I want to read the USENET troll post "Oh How I Envy American
Students".  According to
http://www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html , this was the
most successful troll of all time, generating "an average of 1
response every 160 minutes for a whole year".

I've been able to find several threads of responses to that original
post on google groups (see below), but I cannot find the original post
that started it all.

Can you find me this original troll posting?  I'd much prefer the
actual original article to quoted text in a response.


( http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22Oh+How+I+Envy+American+Students%22+group:soc.college.*&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&selm=Pine.ULT.3.91.960124152803.6685A-100000%40s-cwis&rnum=1
, http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22Oh+How+I+Envy+American+Students%22+group:soc.college.*&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&selm=19JAN96.25331992.0151%40VM1.MCGILL.CA&rnum=2
)

According to the web site that you mention, the creator of "Oh How I
Envy American Students" was an individual who goes by the name "Ronald
Seegers."
http://www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/antU/antU.who.html

As you've probably noticed, many of the original 3500 posts appear to
have been deleted at some point.
  
However, it appears that on March 3, 1996, "Ronald Seegers" attempted
to revive the thread by reposting the original troll in full. It
appears midway through the following message:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4hcrfb%24h2%40infoserv.netkonect.net&output=gplain

Over the years, there have been various attempts to revive the thread
by reposting the full-text of the original troll on the Usenet and
even web messageboards such as:
http://www.mailgate.org.uk/uk/uk.education.openuniversity/msg03576.html

I hope this helps.

Great question. While researching this I found that other people have
wondered the same thing.

The first posting was on Jan 17th, 1996 and it was so successful
because it was a con job from the beginning. Apparently, Andrew, as in
"Andrew/ (andrew@altairiv.demon.co.uk" made the first post in the
chain as a fake response to the paragraph below, which you've already
seen. By writing in the fashion of a true response, breaking up the
paragraph point by point, he apparently tricked others into
reconstructing it as the text here:

"
>After reading the Newsgroups for some time, I have noticed that
almost
>all europeans HATE the U.S.?  WHY?  LIfe really isn't that bad over
>there, although your system of capitalism stifles creativity (as does
>Japans).  Instead of calling all American's "fat lazy pigs", why
don't
>you tell us why?  Keep in mind, if it wasn't for the U.S.A you all
would
>still be Nazi's, and you would have never developed as a democracy. 
On a
>social and economic sence, the U.S. and Europe need to be more
partners
>than competitors (my spelling sucks, sorry.)  After all, we are all
too
>busy being pissed off at Japan, we really don't care about Europeans.
>--aaron
"

The style was imitated from a real American poster, "Aaron G Cooper":

"And for all you American haters... We all know that you're just 
jelous.  We more or less rule the world.  We have the best Standard of
living, and the best sence of justice.  WE ROCK!!!!!  In Every
catagory,
we exceed EVERY other nation.  Don't forget it.  IT's like P.J.
Orourke
(Sp?) said--In every U.S. embassy in every European Nation, there are
a
thousand people in the front protesting, and two thousand in the back
trying to get Visa's.  It's true."

As in this 1995 post
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Aaron+G+Cooper%22&hl=en&lr=&as_drrb=b&selm=42qd2j%24m00%40news.csus.edu&rnum=2

Note also that the "Re: USENET troll "Oh How I Envy American
Students"" is actually first in the thread,

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&threadm=mirkwood-2201961902310001%40mirkwood.tiac.net&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dsac75199%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26as_drrb%3Db%26as_mind%3D29%26as_minm%3D3%26as_miny%3D1995%26as_maxd%3D10%26as_maxm%3D2%26as_maxy%3D1996%26selm%3DDLMvAr.HrI%2540udcf.gla.ac.uk%26rnum%3D7&as_drrb=b&as_maxd=22&as_maxm=1&as_maxy=1996&as_mind=29&as_minm=3&as_miny=1995

even though the fake has a Re: in the Subject.

Also, note that Andrew was a known troller, as shown here

"I just love ferretting out these trolls who switch writing styles to
hide
their nationality. It doesn't work. There is a Brit whose email
address
is andrew@altairiv.demon.co.uk who has apparently cracked the system
at
Yale to post this rubbish from a possibly hacked account."

Also note that he wrote the troll FAQ you quote above, any amateur
shrinks want to comment?

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=andrew%40altairiv.demon.co.uk&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&selm=4pvrqv%24i5p%40news.ais.net&rnum=3

Even lacking other evidence, the lack of any presence of the post
before 1/17/96(and the databases go back to the early 80's) should be
proof.

Google Groups Search terms used
"as does japans"
"Aaron G Cooper" 
andrew@altairiv.demon.co.uk troll

LOL!  No wonder I couldn't find it...I found the post by Andrew and
Aaron Cooper.  Had me confused to death...