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

[Chaos Theorist]

I despair at SomethingAwful and its regressive anti-free speech positions when the actual non-political stuff is worth your time to read through. The whole regressive walking on eggshells attitude on SA is really stifling especially when the autism shines on through when people cant take a joke and start screaming for people to be banned. SomethingAwful used to be able to influence the internet on the same level as 4chan and Reddit (for better or worse) but now is a sad shell that people only know for being the place 4chan comes from, the absolute madman Shmorky and the Lets Play forum. I can't wait for the eventual Patreon Lowtax will set up for SA to suck up shekels from his users in a desperate attempt to keep the party going for a couple more years (he has one now for his Youtube channel which is okay for background noise https://www.patreon.com/GamingGarbage )

I have to laugh when the Goons say 4chan and 8chan will go under before SA when its clear Lowtax has now real problems making money from his dead gay forums. Maybe he should roll out the ability to have people pay for six hour probations or for threads to be locked so his users can assert their right to censor people who commit crimes of wrong think.

 

[Doozerfleet]

Really, all that's missing is FAU informing everyone how the golden days of Ozma (fat) were far more robust trafficwise and membershipwise compared to the present day.

I swear at this point I wouldn't even be shocked if the current admin staff was part of some long-con performance art to make catlady SA look sane and reasonable in comparison.

 

[northstar747]

The skullmond site sells T shirts. Why cant SA sell T shirts?

 

[boner_saint]

hey not everyone has what it takes to steal a design that one of their posters made for free and spend three minutes uploading it to teespring

 

[TiggerNits]

hey not everyone has what it takes to steal a design that one of their posters made for free and spend three minutes uploading it to teespring

My little brother posts on Skullmund and the threads he's shown me are funny. You have a forum better than its dead gay dad

 

[boner_saint]

My little brother posts on Skullmund and the threads he's shown me are funny. You have a forum better than its dead gay dad

thanks. there aren't many of us but we like what we do (posting a huge amount and not getting banned)

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Maybe he should roll out the ability to have people pay for six hour probations or for threads to be locked so his users can assert their right to censor people who commit crimes of wrong think.

I was going to guess that he'd offer the option for banned/probated people to buy out the remainder of their punishment time, but honestly I think you're right and it's more likely that people will be able to buy the right to abuse mod powers at whim.

Of course, if you buy the right to ban someone you don't like and a mod doesn't approve, they'll just undo your decision and ban you and you'll still be out the money.

 

[Fagnacious D]

I can remember back when they had GOOD content on the front page. These days it's all pretty bland and like everyone else has said, they've effectively become the thing they made fun of.

http://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/sa-forum-goons/1/

Spoiler: Dating Game Highlights NWS

Spoiler: Zack Parson's NWS work - Links

"Big Games Rookie" Featuring a bat called "Nigger-lover"
http://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/big-game-rookie/1/

"Super Happy Explosion Demon of Omi" a parody of every late 80s early 90s anime.
http://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/super-happy-explosion/1/

Or the Ace W. High series which is pure gold
http://www.somethingawful.com/news/ace-highs-new/
http://www.somethingawful.com/news/defeat-boredom-ace/
http://www.somethingawful.com/news/new-ways-get/

The 4-1-1: Ace W. High may be cautious, but he's no zealot. He understands some drugs can help people, and that's why the government makes them legal. In Medicine Cabinet Raiderz you and your friends have one goal: To get as healthy as possible by eating anything the FDA says is good for you! Dr. House? More like My House Is A Doctor!

What You'll Need: Fast hands and a strong stomach. Eating all those pills and drinking all those syrups might make you feel like you're eating mud-covered rocks, but in a few minutes you'll feel like Kid Rock! If your parents don't let you listen to him pretend you're Hillary Duff instead.

Diz-rections: The rules are simple: Get some friends, open the medicine cabinet, and have a New Year's feast! If you feel like your friends are going to be chodes and try to cheat by not eating until the end, divvy up the cabinet's contents and give everyone an even pile. When you're all breaking cinderblocks over your heads and running three-minute miles, they'll thank you!

Watch Your Back! If you're afraid of Mom and Pop bursting in and ruining your scene, jam a hairpin in the bathroom lock before you start your medicine cabinet safari. Additionally, if those stupid orange pill bottles won't open, take the sharpest knife you can find and stab the container until the lid pops off. Be sure to steady it with your hand before you start stabbin' though: You wouldn't want to damage the sink counter, because vandalism is never cool.

For Big Kids Only: Much like eating too much candy, sometimes eating all that medicine can make you sick. The difference is candy makes you fat, while medicine makes you healthy! If you ever feel the need to ralph, lay on your back and hold your breath as long as you can. Show your gag reflex who rules the roost around these parts!

I despair at SomethingAwful and its regressive anti-free speech positions when the actual non-political stuff is worth your time to read through. The whole regressive walking on eggshells attitude on SA is really stifling especially when the autism shines on through when people cant take a joke and start screaming for people to be banned. SomethingAwful used to be able to influence the internet on the same level as 4chan and Reddit (for better or worse) but now is a sad shell that people only know for being the place 4chan comes from, the absolute madman Shmorky and the Lets Play forum. I can't wait for the eventual Patreon Lowtax will set up for SA to suck up shekels from his users in a desperate attempt to keep the party going for a couple more years (he has one now for his Youtube channel which is okay for background noise https://www.patreon.com/GamingGarbage )

I have to laugh when the Goons say 4chan and 8chan will go under before SA when its clear Lowtax has now real problems making money from his dead gay forums. Maybe he should roll out the ability to have people pay for six hour probations or for threads to be locked so his users can assert their right to censor people who commit crimes of wrong think.

I wonder how much longer SA will actually last and what will happen to it.
Is it simply going to be "Hey guys forums will be closing permanently on Jan 25th 2020 it's been a wild ride", Will lowtax attempt to sell the site and forums to someone? There just might be somebody who will purchase the brand from him; I mean it's not likely but, possible. it would sell for a paltry sum these days but, I can see it happening. Imagine SA rebranded as "Something Awesome (◡‿◡✿) The web's most diverse forums" to match their SJW crowd.

The skullmond site sells T shirts. Why cant SA sell T shirts?

They did at one point. I have no idea what happened. Did they not sell well or something?

 

[The Great Citracett]

They did at one point. I have no idea what happened. Did they not sell well or something?

I remember those, but the ones I remember looked more like this:

And he had ones with different balls, different colors, all kinds of things.

And that's what I always heard the issue was. He overdid it until it just wasn't funny. I guess he went into a shirt shop one day and saw plain shirts and hats as examples, labeled CITY NAME/SPORTS TEAM and thought it was funny and would sell. It probably would have, but he ran it into the ground with fancy colors/designs/variations, the different sports balls, etc. There were hats, shirts, hoodies, and that blue jersey too.

The idea is funny on it's own. He over complicated it all to hell.

Edit: And holy shit that blue jersey was $55 plus shipping. That might have been part of it too.

Also, there was Moofwear? I remember seeing it mentioned on SA but as I never cared to advertise my gooniness, I never really looked into SA clothes. Lowtax was somehow involved with that though.
http://rubbercat.net/misc/moof/moofwear.html

 

[Maggots on a Train]

From the thread capped earlier:
Here are Lowtax's posts: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3828993&userid=27691

And it's weird to see the constant probating of people for "racism" and "homophobia" when they call each other faggots or whatever complained about for not going far enough in making SA a hugbox.

The user he uses as an example is Secular Humanist(Rap Sheet):

The "misquoting Zuckerberg" one is great, because this is the thread he posted:

""Blacks" is a term that went out of favor when I was a boy. And remember how old I am. You could have said the same thing and not sounded like a racist git. Try harder next time."

The whole "you're not allowed to say blacks" thing seems like it was maybe exported from Negrotown?

Gee, I cannot understand why revenue, and probably traffic, are down 92%.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day there was also shit like mousepads and grenade shaped keychains (tons of which got lost in the mail since Cheaptax sent them out in regular envelopes.) Lowtax stopped selling merch since it was too much work for him to do himself and, for some reason, he never wanted to do a cafepress thing or whatever. I know there was at least one incredibly unprofessional group that wanted to liscense SA designs to sell but rather than do that Lowtax chose to post a thread making fun of how shitty the guy's example merch was. Ever the businessman, that Lowtax.

 

[His Dewliness]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day there was also shit like mousepads and grenade shaped keychains (tons of which got lost in the mail since Cheaptax sent them out in regular envelopes.) Lowtax stopped selling merch since it was too much work for him to do himself and, for some reason, he never wanted to do a cafepress thing or whatever. I know there was at least one incredibly unprofessional group that wanted to liscense SA designs to sell but rather than do that Lowtax chose to post a thread making fun of how shitty the guy's example merch was. Ever the businessman, that Lowtax.

After all this time I'm still genuinely surprised at how crappy Lowtax's business sense is. If people are willing to fucking pay to post in your forums there's a good chance they'd be willing to buy a t-shirt from you. Even DSP still manages to sell merchandise whilst Lowtax sits around being snide and shitting on peoples reasonable suggestions for no reason.

 

[jace821]

I wonder how much longer SA will actually last and what will happen to it.
Is it simply going to be "Hey guys forums will be closing permanently on Jan 25th 2020 it's been a wild ride", Will lowtax attempt to sell the site and forums to someone? There just might be somebody who will purchase the brand from him; I mean it's not likely but, possible. it would sell for a paltry sum these days but, I can see it happening. Imagine SA rebranded as "Something Awesome (◡‿◡✿) The web's most diverse forums" to match their SJW crowd.


They did at one point. I have no idea what happened. Did they not sell well or something?

Lowtax seems like the type to just let the place die. I'd be shocked if he were to hand it off to someone else or if anyone would be willing to take on the financial burden of running it.

Regarding all the SA merch, tons of people weren't getting the stuff they ordered and wouldn't get responses when they emailed lowtax. When they'd bring it up on the forums they'd get a ban.

 

[TiggerNits]

Lowtax seems like the type to just let the place die. I'd be shocked if he were to hand it off to someone else or if anyone would be willing to take on the financial burden of running it.

Regarding all the SA merch, tons of people weren't getting the stuff they ordered and wouldn't get responses when they emailed lowtax. When they'd bring it up on the forums they'd get a ban.

Yeah, in a lot of ways Lowtax and Chris seem to handle money, work and responsibility the same way

 

[northstar747]

Lowtax seems like the type to just let the place die. I'd be shocked if he were to hand it off to someone else or if anyone would be willing to take on the financial burden of running it.

There was a goon who worked lowtax on the ads on the forums. When revenue went down the guys kept working with lowtax for free for a couple of months (this was a few years ago and the dude posted over on SS)

Lowtax rented a fucking office in a strip mall which I guess he used as a club house where he could have the illusion of running a business, but I guess he just jacked off with David kelly.

There was a vice article about Lowtax and a former goon on an offsite wrote a really good thing about his start at planet quake and how he was funny but other people had to fucking beg and drag him to make his own site for his funny writting. The man has always been lazy and I think having so much success so young ruined him. He never had to develop emotional maturity to deal with things. He had a bunch of morons kissing his ass and could ban anyone who said shit he didnt like.

Whats weird is lowtax chasing this shitty "E cleb" career shit.

He could use his wacky zanny and apply it to youtube, But making videos is really time intensive.

He could set up a twitch account and jut stream a few nights a week. Oh no he would have to have a schedual

He could work on his podcast and make it not him rambling on and on for an hour plus.

Go to the people who have used SA to promote stuff and see if they would be kind enough to promote his shit. (lol)

SELL SOME GOD DAMN T SHIRTS

notice I didnt say shit about the mother fucking forums. or admins or mods.

I wonder how long the trump toxx money lasted him.


Edit: Here is his new idea

 

[whatever I feel like]

In all fairness, (and this is probably what Lowtax would say himself-just minus the snarky/wacky and zany bullshit about how you know nothing and he knows everything,) Lowtax does keep a regular schedule with his front page updates and has for almost two decades now. There was a period in the middle where he had stopped writing, I think, but there was also a period early on where he was producing most of the features too- and this was when there'd sometimes be two or three a day.

There was also a lot of speculation that the main point of the office was to get away from his first wife. Now of course having up to eight hours a day out of the house would have been the perfect time to mail out some of those t-shirts he had never gotten around to sending but you know, he could have also used that time to listen to shitty electro-music instead. Go ahead and guess which of those ended up being closer to the truth.

 

[Doozerfleet]

I'm sure this will truly be a say-anything-you-want space just like every other promise of that on SA.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

The skullmond site sells T shirts. Why cant SA sell T shirts?

You took the words right out of my mouth.

My little brother posts on Skullmund and the threads he's shown me are funny. You have a forum better than its dead gay dad

I like the Skullmund guys tbh, I pop by there every so often.

thanks. there aren't many of us but we like what we do (posting a huge amount and not getting banned)

BTW Hi Skullmund guy. Pretty decent website you've got going on there.

 

[boner_saint]

BTW Hi Skullmund guy. Pretty decent website you've got going on there.

hi and thanks. you should get your postcount up, branch out of the kiwi thread.

E: hell I can't talk, I only post in here

 

[Sad Clown Shoe]

I'm sure this will truly be a say-anything-you-want space just like every other promise of that on SA.

If you meant the thread lowtax declared safe, it was locked shortly after he talked about how twitter is easier and said he wanted someone to summarise everything for him.