TLDR;
TMM was never a single person – at least not in reality. Thomas, that was his real name, tried to make it look like it was something bigger, but everyone who knew him understood it was just him. The idea of Team Maktmissbruk really came out of the principle of “I’ll do whatever I want with the raggar‑swine on IRC”, a tongue‑in‑cheek concept that turned into a small, practical toolkit culture. The earliest usage traces to IRCNet’s #sverige on 1997-06-22, initially as TM (Team Maktmissbruk), then renamed TMM in July 1997 when “Team MaktMissbruk” sounded like a better fit. He even tried to form a Quake clan (see the OB sections), but that didn’t go very far either. A few joined the trend, but TMM never became particularly large. Still, the code artifacts in Absolute RAGG and the archived wiki page preserve the story (archived: Wayback snapshot). References: absolute-ragg repository, rtrig.irc header, ragg-2.0.2.irc.
Origins – IRCNet, #sverige, 1997
In the late 90s, IRCNet was overflowing with unsolicited flirting and crude attempts to pick up strangers. The idea of Team Maktmissbruk really came out of the principle of “I’ll do whatever I want with the raggar‑swine on IRC”. Out of that atmosphere grew the tongue‑in‑cheek name, born as a small script collection meant to rein in those who took things too far without turning the channel into a strict police state. The very first traces of the nickname appeared between June and July 1997 in the logs and headers of scripts tied to #sverige, signed with the author’s alias “TMM‑TT”. Preserved examples can still be seen in files such as rtrig.irc and ragg‑2.0.2.irc.
What Absolute RAGG did
This was essentially a lightweight harassment filter before the term even became common. It was built as a small collection of triggers for ircII/Epic (a text‑based IRC client and its extended fork) and TCL scripts for Eggdrop (a popular IRC bot framework). These tools throttled repeat offenders and “open raggers” in the channels. Two implementation lines ran in parallel: one with ircII/Epic triggers and support aliases, the other with Eggdrop TCL modules managing the bots. A so‑called “Version 3” was begun on 1998‑03‑07 but never finished. Code snapshots are still archived here: absolute‑ragg.
The name sticks – Quake and nick culture, 1998
TMM also surfaced in a Quake clan period in 1998 (OB – Olofsson Brotherhood). The moniker persisted largely out of convenience and recognizability – a familiar handle across IRC, games and utilities.
From IRC to infrastructure – 1999–2006
The broader Tornevall Networks gradually emerged out of those IRC projects and took more formal shape when the domain tornevall.net was registered in May 2000 (see About – Tornevall Networks). It marked the transition from hobby scripts to a private network with its own infrastructure.
A few years later, around 2006, the DNSBL initiative was born to counter spam and open proxy abuse. While this project was technically separate from the culture around TMM, it still carried the same spirit of building pragmatic tools. Reference: About – Tornevall Networks.
Broadcast‑era chats and forums – 2003–2006
IRC/server and forum work carried into Scandinavian reality TV seasons.
During 2003, the Kanal 5 show Masterplan became an unexpected point of reference for the chat and server era. The project connected directly with the networks already in place, and media such as Aftonbladet covered it extensively, even reporting on falling ratings (Aftonbladet ratings piece).
When Big Brother returned in 2004–2006, the infrastructure moved beyond IRC alone. Forums were integrated with heavy use of vBulletin, and the chat tied everything together. This period is documented in detail in the Big Brother 2006 retrospective. Parallel to Sweden, Danish editions also ran (see Big Brother Denmark), and Norway launched its own side project in Singel 24‑7.
Music footprints – the alias in public
In 2009, the blog post TMM goes Spotify! marked the first clear footprint of the alias in public music distribution (see post).
Overviews of later years continued to list TMM alongside other monikers used for releases and playlists, as can be seen in the Creativity Section.
A few years earlier, during the Big Brother 2005 final, a photo showed the now well‑known “TMM shirt” – a tongue‑in‑cheek nod to the moderator and admin nickname of that era (Facebook photo).
Sunset and legacy
The internal Confluence page summarizing “What was TMM?” was last updated in 2018 and notes that the handle faded from regular IRC use after early August 2017. The old public wiki reference is now deprecated, but the archived version still shows the following wording in Swedish:
Somliga tror att TMM var en person, men egentligen så var TMM en term baserat på ett dåligt skämt, påhittat av en “ung person”. Storyn här har blivit uppgrävd, genom föråldrade chattloggar…
Namnet TMM sågs användas första gången 22 Juni 1997 på IRCNets kanal #sverige utav Tornevall… På den tiden skrevs namnet ut med förkortningen TM (Team Maktmissbruk)… Ett namnbyte från TM till TMM gjordes någon gång i Juli…
And in English, the same page states:
Some people believes that TMM was a person, but actually TMM was a term based on a bad joke, founded by a “young person”. The story has been dug up, through deprecated chat-logs…
The name TMM was primarily seen being use, the first time 22th June 1997 at the IRCNet channel #sverige, by the founder of Tornevall… At that time, the name was spelled TM (Team Maktmissbruk) and later changed to TMM after a suggestion that Team MaktMissbruk would fit better.
This quoted text originally came from the public wiki reference (now deprecated and no longer directly available). The wording is preserved here from the internal Confluence export. The living artifacts remain the scripts and the cultural memory around them.
Timeline
| Date | Event | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1997‑06‑19 to 1997-06-22 | First appearances of TM (Team Maktmissbruk) on IRCNet #sverige – the seed of TMM. | rtrig.irc, ragg‑2.0.2.irc |
| 1997‑07 | Rename from TM to TMM after suggestion “Team MaktMissbruk”. | Deprecated wiki note |
| 1998‑03‑07 | Absolute RAGG v3 initiated – later abandoned. | absolute‑ragg repo |
| 1998 | TMM used in a Quake clan period (OB – Olofsson Brotherhood). | Deprecated wiki note |
| 2000‑05 | tornevall.net registered – projects formalize into Tornevall Networks. | About – Tornevall Networks |
| 2003 | Masterplan – server and chat period during the show run. | Aftonbladet – Alsing leads |
| 2004–2006 | Big Brother SE – forum integration and chat operations. | BB 2006 retrospective |
| 2006 | Tornevall DNSBL matures as a separate anti‑spam effort. | About – Tornevall Networks |
| 2009‑08‑07 | “TMM goes Spotify!” post – public music alias footprint. | TMM goes Spotify! |
| 2017‑08 | Last regular sightings of TMM on IRCNet, per internal notes. | Deprecated wiki note |
| 2018‑04‑05 | “What was TMM?” page updated in Confluence. | Space overview |
Credits and pointers
- Core code and headers that preserve the TMM timestamping – absolute‑ragg.
- Institutional memory of the network’s growth – About – Tornevall Networks.
- Broadcast‑era context and later music footprints – Big Brother 2006 retrospective, TMM goes Spotify!, Creativity Section.