Inactive Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka - Deadbeat (emphasis on "Dead") founder of Something Awful, forced out of his own community, on his second divorce, stuck his dick in crazy, "Birth Giver"

[Commander X]

 

[Mullti Port RDRAM]

View attachment 2713716

didn't happen

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

didn't happen

You think people would do that? Just go on the internet and lie?

 

[Lurk McDurk]

20 years later the same Tumblr teenagers who made those posts are the moderation team at SA, and they haven't moved on one bit. Maybe a microcosm of the West in general - the dumb "there are a million genders and I am all of them" Tumblr teens who you would make fun of in the early 2000s are now journalists, politicians, heads of HR and other influential societal positions, and we didn't do anything to stop that because we all assumed they'd grow out of it but they didn't, and now they're in charge.

~60% of private school admissions are legacies. The other 40% are Chinese / Korean / Indian try-hards whose parents have been caning them if they didn't get a 95% on a math quiz since they were 4 years old. You think either of those groups have time for Tumblrinas?

The only reason to contrive an act that does mimic Tumblrinas is to build online clout in some way to sell something. Whether selling New Yorker article clicks or some fundraiser for an NGO that's a money laundering op for the DNC doesn't matter, the key point isn't what's being sold, it's the fruits of the selling.

 

[Battlecruiser3000ad]

Time to grab a Doobie dog and a ice cold Coke. There's Doobie victory on the airwaves.

 

[oldwhisky69]

I just have some questions, just wondering. I'm kind of shocked he actually shot himself. Has shmorky made any comments about his death yet? & I wonder who found him

 

[AmpleApricots]

That stream's got a weird dark vibe to it, not his usual funnyman bullshit. I didn't bother to watch it before but he's completely blasted. Swaying side to side, drinking rockstar and downing handfuls of pills.

He probably shot himself right after.

Looks like it at first view, but the vibe it has is actually from the odd background music that is edited into it. The stuff that's edited in is also matched up to what he does, at one point he repeats himself until the picture "finally" shows up. (hilarious, of course) This video was planned to be as weird as it is. Appearing like a strung out weirdo was often his shtick lately but far to cleanly pulled off (like here) to be truly unintentional. (doesn't mean he wasn't drunk or under the influence of anything else, but long-term abusers like him usually just appear "normal" with the copious amounts of alcohol in their system, not like caricatures of drunks in movies) What he didn't realize is that it doesn't really come across as funny, just oddly uncomfortable. He could not quite pull off what he tried to pull off.

Suicide in many cases is actually a spur of the moment thing. A day before he blew his brains out he might've not actually be aware that it'll be his last. He would've had suicidal thoughts but they were probably just there, without a specific plan. Maybe he felt just really hung over that morning, heard about what's going to happen financially from his lawyer and decided "fuck it", without much planning. I mean the gun was there, such a thing only takes moments, there's nothing to prepare or figure out. Knowing Lowtax, that actually seems the likeliest instead of meticulous planning with foreshadowing videos. I don't believe he squandered the money with the plan to blow his brains out at the end in some giant fuck you gesture, that again would require more long term planning capabilities than Lowtax ever displayed, I think he simply did it out of his feeling of spitefulness in the moment, his inability to handle money (all the money he earned with SA all the years before has evaporated too) and the thought that it is *his* money and that *bitch* won't ever touch it anyways, no matter what some "shitty" court says. People are giving Lowtax way too much credit.

 

[Happy Fish]

You think people would do that? Just go on the internet and lie?

They left out the part where everyone clapped so it can't be real

 

[Cedric_Eff]

I just have some questions, just wondering. I'm kind of shocked he actually shot himself. Has shmorky made any comments about his death yet? & I wonder who found him

He’s gone bro

 

[Shield Breaker]

Found in the comments, apparently his oldest daughter Lauren:

View attachment 2713648

Fuck this asshole for doing this to his kids.

 

[Pissmaster]

That last post made me think some things.

Mainly, a lot of you retards in this thread repeatedly paid ten bucks to this loser who blew his brains out.

LMAO. You are such pathetic faggots. Did you give ten bucks, were you ten bucks cucks? LMAO. You should kill yourselves too!

Hey, we all did dumb shit as a teenager

If ever you get access to a time machine, I'll dox myself to you in PMs so you can get in your time machine, go back to the day before I registered, come up to me at my shitty teenage job at the shitty international chain in which I worked, so you can openly laugh at me for an hour and a half, as that's how long it would have taken me to make the :10bux: to buy my account.

 

[karadion]

Me when I broke the news to my buddy about his death.

 

[AnOminous]

Lmao what do Low-T and Michelangelo have in common?

They both spent their lives painting a ceiling.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

Looks like it at first view, but the vibe it has is actually from the odd background music that is edited into it. The stuff that's edited in is also matched up to what he does, at one point he repeats himself until the picture "finally" shows up. (hilarious, of course) This video was planned to be as weird as it is. Appearing like a strung out weirdo was often his shtick lately but far to cleanly pulled off (like here) to be truly unintentional. (doesn't mean he wasn't drunk or under the influence of anything else, but long-term abusers like him usually just appear "normal" with the copious amounts of alcohol in their system, not like caricatures of drunks in movies) What he didn't realize is that it doesn't really come across as funny, just oddly uncomfortable. He could not quite pull off what he tried to pull off.

Suicide in many cases is actually a spur of the moment thing. A day before he blew his brains out he might've not actually be aware that it'll be his last. He would've had suicidal thoughts but they were probably just there, without a specific plan. Maybe he felt just really hung over that morning, heard about what's going to happen financially from his lawyer and decided "fuck it", without much planning. I mean the gun was there, such a thing only takes moments, there's nothing to prepare or figure out. Knowing Lowtax, that actually seems the likeliest instead of meticulous planning with foreshadowing videos. I don't believe he squandered the money with the plan to blow his brains out at the end in some giant fuck you gesture, that again would require more long term planning capabilities than Lowtax ever displayed, I think he simply did it out of his feeling of spitefulness in the moment, his inability to handle money (all the money he earned with SA all the years before has evaporated too) and the thought that it is *his* money and that *bitch* won't ever touch it anyways, no matter what some "shitty" court says. People are giving Lowtax way too much credit.

I think quite a few ppl, myself included, have said it was likely a spur of the moment decision given it was in the wake of bad news. He’s been depressed for months, had thoughts about suicide, feels like shit, and then he gets smacked upside the head with a huge defeat in court, what he considers dire financial consequences and the gun is right there. It was an act probably done on a split decision out of spite, anger and depression.

Most people that plan their suicide are quite upbeat and seem “good” in the week or two before they do it because making the decision and planning it gives them a feeling of peace. I’d expect a planned suicide would have meant streams where Lowtax seemed upbeat and in better spirits.

 

[AnOminous]

I’d expect a planned suicide would have meant streams where Lowtax seemed upbeat and in better spirits.

But instead this was his last public moment.

What a pathetic loser.

 

[Pissmaster]

But instead this was his last public moment.
View attachment 2713920
What a pathetic loser.

I know 70 year olds that look younger than he does there

 

[sethking]

It's not a weird mental illness. It's just the internet poster version of bottling up your emotions and pretending you're happy with life until the weight of it starts to break you and you can't help but let red flags slip out, just a little one at first but then more and more as your composure crumbles and your control slips and hurtles you terrifyingly and unstoppably towards the inevitable day you finally can't take it any more and blow your own brains out and everybody acts kind of surprised but with a side of "... but now that I think about it."

In real life you have jobs and relationships and material possessions and kids and other personal accomplishments you can use to hide your crippling, all-consuming thanatos. On internet 1.0, before social media, when we were all very cautious to hide our real lives, there's nothing but affected ironic shitposting to try and desperately convince people you're fine.

There's definitely a grain of truth to this. Still, I just find it so striking how people stuck in he old SA days keep doing the same 2000s ironyposting, usually in tightly knit echochambers of other ex-SA posters (where they all retweet each other). It seems to involve pathological compulsion - an irresistible urge to perform a useless action to relieve anxiety. I think the "cope" theory builds into this - a lot of these people lead barren lives, so the thought of abandoning their ironyposter social clique that provides them their only daily dose of attention likely summons up some uncomfortable feelings.

I mean I guess it isn't too surprising though - it's like the 70 year old hippies doing their LSD and going to festivals to relive the Woodstock days.

 

[Velanna]

If it’s already been discussed, can someone link me to the post on who found his body? I’m wondering if it was mommy dearest

 

[Autistic Joe]

Some time in the last ten years or so, though, the meaning of "meme" among Internet plebs came to mean that which we previously described as an "image macro," and there's no chance of going back from that at this point.

Stay Dank, My Friends.

 

[sethking]

Comedy has to have an element of truth to it. Ironic humor is a way to get the truth through some of the barriers that people put up to hearing the truth. Something Awful existed in the era I like to call the "boomer doldrums" because in the early 2000s you were basically incapable of holding any type of vaguely differential opinion from whatever corporate, religious, and political narrative that was being pushed in the mainstream. It's not much different from what it is now but back then the internet was completely a separate entity and you could say "JET FUEL CANT MELT STEEL BEAMS" with as much irony or sincerity as you wanted. Something Awful clearly leaned towards the irony.


But the tone of the internet changed a long time ago and the irony no longer served a purpose to undercut mainstream or widely held narratives. The unthinkable happened, the mainstream narrative BECAME irony. So these people ramped up the irony because it was now cool to be ironic, but at no point ever considered WHY they were being ironic. It turned into meta-irony. Once those people started taking offense that you weren't being as ironic as you should be then it was game over, the concept of sincere communication was no longer the core of the forums posting experience and it was about >implications and >implying implications that I implied implicitly tier shitposting but to get people banned for being ironically ironically racist or whatever the fuck

Something Awful didn't grow up past 2012 and it shows

Yep I think you're right about the original purpose of the irony being lost and forgotten. I think though that the overblown irony assumed a new purpose - as a supreme mental coping tool (some previous posters also pointed this out).

I think it makes sense that various sadsacks, has-beens and troons would have sarcasm as a core part of their character, because it allows them to distance themselves from a reality - nothing can be taken as-is, it all has to be turned into a joke. It's thus no wonder that that would appeal to people trying to distance themselves from hard facts in their own lives.

I mean imagine if a troon was the opposite of sarcastic - a humorless straightforward thinker who sees life and its problems always exactly as they are. If that's how he thought, what would his thoughts about himself immediately be? Well he'd be hard-pressed to escape the conclusion that he is a maligned abomination that is part of something that looks an awful lot like a grooming cult and the only thing he can do is either turn back and be left with his embarrassing personal history and mutilated body, or keep pushing forward and spread the corruption that ruined himself to others.

Imagine if the troon had that realization formed in his mind - he'd join the 41% in a week. No wonder people like that are invested in distancing themselves from reality, either by compulsive irony or by fanatical SJW ideology.