Name for that thing where someone posts a topic and other people post threads on it

[Emperor Norton I]

Yeah, I didn't have a great name for this as the title shows.
But there seems a trend where someone will post a thread on a topic, and then inspire a "Topic-mania" where the ideas are all the rage for a while and people post topics related to it. Say, in relation to the Celebrity Presidents thread there's the Billy Mays as President thread, and I think the Celebrity Presidents thread in and of itself may have sparked up because of my Out There Presidents thread. Or, say someone posts a big WW1 thread and then you'll see a bunch of threads related to World War One for about a week because of it.

So is there a name for this trend? If not, could we come with one since I think a label would be nice. I don't know any one but "Topicmania" though.

[MrP]

Copy-catting? Riffing on a theme? Beating a dead horse?

[Thande]

Variation Threads. (http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/offtopic/variation_threads)

[Susano]

Hm. Looking at the list - we didnt have one of those in quite some time. Or at least, not as blatant and over the top as we used to do :D

[Codae]

Hm. Looking at the list - we didnt have one of those in quite some time. Or at least, not as blatant and over the top as we used to do :D

They seem to be showing up mostly in Chat recently.

[Tom Veil]

They seem to be showing up mostly in Chat recently.

The ASB forum has been getting wave after wave of variation threads recently. The biggest was when a couple people started gently mocking PODs that destroy civilization by giving out "Vlad Tepes Awards" ... leading to a game of one-upsmanship for the most unusual way to kill us all. My personal favorite was the thread replacing the Earth's core with ice cream. :rolleyes: