy, who used this avenue to help pioneer football sabermetrics at the collegiate level. His BTBS work led him to column work with the popular football statistics site Football Outsiders.
Monday Musings: A Monday morning feature penned by The Beef that analyzes the week that was in all Mizzou sports.
Technical Jargon
Post/Story: The meat of any SB Nation site. For Rock M Nation's purposes, the author at the top will be listed as either The Boy, The Beef, or rptgwb.
FanPost: Located on the right sidebar, giving all readers the option to write their own developed posts. FanPosts require of minimum of 75 words and can be promoted to the front page if deemed worthy by RMN's management staff.
FanShot: FanShots are the "quick hitters" of SB Nation. This makes it easy for users to add a link, video, image, quote, list or chat to Rock M Nation without having to write an entire FanPost. These are frequently promoted to the front page, and are offset on the front page by a gold box.
Comment: Comments give users and managers the chance to respond to individual posts and other comments. Take a minute to learn the keyboard shortcuts listed in the comments section to fully optimize comment usage, especially in Live Threads.
Tag: A way of denoting topics discussed in the post, known as "Labels" on some other blogging platforms. SB Nation provides us with smart tagging features that allow users to tag specific events (games), teams and players.
Rec: Any post, FanPost, FanShot, or comment can be recommended to other users. At the bottom of any post or under the "actions" button of comments, there is a button labeled "Rec." This is particularly useful in pointing out excellent work by other members, and generally means users will leave a comment saying "Rec'd" to notify the user of the recommendation.
For more on membership with Rock M Nation and the SB Nation network, visit the Welcome Guide. For a how-to on posting pictures and links within comments, visit this post.
Popular Rock M Nation Memes
Asian kid = the official celebratory GIF of Rock M Nation
Handshakes = the official touchdown celebration, a nod to a celebration spawned by the 2007 football team
TruFlair: A combination of Truman the Tiger and Rick Flair, pioneered by ghtd36
Rock, Flag and Eagle: A phrase from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, used to describe anything that is particularly good
LOLs = Satire in the form of LOLCats, including our "Big TweLOLve" series
+1 = A universally understood way of saying "good job" in response to another user's comment
Victory Whiskey = A victory drink popularized by Big Head during the 2007 season
Hot Tub = The nickname for Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin. Click for background.
Bacon = A tasty pork product notable for its multiple uses that have been well covered by RMN members
DISRESPECT = A running joke stemming from ghtd36's The Sooner Disrespect Chronicles (Part I, Part II, Part III), in which Bob Stoops creates many different injustices with which to fire his team up before a big game. Defensive end Frank Alexander is the most susceptible to Stoopsie's efforts.
Mizzou-related Player Nicknames (Follow link for background)
Chase Coffman = Thrust Nunchuk Upward
Chase Daniel = Professor Chaos / Golden Watermelons Balls of Fury / Chance McDanielson
Jeremy Maclin = Cheat Code
William Moore = Willy Mo
Sean Weatherspoon = Spoon
Derrick Washington = D-Wash
Brian Coulter = God / Count Sackula
Will Ebner = Hurricane Ebner / Category 32
Will Ebner and Andrew Gachkar = Team Velodrome
Will Franklin = The Helicopter
Martin Rucker = MotherRucker
DeMarre Carroll = Junkyard Dog ("JYD")
Zaire Taylor = Mr. Coffee
J.T. Tiller and Zaire Taylor = Hustle and Flow
Leo Lyons = Good Leo / Bad Leo
Matt Lawrence = The Grey Goose
Kim English = Kimmeh!
Laurence Bowers = Party Starter