AbdulAlhazred
Legend
THIS Stan Lee To Launch 1821 Comics At NYCC indicates Stan Lee using the term in 2011. It certainly didn't originate then. Doesn't push it back any, but does indicate it was common currency already by then.
D&D General Who coined the phrase "murder hobo"
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
DNDWIKI also seems to have had a reference to 'murderhobo' in its glossary since 2007, although again it is not really possible to know what it said exactly (maybe the wayback machine would help here).
TV Tropes Munchkin entry in 2007 did not have Murderhobo.
If you have the DNDWIKI link we can pull that one up too.
Where do you see Murder Hobo on that page?
der_kluge
Adventurer
I already PM'd them. No response. They do appear active, though perhaps they are simply ignoring us for some weird reason.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I am going by the dating of search results by Google, where it shows the word 'Murderhobo' showing up in that page in 2007. Not disputing you, just doesn't seem like the two match up...
Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal is with the comic book reference, I saw a couple other references like that too, none of them seem to really lead anywhere.
So, we have some potential references, not 100%. I couldn't find anything else trolling Google results filtered back to the early 90's, but there's really very little there which is that old at all (you would probably conclude D&D didn't exist on that basis in the 90's basically).
Google dates are often really hinky... I haven't figured them out. You can sometimes get a news story from today when you try searching for that topic with the date restriction set to a few years ago or older. That one I gave is the link to the page from that date from internet archive. I don't think there's any usual way for those to be wrong (assumign the page is there).
It certainly existed on usenet
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
LOL, I sure hope so, I was there! Actually I didn't really post much on Usenet, maybe a couple times. This would have been more like the very late 80's though. Mostly it was just HARD to get good access back then, you needed a University account, or else you could hope your friendly local FIDONET BBS would manage to pick up the groups you wanted (probably not, unless you knew the sysop).Google dates are often really hinky... I haven't figured them out. You can sometimes get a news story from today when you try searching for that topic with the date restriction set to a few years ago or older. That one I gave is the link to the page from that date from internet archive. I don't think there's any usual way for those to be wrong (assumign the page is there).
It certainly existed on usenet
I've heard that The Well was an active RPG hub, and Together Net (in Vermont) had a few enthusiasts. There just wasn't really social media back then, even around '95 when everyone started to really get online it was mostly email, or GeoCities sites (don't ask, they were terrible). That and AOL/Compuserve, but those were fairly closed off from everything else.
I'm going to go a different direction here and posit with no proof that "murder hobo" is actually a mutation of the term "homicidal hobo", which is a decades old term to describe literal hobos of the rail-riding tradition that commit murder.
The phrase "homicidal hobo" goes back really far. The earliest reference I can find to it is the title of an episode of the radio show "Calling All Cars" from 1938:
I suspect there may be earlier cases, but that's as far as I'm going to bother looking. "Homicidal hobo" continues to appear in literature for years, including this example of a section of the story collection "The Charge is Murder" from 1965: The Charge is Murder
In more modern history, "homicidal hobos" start showing up outside of fiction in the late 80s through the 90s. The term seems to gain popularity with reference to the Freight Train Riders Association of America (Freight Train Riders of America - Wikipedia). The FTRA was formally started in 1984, and was basically a hobo's alliance known for a lot of violence. This article (from 2007) specifically notes how the LA anti-gang squad in the late 80s referred to this group as "Homicidal Hobos": The Freight Train Riders of America Also, noted serial killer Robert Silveria was a member of the FTRA; he was arrested in 1996 for 14 homicides while living as a hobo.
Another famous serial killer, Angel Resendiz was nicknamed the Railway Killer. He was featured on Americas Most Wanted and plenty of other news outlets both before and after he was caught in 1999. He was referred to as a "homicidal hobo" by many members of the media. Here are a few examples:
I married a serial killer
https://crimeindetroit.com/documents/062399 Serial Suspect has State Arrest.pdf
Clearly, "homicidal hobos" were talked about a lot before the 2007 date that "murder hobo" has been found. I think it's highly likely that some people who remember the term "murder hobo" from long ago are actually thinking about "homicidal hobos". It's also likely that "murder hobo" is a more colloquial term, and that "homicidal hobo" is a more "proper" or "literary" version that made it through editors to print in surviving texts. This last part is especially true when you consider that "murder" has not typically been used as an adjective. The proper adjective would be "murderous". The use of "murder" as an adjective is more recent in language, and is probably related to a trending of "verbing" nouns on the internet.
Just my late night thoughts.
The phrase "homicidal hobo" goes back really far. The earliest reference I can find to it is the title of an episode of the radio show "Calling All Cars" from 1938:
In more modern history, "homicidal hobos" start showing up outside of fiction in the late 80s through the 90s. The term seems to gain popularity with reference to the Freight Train Riders Association of America (Freight Train Riders of America - Wikipedia). The FTRA was formally started in 1984, and was basically a hobo's alliance known for a lot of violence. This article (from 2007) specifically notes how the LA anti-gang squad in the late 80s referred to this group as "Homicidal Hobos": The Freight Train Riders of America Also, noted serial killer Robert Silveria was a member of the FTRA; he was arrested in 1996 for 14 homicides while living as a hobo.
Another famous serial killer, Angel Resendiz was nicknamed the Railway Killer. He was featured on Americas Most Wanted and plenty of other news outlets both before and after he was caught in 1999. He was referred to as a "homicidal hobo" by many members of the media. Here are a few examples:
I married a serial killer
https://crimeindetroit.com/documents/062399 Serial Suspect has State Arrest.pdf
The Railway Killer - He was a normal man with a normal life, but he turned into one of the world's worst serial killers
Angel Matrino Resendez is one of history's most notorious serial killers. Found guilty of nine horrific murders, his seemingly random methods shocked the world, striking fear into the hearts of thousands who lived along the railroad that the twisted killer travelled in search of blood. For the...
www.google.com
Clearly, "homicidal hobos" were talked about a lot before the 2007 date that "murder hobo" has been found. I think it's highly likely that some people who remember the term "murder hobo" from long ago are actually thinking about "homicidal hobos". It's also likely that "murder hobo" is a more colloquial term, and that "homicidal hobo" is a more "proper" or "literary" version that made it through editors to print in surviving texts. This last part is especially true when you consider that "murder" has not typically been used as an adjective. The proper adjective would be "murderous". The use of "murder" as an adjective is more recent in language, and is probably related to a trending of "verbing" nouns on the internet.
Just my late night thoughts.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Meh, we never used the term "Homicidal Hobo" in reference to PCs in an RPG. I don't especially remember it as being anything notable as a cultural term back in the day either, though I have dug up a number of references to it, along with other similar terms, in reference to actual hobos back in the day.I'm going to go a different direction here and posit with no proof that "murder hobo" is actually a mutation of the term "homicidal hobo", which is a decades old term to describe literal hobos of the rail-riding tradition that commit murder.
The phrase "homicidal hobo" goes back really far. The earliest reference I can find to it is the title of an episode of the radio show "Calling All Cars" from 1938:
I suspect there may be earlier cases, but that's as far as I'm going to bother looking. "Homicidal hobo" continues to appear in literature for years, including this example of a section of the story collection "The Charge is Murder" from 1965: The Charge is Murder
In more modern history, "homicidal hobos" start showing up outside of fiction in the late 80s through the 90s. The term seems to gain popularity with reference to the Freight Train Riders Association of America (Freight Train Riders of America - Wikipedia). The FTRA was formally started in 1984, and was basically a hobo's alliance known for a lot of violence. This article (from 2007) specifically notes how the LA anti-gang squad in the late 80s referred to this group as "Homicidal Hobos": The Freight Train Riders of America Also, noted serial killer Robert Silveria was a member of the FTRA; he was arrested in 1996 for 14 homicides while living as a hobo.
Another famous serial killer, Angel Resendiz was nicknamed the Railway Killer. He was featured on Americas Most Wanted and plenty of other news outlets both before and after he was caught in 1999. He was referred to as a "homicidal hobo" by many members of the media. Here are a few examples:
I married a serial killer
https://crimeindetroit.com/documents/062399 Serial Suspect has State Arrest.pdf
The Railway Killer - He was a normal man with a normal life, but he turned into one of the world's worst serial killers
Angel Matrino Resendez is one of history's most notorious serial killers. Found guilty of nine horrific murders, his seemingly random methods shocked the world, striking fear into the hearts of thousands who lived along the railroad that the twisted killer travelled in search of blood. For the...www.google.com
Clearly, "homicidal hobos" were talked about a lot before the 2007 date that "murder hobo" has been found. I think it's highly likely that some people who remember the term "murder hobo" from long ago are actually thinking about "homicidal hobos". It's also likely that "murder hobo" is a more colloquial term, and that "homicidal hobo" is a more "proper" or "literary" version that made it through editors to print in surviving texts. This last part is especially true when you consider that "murder" has not typically been used as an adjective. The proper adjective would be "murderous". The use of "murder" as an adjective is more recent in language, and is probably related to a trending of "verbing" nouns on the internet.
Just my late night thoughts.
Anyway, the term 'hobo' itself is of FAIRLY recent coinage, only dating AFAIK back to the Dustbowl/Great Depression era, or perhaps a bit earlier in the early 20th Century (the Intertubes relegate it to the 1890s). The point being "murder" (etc.) "hobo" isn't like some ancient term, though it certainly COULD long predate D&D, as could its cognates.
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