Do you have proof of the etymology of Meat Space? I mean other than some AI generated slop?

My understanding is that’s a new term, unrelated to the context you’re describing.

allturtles 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It's been used on UseNet since at least the early 1990s [0].

I think it comes from a Perry Barlow-esque feeling that Cyberspace is an improvement on the "merely" meat real world (perhaps even a proxy heaven on earth, cf. Platonism). Sometimes it is tongue-in-cheek, other times earnest (I assume for people who have found the real world (and their real bodies) a disappointment.)

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/what-is-meatspace.

	▲	switchbak 12 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Shoot, I didn't mean to say "meat space" (of course that's been around forever), I specifically meant "meat proxy" - I've only heard of that recently. And I don't think that comes from terminally-online people. I think it comes from folks that are sick of people over-using AI in a blind way and it becoming very fatiguing.
	▲	antonvs 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I wonder if the term might have been influenced by Terry Bisson's excellent short story "They're Made Out of Meat"[1], which was published in Omni Magazine in 1991. Bisson himself credited the idea to the poet Allan Ginsberg[2]: > “I was thinking about an interview I had read or heard that Allen Ginsberg was doing with some journalist,” he stated, “and he was talking about poetry and the guy was saying that it was like they were two poets talking or something like that and Ginsberg says, ‘No, we’re just meat talking to meat.’ And somehow that got stuck in my head.” The earliest known online usage of "meatspace" seems to be two years later, in 1993. Then in 1995, it was apparently used in the Seattle Times[3]. [1] Full text: https://web.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think... [2] https://thewritingpost.com/2025/01/13/a-look-at-theyre-made-... [3] Some citations: http://www.wordspy.com/words/meatspace.asp

▲

devmor 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/what-is-meatspace

It's been a term used on the internet for as long as I've been online.

	▲	iamnothere 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		There is no reference within the provided context for how long you have been online, so I am unable to verify whether or not this statement is correct. /s

▲

knome a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I thought of this again and went to check google books. The earliest reference I see there to the term 'meatspace' is from "The Law and Business of Computer Software", which I find amusing.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Law_and_Business_of...

▲

switchbak 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ok, I need to proof-read better. I meant "Meat Proxy", not "Meat Space" in the above comment.

▲

knome 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's an old term. Here's a reference from the New York Times in 2000.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/...

Your parent comments needless disdain aside, it was just a silly term used to refer to offline.

▲

BoxOfRain 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This sounded off so I looked into it, apparently 'meatspace' has been around since the early '90s as a derivative of 'cyberspace'.

▲

blooalien 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've known the phrase "meatspace" for decades now as an "opposite" of "cyberspace" from some of the CyberPunk Sci-Fi of my childhood, though I cannot at this moment name any specific novels it might originate from. It's not a terribly new term, although it may have only recently gained common enough usage as to seem new to those who hadn't heard it before.

▲

flir 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That one's ancient, for what it's worth. I'd be amazed if it wasn't coined by one of the first gen cyberpunk authors.

(Although I'm starting to have my doubts. Furthest I can get back is 1993 (usenet post). I'm curious to know if anyone can get further back).

▲

antonvs 3 days ago | parent [-]

I found the same as you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50428664

	▲	flir 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		My chatbot found an unsourced claim that Bruce Sterling used it in 1992. Google Books gets me back as far as 1990, but I don't trust it (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Law_and_Business_...) - I think there's a good chance the publication date is wrong. Earliest reference in British Newspaper Archive is 1997. I wonder if anyone has access to newspapers.com? But if it first crops up on usenet in 1993, I can't imagine it being coined much earlier than that.

▲

jknoepfler 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've been using the term meatspace since at least the 90s, and would be semi-shocked if it didn't exist in either 80s sci-fi or posthumanist manifestos or whatever in some form or another.

Here are some concrete examples courtesy of an etymology site: https://wordspy.com/words/meatspace/

The use of "meat" to characterize the physical, analog, arbitrary, biological (as opposed to the logical, digital, formal) pre-dates the 80s/90s deliberate apposition with "cyberspace" afaik, but I don't have time to fish up concrete examples from my library atm.

▲

georgemcbay 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Others have already provided links as proof, but anecdotally I've heard "meatspace" since at least the 1990s (I have been online since the 1980s).

"Meat proxy" OTOH is a newer term for people who when you communicate with them online just run everything through LLMs and respond with voluminous and mostly unedited slop. Hadn't heard that one until about a year ago.

	▲	ButlerianJihad 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meat_puppet#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proxy_marriage