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"

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

Like Lowtax, that doesn't mean you can't like Kurt's art, nor does it mean that his art wasn't important or influential, even if, on reflection, the men who created it had actually quite limited talent. They just made art that caught the moment, that expressed what many people their age were thinking and feeling, and founded what became whole empires of ideas that remain to this day. But, like Lowtax, to regard Kurt Cobain the man in any kind of a positive light is somewhere between naive and wilfully ignorant.

This is a great way to put it and my view as well. Kiwi Farms wouldn't exist if it weren't for SA and its offshoots. I'm pretty sure I first discovered Sonichu on either SA or SMYD back in 2008.

Honestly, I miss that spirit and humor of the late 90's and early 00's SA and the Internet as whole. Everything today is so much darker, hateful and nastier than it was back then, myself included. Maybe it's just being impotent to do anything or achieve justice for so many evil things that have happened in the decades following the turn of the millennium but there was an innocence there that's just now totally lost.

 

[Null]

Everything today is so much darker, hateful and nastier than it was back then, myself included.

It's just unavoidable. SA was the product of a golden era in the US where the Federal Government was wrestling with newfound consumer technology that completely changed the world. Internetbuxx were flooding in to the country, everyone was doing better and living a higher quality of life, and old government fucks couldn't figure out how to meddle in it.

Now we're top-down controlled in a miserable economic stagnation. Nobody is happy right now.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Stop calling that manchild the 'Kurt Cobain of the Internet'.

Cobain took his meager talent to new heights. Lowtax was elevated by others only to fall from grace.
Cobain was disowned by his family. Lowtax was coddled and supported by his, until his mother's death.
Cobain was sickened and haunted by his addictions and relationships. Lowtax celebrated, no, REVELED in them.
... can continue ad naseum...

Lowtax was a selfish turd, in the right place at the right time. Nothing more.
An unskilled, maniacal narcissist. The worst of 'comedians'.
Unable to cash in each and every Golden Ticket handed to him.
Because he expected others to do it for him.

The only thing extraordinary about Lowtax and SA was the technology and Age in which he lived.

Rest in Shit.

 

[The Grognard]

Stop calling that manchild the 'Kurt Cobain of the Internet'.

Cobain took his meager talent to new heights. Lowtax was elevated by others only to fall from grace.
Cobain was disowned by his family. Lowtax was coddled and supported by his, until his mother's death.
Cobain was sickened and haunted by his addictions and relationships. Lowtax celebrated, no, REVELED in them.
... can continue ad naseum...

Lowtax was a selfish turd, in the right place at the right time. Nothing more.
An unskilled, maniacal narcissist. The worst of 'comedians'.
Unable to cash in each and every Golden Ticket handed to him.
Because he expected others to do it for him.

The only thing extraordinary about Lowtax and SA was the technology and Age in which he lived.

Rest in Shit.

Like it or not, he's one of the giants who's shoulders this site sits on. His faults were just as much of a benefit as a detriment for something awful.

 

[SenorCurditos]

Currently watching the MATI Lowtax upload and I've never seen a picture of him in his early years. The man looks like a relative of Chaggot.

 

[Sniperwoof]

Imagine being dead and gay in le current year, what a goof troop.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Like it or not, he's one of the giants who's shoulders this site sits on. His faults were just as much of a benefit as a detriment for something awful.

He really isn't.

He started a website, monetized it, and then became a complete drooling retard. Most of what SA is "known" for is a direct result of other people - Lowtax was just the guy getting the checks. It would have done just as well (and most likely way better) if SA was started by literally anyone else. Imagine what someone actually determined and not retarded could have done with SA's huge pile of resources.

Lowtax never knew when to stand aside - he didn't want to run SA, but didn't want to have someone else run it. He wanted it to make money and never wanted to invest in it. He wanted SA to branch out but never wanted to drive any innovation (the SA store, SA hosting, Yahtzee, LPs, etc).

Kiwifarms doesn't "carry on" the SA spirit - Kiwifarms is the spirit that Lowtax wanted SA to have but could never make it happen.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

Cobain took his meager talent to new heights.

Cobain was a drug addicted faggot who couldn't cope and was murdered by his crazy wife took the coward's way out when he had a daughter, he's an utter piece of shit and all he did musically was poorly ripping off much better bands and the real actual talent in nirvana was dave grohl all along.

 

[Ghostse]

Again, Lowtax only provided an environment. If Lowtax had done the right thing and murdered himself with the umbilical cord in the womb, something like SA would have emerged. He didn't actually do anything to spur the revolution and in fact held it back a lot. If you'd had a less-lazy faggot running the show, SA might have had an even bigger impact by (as an example) having started Youtube before Youtube existed.

This Lowtax ballwashing is embarrassing.
Its like sobbing at the grave of the proprietor of the local arcade
"OK, sure he was a drug addict, and sure he isolated and berrated his foreign wife daily and held her passport in his safe, and yes he punched the girl he cheated on her with, and yes he was a deeply unpleasant individual, and yes he held numerous fund raisers that he just pocketed the proceeds, and yes he killed himself abandoning his three young daughters, and yes the people he tapped to manage the arcade were power-tripping assholes who banned people for no reason....

But I really, really had a lot of fun hanging out at the arcade after school & on the weekends. And I wouldn't have had that without him.

I mean, ok sure he didn't actually make any of the videogames at the arcade. And yes I didn't ACTUALLY interact with him other than to listen to him scream at someone who had pissed him off. And ok yes, after the first year or two it was other patrons who organized the tournaments and events and hs his main interaction with the community was just emptying the quarters out of the machine. And yes he let the managers yank popular cabinents for being "problematic". And yes the building was falling down. But he's just such an important guy and completely irreplaceable to the Arcade's existence despite having done nothing but spend the profits on drugs and $50 mail-order pies."

Cobain was a drug addicted faggot who couldn't cope and was murdered by his crazy wife took the coward's way out when he had a daughter, he's an utter piece of shit and all he did musically was poorly ripping off much better bands and the real actual talent in nirvana was dave grohl all along.

Kurt was an ungrateful, self-absorbed, emo drug addict incel and one step from being the bottom in a jailhouse gay relationship. While he ripped off better bands - Insert Reading 1992 "smells like teen spirit" turns into "more than a feeling".mp4 / Killing Joke & Come as you are .mp3 - he did have enough actual talent to combine the shit. Added to that, Nirvana's discography is basically the condensed feeling of being a bored and disillusioned teen so I give Cobain some slack for that.

So while he's lionized far beyond his talent, Dave Grohl was the better musical talent in every way, and if Courtney hadn't kill him he'd not be as fondly remembered (and probably have trooned/fagged out by now), unlike Lowtax he did have some skill & talent.

 

[polonium]

Dave Grohl was the better musical talent in every way

Even Grohl showed himself to be a massive faggot latterly, refusing to play venues that didn't enforce the coof mandate on their audience.

 

[AnOminous]

They just don't age well, and Lowtax lacked the ability to keep innovating.

Most of it was the content (like Awful Page of the Day) was actually funny itself. It was sort of a Farms of the day that pointed you to absolutely ridiculous shit people were doing on the Internet.

But, like Lowtax, to regard Kurt Cobain the man in any kind of a positive light is somewhere between naive and wilfully ignorant.

I honestly would not compare Dickard to Kurt Cobain. Cobain actually helped other people and indie artists. I felt sad when he died.

When Blowtax died I laughed. And so did everyone else. Not a single person had a good thing to say about that fucker.

 

[Ghostse]

Even Grohl showed himself to be a massive faggot latterly, refusing to play venues that didn't enforce the coof mandate on their audience.

Until the Foo Fighters come out with "Fuck Trump and Mask Up: A Song Of Restiance" or "Hold your head up high and cut your cock off" I'll separate Art and Artist.

 

[PaladinBoo]

Most of it was the content (like Awful Page of the Day) was actually funny itself. It was sort of a Farms of the day that pointed you to absolutely ridiculous shit people were doing on the Internet.

I honestly would not compare Dickard to Kurt Cobain. Cobain actually helped other people and indie artists. I felt sad when he died.

When Blowtax died I laughed. And so did everyone else. Not a single person had a good thing to say about that fucker.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Cobain did do a lot to help indie artist in the Grunge and Punk scene and also contributed to the culture and music here in the Pacific Northwest. He also wrote Rape Me which, every time I hear that song, I laugh my ass off because I think about Shmorky and Mandy and the "What do you want from me?" tape. So Cobain at least gave people joy and laugher in that regard.
Lowtax on the other hand brought misery and grief to all those around him. He was an irresponsible manchild that thought he could joke his way out of a bad situation. He beat his wives, verbally abused and abandoned his children, allowed troons to run his site into the ground, fucked over his children by spending what was left of his meager fortune on wine and Gold Belly pies, allowed a pee pee poo poo diaper fetish pedo near his kids, made his mommy clean up his fuck ups and the worst he blew his brains out as a final "Fuck you" to his ex wives and kids when the courts forced him to take reasonability.
With Cobain I can understand, that despite his many faults, that people would grieve for him. With Lowtax nobody grieved for him nor should they. Lowtax maybe the most unsympathetic person I think I have ever come across on the internet. There is nothing redeeming or sympathetic about Lowtax and he made it that way.

 

[S.C.U.D.]

I still think the funniest thing he ever did was when he put all SA furries in their own special board, the Furry Concentration Camp, then after a while, renamed it the Furry Gas Chamber and banned them all.

 

[0 0]

I still think the funniest thing he ever did was when he put all SA furries in their own special board, the Furry Concentration Camp, then after a while, renamed it the Furry Gas Chamber and banned them all.

We'll have to take notes on that idea.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

Those are really excellent OPs by @Spunt.

When you see the timeline like that, the way his fall exponentially got worse and inevitable over a fairly short period is fascinating.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

I finished the Friday stream and it's honestly a really comprehensive great look at internet history. I feel terrible knowing that I wasn't there for it and despite being a naive stupid kid who got unrestricted access to the internet ecosystem at 19, it took a really long time to get acclimated to the culture missing all of the significant shit in the process. I'm surprised at how many 90s born kids got unrestricted internet access at 12-15 though from Null to Bombergay to everybody else. But despite living in the corporate globohomo hellscape of the current internet, I thank Null for his efforts in creating this place and keeping it up. I know I'm a bit of a stupid faggot but I am learning about forum culture and I'm happy that I got to experience a slice of it in my lifetime. Came for the tranny laughs and youtubercows, stayed for the sneeding and everything else. Keep Sneeding frens and thank you Null.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

He let himself get into that position of kowtowing to the mentally ill politics. He set himself up to leech off the success of the forum, but did not want to make executive decisions because they got in the way of his benzos and box wine.

If you compare and contrast the forum politics between Null and Lowtax, you see two very different approaches, and the main difference is Null actually puts his foot down.

Technically, Lowtax was a vague libertarianish guy that didn't really know much or care about politics and he was up-front about that. However, he was big friends (at least at the time? I doubt they were at the end) with EPG and FistGrrl, both of whom were proto-redditors. They influenced a lot of the decisions on the forums, especially since Lowtax (again, like Trump) endlessly sought approval and if it made his friends happy, Lowtax would let them do it. For being a "successful internet businessman" asian wife mistakeningly thought he was, he really let his friends run things like a frat house and popularity contest. From these two fools we got people like Ozma, IceQueen, McCaine, and other very far left socialist types. I don't think it's that far of a stretch to say that SA even influenced early internet social justice. It was rumored on reddit that /r/ShitRedditSays was started by goons to be anti-reddit, and I believe it, because SRS back then also used the characteristic baby-talk bullshit that goons and FYADers did.

Also, FYAD was always absolutly fucking stupid and worthless and a really bad meme of lower-case talking. God, looking back that shit was so cringey. FYAD's "humor" aged worse than the front page.

Oh yeah! Lowtax also got to see goons from his forums go on to be way more successful than him. Notch of Minecraft fame really got under Lowtax's skin because Lowtax someone felt like Notch owed him something for him having been a forum goon. Nobody talks about moot anymore (how DOES the creator of 4chan manage to stay so invisible these days?) but Lowtax also couldn't stand fucking anime shit eclipsing his forums.

 

[Tanner Glass]

I do recall him making some executive decisions but his real issue was that he was unwilling to get rid of admins like Ozma and EPG who were the main drivers of the site becoming the overtly sensitive "troll-free" site it's today. So whatever yearly attempts he did to change the site would inevitably be reverted behind his back. Combine this with Helldump and LF going out of their way to drive anyone who wasn't part of the program off the forum with prototypical cancel culture tactics and being the birthplace of the term Doxxing, you likely can tell how effective they were in driving out anyone who didn't embrace the maoist-third-worldist ideology of fuckyoudadism.

His actual real issue is that he was simultaneously lazy and greedy - a deadly combination.

He wanted to just be "funny writer" Lowtax and not "running a business" Lowtax - which is inherently fine. Some people don't like running a business, even if they started one or fell into one. However, SA was making gigantic piles of money (I forget the breakdown, but at least a few million a year) so it would have been the sane and rational move to hire an actual CEO with a real background in advertising, content creation, contracting, etc but that would cost real money. Not like real enough to harm his bottom line (it would probably grow his bottom line, but, too late he's dead).

He didn't ever have anyone in charge of IT - he just direct hired "Sys Admins" for free/almost no money and got shitty results. Admins and Moderators were all free as well, and shockingly they never did a good job. Even though "jannies do it for free" is a meme - most other websites had at least some chance of going from "unpaid moderator" to "paid staff member" - most famously RIOT and Paradox do this. SA had no such progression as it was known that the only person who was going to make money was Lowtax so SA's jannies were the absolute worst of the worst.

He never wanted to pay money to people providing him content (which was generating him money) but was somehow shocked and appalled when those people left for greener pastures, as if signing up for an internet forum was tantamount to signing a blood oath.

Oh yeah! Lowtax also got to see goons from his forums go on to be way more successful than him. Notch of Minecraft fame really got under Lowtax's skin because Lowtax someone felt like Notch owed him something for him having been a forum goon. Nobody talks about moot anymore (how DOES the creator of 4chan manage to stay so invisible these days?) but Lowtax also couldn't stand fucking anime shit eclipsing his forums.

Moot was also a goon and 4chan was an offshoot of SA's anime forum. Moot is invisible because he's not a complete retard - he sold his site for several million dollars, got a tech job at a high profile company and is now just quietly living the life he wants to.

Mega64, Zero Punctuation, most Let's Plays, etc are all products he didn't invest in and then was mad at them for not wanting to work for free for him (even though he was already a multi millionaire). His greed cost him everything in the end and he was a complete retard the whole way.

 

[Jarry Seinfelt]

It was rumored on reddit that /r/ShitRedditSays was started by goons to be anti-reddit, and I believe it, because SRS back then also used the characteristic baby-talk bullshit that goons and FYADers did.

They did.

Goons hate everything that they perceive as competition to SA, so they hated Reddit from the start. Around 2011-2012, someone on SA started a megathread documenting all the pedo and porn subreddits like r/jailbait, and they eventually doxed violentacrez/Michael Brutsch, a poweruser who was a mod or founder on a bunch of those subs. Gawker (rest in piss)'s Adrian Chen picked it up, I forget how but I think he was in contact with the goons from the anti-Reddit thread, and ran an article on it (link) (ghostarchive). I think back then goons called this incident Pedocaust, because you were allowed to make edgy jokes back then on SA, if they were against appropriate targets. The thread itself, I think, was called "to catch a predditor" if someone wants to search SA for that. Basic Google search gives me jack shit, unfortunately.

Calling this out and getting the Reddit staff to purge that stuff was no shit a good thing, but of course goons used it to fuel their narcissism about their own moral superiority. That section of the SA userbase overlapped with Tumblr a great deal, because lots of LPers were on tumblr to promote their work, and also because tumblr was way more porn friendly than SA. So that cesspool of an internet melting pot was a huge engine for modern day woke shit. There was a big overlap between SJW Reddit, tumblr, and the LF/hypersensitive/tranny Maoist goons.

I don't think Nool mentioned that on the stream but it's way more related to SA and Reddit culture than Lowtax himself.