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Up Close and (Kinda) Personal on the Nin.com Message Boards

By Carolyn Hillard for Suite101.com on October 1, 1999

I?m addicted. Not to drugs. Not to booze. Not to love. (Sorry Robert Palmer). The sad fact of the matter is, I?m addicted to the nin.com message boards!

The message boards went up at http://www.nin.com recently and have quickly become flooded with all sorts of serious, strange, idiotic, and sometimes rude comments. In other words, it?s kind of like your typical newsgroup. The big difference here is that NIN band members and other "officials" within the NIN organization have been known to come on and post their own messages and respond to some on the board. If you don?t think that creates a flurry of activity you haven?t seen your typical NIN fan convulsing over the mere hint that Trent (or one of the lesser gods of NIN...;) might be reading.

Popular topics at any given time range from serious questions about music production to silly ponderings about the sex of the mysterious webmaster. One thing we know for certain. The webmaster is definitely not Trent Reznor. He?s much too busy preparing for the upcoming European leg of his tour, which starts in November.

Reznor did, however, post a few initial comments when the boards first opened, and can sometimes be seen lurking about under the simple screen name "trent". It?s good to see Reznor taking a more active interest in using the internet to stay in contact with his fans. However nebulous that contact may be. Some early worries by some of the fans posting that some of the sillier comments would keep the NIN band members away and keep them from posting, have been met with an assurance from the webmaster that they basically do not want to censor the contents of the board, but would hope for some reasonable restraint and commonsense from those posting there. Which seems fair enough.

Some of the more active "NIN camp" posters are the programmers who work with Trent. In particular Keith Hillebrandt, who comes off as an intensely friendly and likeable fellow, who kindly provided me with the information that, no Virginia, there are no Vegans among the NIN crew. Meat eaters all. It may seem silly, but it?s trivia like that which keeps me going back and spending (maybe) way too much time there lately. Others who have posted include Charlie Clouser, Leo Herrara and Dave "the Rave" Ogilvie. But Keith?s the acknowledged darling of the board, simply because he?s willing to let his humorous streak show and he?s such a consistent poster. Not to mention he?s promised the female board members some "hot male action" " but that?s another story...;)

Dedicated lurkers have learned that the band just started (last night) setting up at an undisclosed location for live rehearsals for the tour. That both Keith and Leo at one time had La Vida Loca gyrating pop star Ricky Martin as a client. That yes, the webmaster will be going on tour with the band. Does that last one mean we can expect some live on tour reports via the boards? Tune in tomorrow to find out black-clad boys and girls!

Are you still reading after all that? Why? Head on over to http://www.nin.com and take a look. If you haven?t registered yet to get a username, do so. You?ll enjoy it. I promise.

Transcribed by Keith Duemling

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