What I always found so fascinating about the word "wank" was that my German teacher used pretty much the same expression (hirnwichsen = brain wanking, brain jacking off) to describe the same thing around 10, 12 years ago and she was a total internet denier/definitely not connected to the online world in any way.

[she used it to describe people who were obsessing to much about things she considered insignificant or stupid and who kept bugging her about it. She certainly had an air of "Stop the Hirnwichsen and get a life" going on]