Bigot Brigade Something Awful and Friends - The roller-coaster train-wreck embarrassing downfall of a Web 1.0 giant and its tick offspring like from Cloverfield

[Gensdupays]

Don't know if it is too off course to talk about something that sprang from Something Awful itself, but Retsupurae pretty sad these days. Not so much the show as much as their fans. Basically they can't actually riff on LPs anymore because their fans would just harass the subject of the riff so much that it would reflect poorly on them. Hell, it even happens when they feature Kickstarter projects. Their response to when people do it is to delete the videos, so that should say something about how fed up they are.

 

[Super Collie]

This will likely happen. SS had a thread where they discussed the technical aspects of SA, and the future of SA is pretty bad because:

* Incredibly customized vbulletin software that has been butchered and altered to the point they can't upgrade to the newest official version without breaking the site, even though theirs is obscenely outdated. Ironically, this makes them much like TV Tropes, a site they hate, though at least TV Tropes has actual competent coders working on it at present to drag it into modern day.

* They have no coding staff anymore. Radium is long gone, Lowtax knows jack squat about the technical aspects of running his site, and none of his staff have any clue as well. One of them even broke the entire database simply by moving a forum around.

* Their hardware is ancient. As in, you have to haunt eBay and flea markets in case it breaks to find spares level ancient, and the setup is so dated that is hard to upgrade away from as well.

There was once a time when posting points like this on SA would get you banned, though this was something I was assuming all along. I believe Something Awful is running a 2.0 version of vBulletin? To put that into comparison, vBulletin is currently in its fifth iteration. (vBulletin 4.0 was the last "forum only" release, with 5.0 being some sort of social hub, so 4.0 is what most forums still run.) SA has some really interesting forum features that have been woven into it, but as pointed out these were just jammed in there in a rickety fashion and will break at the slightest provocation.

If SA wants to survive and bring their site up to speed, they are better off spinning things like the SA-clopedia and Lepers' Colony into separate things and removing tired old bullshit that isn't used anymore. I'm not familiar with SA on a technical level but I can guarantee shit like this exists.

That probably won't happen though, because it's a massive amount of work.

Thanks for the yiffy Jew star avatar back in the day, Lowtax.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Don't know if it is too off course to talk about something that sprang from Something Awful itself, but Retsupurae pretty sad these days. Not so much the show as much as their fans. Basically they can't actually riff on LPs anymore because their fans would just harass the subject of the riff so much that it would reflect poorly on them. Hell, it even happens when they feature Kickstarter projects. Their response to when people do it is to delete the videos, so that should say something about how fed up they are.

Yeah, I miss when they did the riffs on LPs. Those were always my favorites.

Their fans can just go to hell for all I care if that's the reason why they stopped. Next thing you know, they're eventually going to stop because some moronic fans start saying they should stop doing longplays for this, that or the other.

Also for a site that hates TVTropes, I'm kinda surprised Something Awful is actually behind the times.

 

[Gensdupays]

Yeah, I miss when they did the riffs on LPs. Those were always my favorites.

Their fans can just go to hell for all I care if that's the reason why they stopped. Next thing you know, they're eventually going to stop because some moronic fans start saying they should stop doing longplays for this, that or the other.

Also for a site that hates TVTropes, I'm kinda surprised Something Awful is actually behind the times.

Yeah, it is. Something happened with them and now they all are weens with a social justice tinge when the right nerve is touched.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Yeah, it is. Something happened with them and now they all are cool guys with a social justice tinge when the right nerve is touched.

Not just even the right nerve, just a nerve.

 

[Bungleboy]

You'd think they'd have enough money to buy some new coders or some new shit considering you need to pay to post, view the actually funny stuff in the archives, and so on.

Where's the tenbux going, Lowtax?

Where's it going?

 

[Super Collie]

You'd think they'd have enough money to buy some new coders or some new shit considering you need to pay to post, view the actually funny stuff in the archives, and so on.

Where's the tenbux going, Lowtax?

Where's it going?

Mangosteen.

 

[RJ MacReady]

You'd think they'd have enough money to buy some new coders or some new shit considering you need to pay to post, view the actually funny stuff in the archives, and so on.

Where's the tenbux going, Lowtax?

Where's it going?

I don't know SA's finances, but I've recently thought that the revenue it brings in would just cover hosting (which I think is what, $15,000 annually?), Lowtax's salary (he's got two kids) and the stipends I assume they give to front page writers.

At the least, I find it hard to believe SA is doing anything more than breaking even.

 

[Meowthkip]

I don't know SA's finances, but I've recently thought that the revenue it brings in would just cover hosting (which I think is what, $15,000 annually?), Lowtax's salary (he's got two kids) and the stipends I assume they give to front page writers.

At the least, I find it hard to believe SA is doing anything more than breaking even.

No wonder they charge so much for privileges like seeing posts from a few years ago.

Christ.

 

[wagglyplacebo]

I don't know SA's finances, but I've recently thought that the revenue it brings in would just cover hosting (which I think is what, $15,000 annually?), Lowtax's salary (he's got two kids) and the stipends I assume they give to front page writers.

At the least, I find it hard to believe SA is doing anything more than breaking even.

No wonder they charge so much for privileges like seeing posts from a few years ago.

Christ.

He actually has a something awful offices with a sign and everything in the town he lives in. He's doing alright for himself it looks like.

 

[Sczylak Madgar]

He actually has a something awful offices with a sign and everything in the town he lives in. He's doing alright for himself it looks like.

He can afford a months long trip to China. He's hardly broke.

Why did he go to China? So he could fulfill his goal of getting to be on China.

 

[Bungleboy]

He can afford a months long trip to China. He's hardly broke.


Why did he go to China? So he could fulfill his goal of getting to be on China.

So what's the deal with Zack Parsons? Dude can be really funny when he wants to be, he just hasn't been funny for a while.

A long-ass while.

 

[RJ MacReady]

He actually has a something awful offices with a sign and everything in the town he lives in. He's doing alright for himself it looks like.

The SA office closed down last year because it was a major expense and Lowtax didn't think it was necessary any longer. Of course, a bunch of (ex-)goons familiar with the office knew that it was a pointless waste of money to begin with: IIRC Lowtax did nothing with it he couldn't have done from home besides work in person with a few of the paid SA stuff who lived in MO. By the time it had closed, I'm pretty sure only Shmorky was there on occasion.

The closure itself was a funny event. Lowtax put out an open invitation to a closing party on Twitter and SA for any nearby goons to swing by, drink beer and get some free merch. In the end, only one goon showed up that evening and found Lowtax passed out on the couch surrounded by empty beer cans. There is a photo of this.

Why did he go to China?

I swear I knew why (actually, I think it's a bit of a mystery) but I think it was something to do with his ex-wife.

So what's the deal with Zack Parsons? Dude can be really funny when he wants to be, he just hasn't been funny for a while.

A long-ass while.

The WTF D&D stuff Zack did with Malak were my favourite front page content back when. I really wish it was still a thing.

 

[Jaimas]

It's no secret that Something Awful's been going downhill for years, metastasizing into the enemy of everything it used to be. The site's now a haven for butthurt, SJWs, moral relativism, twattery, and the worst elements of the Internet left. It just doesn't get the same attention as other places because you have to pay to post on the forum.

This has led to much discontent among those who used to frequent the forum, the most notorious of which was the Something Awful Sycophant Squad. Long since defunct, SASS was notorious in its own right for containing many of the same problems that plagued SA, only from the right wing instead of the left.

However, what that story doesn't tell you is that SASS lives. Much in the same way as PUAhate metastasized into Sluthate, SASS has bloomed like the corpse flower into Something Sensitive.

Non-ironic anti-Semitism, non-ironic racism, the edgiest edgelords; SS has everything you could want, as long as your goal is making a thread for this forum.

I gotta give some insight here, from the few Goon contacts I have, most of which have been giving me info during the Nyberg incident, but to hear them tell it, there's an ongoing, vicious war between subsets of Something Awful. This comes from some Goons themselves, so, as ever, take this report with that in mind.

The old guard, including Lowtax and most of the not-shit mods, want to be rid of the pedophilia-supporting, identity politics-pushing bullshit we all know and loathe. They want to get back to the way SA once was, where it was just making fun of the internet for being the internet. To hear my Goonfriends tell it, the SocJus shit got its foot in the door the same way it got into almost every other community that remotely leans left: by exploiting their tolerance of other views. The SocJus fags were able to slip under the radar, and suddenly, you have a full-blown occupation on your hands. At first, nobody really minded; most of them paid their cash and most weren't too bad yet.

Operative word being yet. Over time they rapidly showed their true colors. Things got harder and harder to ignore...

...And then the Pedophilia began.

The thing is, by this point, SA is so thoroughly infested that even with multiple near-complete mod-purges and countless banhammer swings, the problem just isn't going away, having become a canker at the heart of Something Awful and one that's survived countless attempts to burn it the fuck out. SA's die-hards are devoted as shit, but they're in a catch-22 because they can't just burn the site down to start over. If they do, they risk losing everything to the same idiots that are, in their eyes, trying to occupy and ruin shit. More than that, they're economically vested in it due to the cost of membership, which means most of them are locked down in this nonsense.

Which brings us back to Something Sensitive. It originally began as a sort of containment zone for the people who got banned (usually for being shits), but it increasingly wound up catching traffic-flow from SA amongst the worst of the people SA wanted to be rid of (again, the Goons assure me, Pedophiles; all evidence supports this given what we currently know).

Indeed, almost every member of the Pedophile Defense Force is a former member of SA and the overpowering majority (Kirtaner, for example) got their asses banned from Something Sensitive as well, which lends credence to this theory. The Goons believe otherwise, but I worry that SA might be too infected to save without burning everything to fucking ashes and starting anew with new leadership. Here's hoping they're right. As much as I personally dislike SA, I prefer to remember the good times, and we can hope that now, as SocJus is losing pretty much everywhere, the ripples will be felt in Something Awful, but considering the insular nature of the site, and how that openly appeals to the people in question.... Well, they have their work cut out for them, to say the least.

Also SASS was run by Weev of GNAA fame, IIRC.

 

[RJ MacReady]

I think it's worth keeping in mind that regardless of what shitty politics dominate SA, the matter of the site's continued existence is purely economic.

If the revenue stops flowing, it doesn't matter if it's the old guard or the SJWs (or what-have-you) that rule the place: financial weakness will create vulnerabilities that will erode SA on a more fundamental level.

In other words, it could be argued the users that matter the most are the newly registered, those who buy forum upgrades and those who don't use Adblock.

Of course, what attitudes prevail still matter insofar as they're gonna shape who registers. If SJW blocs aren't contributing enough financially, then yes, they could kill SA for good, but so could any other camp.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

I think it's worth keeping in mind that regardless of what shitty politics dominate SA, the matter of the site's continued existence is purely economic.

If the revenue stops flowing, it doesn't matter if it's the old guard or the SJWs (or what-have-you) that rule the place: financial weakness will create vulnerabilities that will erode SA on a more fundamental level.

In other words, it could be argued the users that matter the most are the newly registered, those who buy forum upgrades and those who don't use Adblock.

Of course, what attitudes prevail still matter insofar as they're gonna shape who registers. If SJW blocs aren't contributing enough financially, then yes, they could kill SA for good, but so could any other camp.

Where would this Social Justice herd stampede to next after obliterating Something Awful, I wonder.

 

[waffle]

SA hasn't been good since like 2008 or some shit like that. It's just a shit circlejerk about how uncool the rest of the internet is now a days.

Lowtax lives a town over from me and is supposed to be just awful to be around IRL. He drives some obnoxious car covered in SA decals, I've seen it around town a couple times over the years and I cringe every time I do.

 

[xXRonPaul_42020Xx]

Heh. Registered for Something Sensitive once way back and was immediately banned for not agreeing with them politically.

 

[Jaimas]

I think it's worth keeping in mind that regardless of what shitty politics dominate SA, the matter of the site's continued existence is purely economic.

If the revenue stops flowing, it doesn't matter if it's the old guard or the SJWs (or what-have-you) that rule the place: financial weakness will create vulnerabilities that will erode SA on a more fundamental level.

In other words, it could be argued the users that matter the most are the newly registered, those who buy forum upgrades and those who don't use Adblock.

Of course, what attitudes prevail still matter insofar as they're gonna shape who registers. If SJW blocs aren't contributing enough financially, then yes, they could kill SA for good, but so could any other camp.

That follows, though in this case, we've already seen SocJus bleed money from just about every site they occupy. Twitter was the most recent.

 

[NumberingYourState]

Did Something Sensitive chime in on the Doobies Dogs scandal (incompetent business kickstarter)? I know it isn't as much of a huge deal Goons always make it out to be from the beginning,