Gen X has real-life 'Revenge of the Nerds' moment when he uses his computer smarts to redirect 1,000+ junk mail letters to his college nemesis: 'An evil scheme unique to his talents and skills.'

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Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
May 8, 2025 9:00 AM EDT

Have you ever heard of the expression "peaked in high school?" This is usually said about the kids who were "popular" in high school, treated everyone else poorly, but are now adults and are not doing too well—thus, the best time of their life was in high school and now it's only down hill for them. Usually people like this deserve the decline after being so disrespectful to everyone around them in high school. Sometimes those bvllies were just going through something else and they don't really deserve it, but then they didn't really peak in high school if that is the case.

 

In this "geek's" case, his tormentor followed him from high school into college. His teasing never ended it and the he was getting fed up. He took revenge the best way he knew how, using everything he was learning for his degree in computer science.

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  • Picture this, it's the late ‘80s /early ’90s and you depend on getting everything through the mail. You need a good organized mailbox so you don't miss any special invitations or important notices. Well, this geek was working with a software that organized addresses online for companies. So, he made sure to organize his nemesis' address into the junk mail section. He got to “revel” in his passed tormentor's torment after that.  

  • No junk mail No junk mail mail No junk mail REGANTAT ANY RECENTLY LEY
    via Unsplash+ (and the blowup)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "Special Delivery"

    This is a story that was told to me years later by the legend who did this, and was corroborated by his brother. Names are changed to protect the guilty. The two characters in this story are 1. Joe and 2. Bob. The setting was a small college in the late 80's early 90's. The two
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • are in college together and live in the same dorm. They also went to the same high school where Joe picked on Bob regularly. Joe was popular and an athlete and Bob was not, but Bob was very bright, shy and unbeknownst to everyone, absolutely cold
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • blooded. After years of ab e that had only gotten worse while in college, Bob developed an evil scheme unique to his talents and skills. Bob was a Computer Science major and this is before the full integration of the internet as part of our everyday lives. Most
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • correspondence was done through the mail. And college kids back in the day, mail was important for care packages from home, letters from friends and loved ones, or tapes or CD's through Colombia House, or even things like student loan checks, report cards and the like.
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • No cellphones, no email, no text messages. Just communal pay phones and the mail. As mentioned, Bob was very bright. He was getting good grades and landed an internship where he was working for a tech company that would build databases to help larger
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • companies build and maintain customer mail address lists. He helped develop a program that would eventually be replicated and sold to retail companies, coupon production and distribution companies, and companies that send out commercial promotional solicitation
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • letters, fliers or postcards; you know it as junk mail. While working on this address database, he slipped into the code some hidden lines where Joe's college mail address would populate as a database record every so often. This program gets
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • finalized and sold to a bunch of companies who use this program to manage their customer distribution lists. Over the next few weeks to coming months, when Joe went to go get his mail from the dorm mail room,
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • he suddenly had more generic junk mail than everyone else. Multiple copies of Chinese restaurant menus, "Save the Children" brochures, Sears seasonal shopping catalogs, etc. The volume of mail everyday grew to literally bags of mail and Joe had to sort through hundreds, if not
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • thousands, of mail items addressed to him to get to his real mail. He would shout and scream in rage and frustration, all the while Bob would watch quietly and secretly revel in Joe's misery.
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • Bob, if you read this, I'm sorry to share this if Joe also reads this and realizes it was you after all these years. Joe, if you're reading this, you were an a hole. Get f_ed.
    via This_Guy-Fawkes
  • CLIENT CONTRO ФИБАМ
    via Unsplash+ (and Jhont Ant)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • prw8201 As a mailman I'd hate them both. As a guy who loves a little harmless revenge I like it
    via prw8201
  • AXE319319 Gotta love a good revenge of the nerd story!!! Having been something of a nerd in high school and university, I can relate to this revenge scheme! Go nerds!
    via AXE319319
  • maroongrad Love it. :D Mess with a smart person, deal with smart person revenge. Had a student several years back who learned how to use command-prompt. The school information wasn't protected against accessing it that way. So, the student would
    via maroongrad
  • go into the school system and just slightly change the login for the buy. Buy would get furstrated, teacher would look up the password, scold the bu y for forgetting it AGAIN, rinse and repeat. Any class involving a computer he'd lose several minutes of, at a minimum, and the teachers were losing all respect for him. The kid changing the passwords told me and then said
    via maroongrad
  • he felt bad about it and changed it back. I asked him why on Earth he'd change it back?!? The student was bu ying a smart kid, and so he was going to have to deal with the consequences of it. I wouldn't change it back if I were him. Keep it going.
    via maroongrad
  • At the end of the day, sadly, I had to tell the admins that a student had been able to access the database via command-prompt. I didn't share the name, but the bully's password quit changing. :( the database was secured, as it needed to be.
    via maroongrad
  • dasirishviking So, I *hate* barney the dinosaur. My dad thought it was funny, and would always give me some barney stuff around my birthday. I was stationed at Quantico, and asked him to not. He *agreed*. It started a week before my birthday, 1 or 2 pieces a day building to a box plus on my actual birthday, and then tapered
    via dasirishviking
  • off until roughly a week after my birthday. I called him. Told him the war was just beginning. I signed him up for PETA in 3 different ways. He was a country boy. Hunted for food, not trophy. He never suspected me as his sister and my cousins had decided they were Vegan and Gluten Free. One day tho......he figured it out.
    via dasirishviking
  • He called me. I very innocently said "Father, why would i do this to you? I assure i would never do such a thing." He replied "Don't lie to me you little sh." I retorted, in a much different voice, "We'll call it a ceasefire a_h_le. I told you don't f with me, and you did. I have more in my arsenal. I have the nukes. DONT MAKE ME USE THEM."
    via dasirishviking
  • All was quiet for a very long time. Until the Christmas before he passed. It was small, cheap, and he wrapped it the only way he and i knew how. A blindfolded toddler T-Rex. The family laughed. He got sick not long after and was gone in March. I miss my dad.
    via dasirishviking

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