What was the "Summer of Ping"

[daemonspudguy]

I was reading the Deskthority Wiki and now am wondering what the "Summer of Ping" is referring to.

[Muirium]

Ah, ye olde memes.

They're a bitch when they vanish off the face of the internet.

Here's the thing: I only vaguely remember what it was. So I peeked into the Deskthority Award archives, sure it would be explained there. And, uh…

2013: viewtopic.php?f=72&t=7044
2014: viewtopic.php?f=85&t=9380
2015: viewtopic.php?f=94&t=12370
2016: viewtopic.php?f=102&t=15326
2017: viewtopic.php?f=110&t=17873

As far as I recall, it was to do with a flip-open lighter that didn't work… in some TV advert I'd never seen… and maybe implied impotence? Such are memes.

Edit: Maybe not even that. Looking at the nominations round, 10 years ago, I see this vid of a pingy lighter. But surely that alone was not "the summer of ping." There had to be some story to it…

[Slom]

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=35 ... #msg655373

"The summer of 2011 is referred to as the Summer of Ping around here because of the ridiculous debate that went on surrounding various ringing/pinging phenomena."

Seems to also be part of the whole ripster story ...

[Findecanor]

I think it was mostly about ringing in keyboards with stock Cherry MX Black.