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"

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

I think the reasons he killed himself were more to do with the following:

> Out of money, no clear path forward to getting more
> Divorce judgment not in his favor = debt he had no method of paying off
> Loss of potential future 'vindication'
> His own kids blocked him
> Publicly known for DV against 3 different women
> Despised by a community that used to adore him because of (substantiated) DV accusations
> Loss of support system (except for his mom)
> SUD/AUD, MDD
> Physical pain (?)

Not that any of these justify killing himself, but those are the reasons I think he did it.

The fact that Lowtax was utterly humiliated at the end was the biggest part of it. He had fully lost control of the narrative. Lowtax refused to use any other part of the internet except SA for a long time because he wanted to manicure his image and could only do so if everything regarding him was only on that one site. As social media blew up that become more untenable. He could have done it much sooner for all of those reasons, but his reputation as famous internet forum admin was the most important thing to him. His friends mostly left long before that and even his daughers spurning him didn't trigger it. And the reason a lot of these other things happened was strictly because Lowtax was so self-centered and it drove people away.

People were predicting that Lowtax would kill himself once he lost SA, and that's pretty much what he did. In this thread. So yes, I disagree with you entirely, because Lowtax really was that simple, and that's the point. Sure, these were all additive factors, but by and large is real baby was SA, not his children. Lowtax didn't care about his kids all that much in comparison to the forums. Hence, "Birth Giver." Lowtax's identity revolved around Something Awful and how it was better than the rest of the internet and how HE created it.

Everyone who had any interaction with Rich at all in any way got always the exact same tone and response. You could flame him, try to joke with him, give him constructive criticism. There was no Richard Kyanka that sounded anything different no matter what you presented him with.

I don't think people who weren't long time SA goons really understand how bad it was; if you ever posted the mildest criticism of SA on there, or even off the site and he saw it, you were out. He banned people for complaining about the archives not working for months after people paid for it. He banned people who offered even light constructive criticism on things. He banned anyone who criticized his friends who used him for clout. He spent more time defending the honor of SA than he did taking his kids out to play.

Just skimmed your 1,000 word reply but what kind of response did you expect to your e-mail exactly? Everyone agrees that Lowtax was a lolcow who didn't accept any criticism, but are you under the delusion that your snarky e-mail should have changed that in some way? Or are you just bragging that you sent him a spergy e-mail and he replied politely? It maybe would have been interesting if he had some crazy meltdown in reply but honestly you're the one who looks mad and autistic in that exchange, probably because you are tbh judging by this response.

Not in the slightest; everyone knew Lowtax was impervious to any change whatsoever. He was stuck in 2006 every year right down to his humor. Again, the point being made here is no matter how you approach the guy, he was a pull-string doll of responses.

Were you there to see how many times Lowtax over the years would say things like, "a forum about a forum?" Lowtax had few preselected responses to anything people said, and all were some variant of "SERIOUS BUSINESS," yet he was the one who would blow up when anyone so much as criticized the forums.

As for my email, it's the only time I ever had anything with him directly, and it was just a random potshot while he was on the way down. The predictability of his response, which any long-time goon would recognize (which clearly you aren't so you are missing it) is the point. He literally never responded any other way to people, ever, and he couldn't never NOT respond because it always irked him. If you're pretending Lowtax doesn't get bothered by that kind of thing you really have no clue. Lowtax's skin was famously thin and he could not handle anything bad written about him whatsoever. It was beyond pathological.

If you can find an instance of Lowtax being able to self-reflect, go ahead, but you're trying to humanize a robot.

 

[Spunt]

Lowtax probably did self-reflect, once, once he sobered up. It was probably such an unpleasant experience that he resolved never to be sober again.

Lowtax was a man who was always running away from anything that made him vaguely uncomfortable, especially when it came to examining himself or his actions. That's why he was allergic to taking anything seriously, because that can lead to self-reflection. He used lolrandom monkeycheese pirate zombie ninja humour to run away, he used videogames and trash media to run away, and most importantly he used getting smashed out of his head to run away.

What was he running away from? We'll never know for sure, because avoiding anything remotely serious or difficult was the only thing he ever put any real effort into. There were clearly demons deep down in his psyche, but all he ever did was run away or avoid them. Despite what we're clearly genuine problems, I don't have a lot of sympathy. He had children, people he chose to bring into the world, who depended on him. That means you have to face those demons. It's not about just you any more. Grow a pair.

But Lowtax, more than anything else, was a coward. He only picked fights with women, after all. He ran away and ran away, and when, despite all his running away, reality caught up with him anyway, he chose a bullet instead of the responsibility he had to his children.

Fuck him.

 

[Barry Williams]

He only picked fights with women

Since when does Uwe Boll have a vagina?

 

[AnOminous]

I think the reasons he killed himself were more to do with the following:

Yeah I'm sure the fact he did it immediately after getting an adverse ruling in his divorce case is completely coincidental.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

Lowtax probably did self-reflect, once, once he sobered up. It was probably such an unpleasant experience that he resolved never to be sober again.

Lowtax was a man who was always running away from anything that made him vaguely uncomfortable, especially when it came to examining himself or his actions. That's why he was allergic to taking anything seriously, because that can lead to self-reflection. He used lolrandom monkeycheese pirate zombie ninja humour to run away, he used videogames and trash media to run away, and most importantly he used getting smashed out of his head to run away.

What was he running away from? We'll never know for sure, because avoiding anything remotely serious or difficult was the only thing he ever put any real effort into. There were clearly demons deep down in his psyche, but all he ever did was run away or avoid them. Despite what we're clearly genuine problems, I don't have a lot of sympathy. He had children, people he chose to bring into the world, who depended on him. That means you have to face those demons. It's not about just you any more. Grow a pair.

But Lowtax, more than anything else, was a coward. He only picked fights with women, after all. He ran away and ran away, and when, despite all his running away, reality caught up with him anyway, he chose a bullet instead of the responsibility he had to his children.

Fuck him.

As far as I know, nobody has ever come out with any information from Lowtax in his school days or what. As far as I know, his past history before SA, other than a scattered internet presence, is one big fat empty void. The fact that he remained in stasis since the founding of SA tells me he's probably always been this way, he was always invisible, completely invisible because there is nothing to him, and he basically got famous by making fun of ugly people when things on the Internet were novel.

Nothing in Lowtax's actions as admin ever showed he ever learned anything, either. Radium's gooftroop-ups and incompetence on the forums happened again and again to the point where people would hoot and jeer whenever SA had issues, because it was so predictable and Lowtax refused to change sysadmins. No, I don't think Lowtax ever reflected on anything. Whatever was wrong with him, it was like a mental block where he couldn't process it. I think Lowtax even tried to keep radium aboard while pretending it was another sysadmin, though that may have been SASS speculation, I can't recall.

Yeah I'm sure the fact he did it immediately after getting an adverse ruling in his divorce case is completely coincidental.

I genuinely think he killed himself because he couldn't live up to the embarrassment, not because he was broken up about the divorce or whatever. He was taking loss after loss and by then the only thing that kept him going, SA, had completely washed its hands of him, and of course he let it all happen still because of his pathological need for approval from whatever perceived friends (who talked him into giving up SA, which didn't help him out one bit) he had and his inability to admit he was ever wrong about anything.

A lot of us really saw this coming because if you watched Rich for years, you knew his ego couldn't take this beating. If Balki Way made him explode into the mangosteen rant because BW was just telling 'tax what he was sounding like, then no way could his fragile psyche handle any of... well, any of what actually happened.

 

[Stan]

Yeah I'm sure the fact he did it immediately after getting an adverse ruling in his divorce case is completely coincidental.

I think I put that down as reason 2 he did this, but it could well be reason 1.

 

[Sabrina]

Bruh we did watch, and if you looked at the screenshots etc we posted he literally said he was going to kill himself over child support. All of the other reasons listed are major contributing factors, but Rich killed himself after blowing all of the money that was supposed to be shared with his ex wife just so she and his kids couldn't have it. Then he went to the final court date (for him anyway) already knowing the judge was going to rule he still had to pay his ex her share plus back child support. He was already paying for his other two kids but the amount of shared money he blew led to massive monthly payments and he could never get a real job even when he did try because his name was tied to his misdeeds.

He could have worked with the court to get smaller payments but the same settlement money, and every other factor was significant, but his final actions show that he planned this. He knew he couldn't just quit working and blow all the money to make his debt go away. In the end a restraining order was placed on the shared bank account so he couldn't touch it anymore, but there was barely anything left in it by that point. All of this behavior tracks for a person planning to commit suicide. He was all but saying it on screen, and in private messages with his "friends" he blatantly spelled out he was going to kill himself after that court date that was just a few says away. No wacky zany. Serious post.

 

[Mola Ram]

He was all but saying it on screen, and in private messages with his "friends" he blatantly spelled out he was going to kill himself after that court date that was just a few says away.

Are these messages memorialized, either in this thread or elsewhere?

 

[Sabrina]

I know I put up at least one picture it was from the tranny that was trying to make Lowtax's suicide about him. I pulled it from a goon/LT simp Discord where they posted it

 

[WENDY DENG 2020]

Lowtax went to one of the elite high schools in the area.

An all boy Jesuit high school.

Most of the dudes that go there are going places academically or sports wise.

Senator Tim Kaine went there.

Lots of $$ people send their sons there.

They are known for being arrogant pricks. Dated one in high school and that was enough.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

Bruh we did watch, and if you looked at the screenshots etc we posted he literally said he was going to kill himself over child support. All of the other reasons listed are major contributing factors, but Rich killed himself after blowing all of the money that was supposed to be shared with his ex wife just so she and his kids couldn't have it. Then he went to the final court date (for him anyway) already knowing the judge was going to rule he still had to pay his ex her share plus back child support. He was already paying for his other two kids but the amount of shared money he blew led to massive monthly payments and he could never get a real job even when he did try because his name was tied to his misdeeds.

He could have worked with the court to get smaller payments but the same settlement money, and every other factor was significant, but his final actions show that he planned this. He knew he couldn't just quit working and blow all the money to make his debt go away. In the end a restraining order was placed on the shared bank account so he couldn't touch it anymore, but there was barely anything left in it by that point. All of this behavior tracks for a person planning to commit suicide. He was all but saying it on screen, and in private messages with his "friends" he blatantly spelled out he was going to kill himself after that court date that was just a few says away. No wacky zany. Serious post.

Because everything Lowtax did, he needed the final say, and he no longer had his reputation as SA forum deity to comfort him at night. Okay, so many it was a bit more than just SA, but... I'm not sure how much you can disentangle how much of it was the money vs. how much of it was the public humiliation of actually losing.

 

[AnOminous]

Okay, so many it was a bit more than just SA, but... I'm not sure how much you can disentangle how much of it was the money vs. how much of it was the public humiliation of actually losing.

Or even just having to face the fact that the people telling him the troons were cancer and had ruined his site, and it was all his fault, had been right all along. Kind of hard to deny after getting kicked off your own site and chucked away like garbage.

 

[Red Frida]

The only thing keeping Kali Yuga from being gayer than lowtax is that Kali hasn't blown his own brains out rather than support his own kids... yet.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

The only thing keeping Kali Yuga from being gayer than lowtax is that Kali hasn't blown his own brains out rather than support his own kids... yet.

Fool, I don't push women down the stairs to discover the terrible secret of space; I just harass them over the internet

 

[Tanner Glass]

I think the reasons he killed himself were more to do with the following:

> Out of money, no clear path forward to getting more
> Divorce judgment not in his favor = debt he had no method of paying off
> Loss of potential future 'vindication'
> His own kids blocked him
> Publicly known for DV against 3 different women
> Despised by a community that used to adore him because of (substantiated) DV accusations
> Loss of support system (except for his mom)
> SUD/AUD, MDD
> Physical pain (?)

Not that any of these justify killing himself, but those are the reasons I think he did it.

I don't think it was many of those, honestly.

What drove Lowtax over the edge was that he lost Something Awful - the only child he loved and the one that gave him everything. It was a gradual, years long process, but he lost the site in every way imaginable. For most of the site's run he was despised, but he was always regarded as important and the "king" of SA. Every shitty thing he could do - there was a team of volunteers there to clean it up. He got to lie about needing money and people would just send it to him - hundreds of thousands for nearly two decades.

He lost the spirit of the site years ago - he even said as much once he started visiting here. It deteriorated (because of him) from one of the better message boards to one of the worst. He lost his position on the site as "the boss" as he started letting himself get pushed around by various members (Koala's March, that one admin, and Jeff). He lost the site's trust after it started coming out how much money he was swimming in while pleading poverty to the forums. They drove him off the site and cut off his revenue stream.

If he was making $15,000/month to do nothing still - he'd still be alive. He'd still be a bad dad, a bad husband/boyfriend, and would just be looking for the next set of feet to beat.

 

[Ghostse]

He didn't lose Something Awful. He sold it to ensure that on-going income wouldn't be garnished. Once he had the ~$450,000 from the sale he proceeded to burn through it at as brisk of a pace of possible so he'd be destitute when his finances were reviewed and he could escape with no legal fees, allimony, child support, or paying back the money he took from his ex-wife, who he kept isolated in a foreign country and locked up her passport.
His ONE WEIRD TRICK that had never been tried by any aggrieved husband ever didn't work on the judge.
And then lowtax ate the bullets.

All this cope about "Muh Lowtax Big Sadge" is really retarded and gay.
Lowtax carried out a plan, a plan he implemented over longer than a year, to ruin his finances like he'd ruined the rest of his life.
The fact doing this would harm his daughters never entered his mind (unlike that moonbullet from his Fiveseven) he only cared about vindication against his ex-wife/wives.
Simping for Lowtax is gay and retarded. Again, i know that sucking off the corpse of WifeStomper58 seems to be synonymous with "We were dropping nigger, faggot & other gamer words every 18.26 seconds in TYOL 2000 and we still have gays & blacks today so I don't think it does as much harm as you claim" but you can defend early SA/Fight modern woke culture without sucking off a degenerate addict, dead beat dad, and wife beater.

And speaking of the wife beating, I want to point out AGAIN:
Lowtax impregnated a foreign woman. Brought her into the country, making her drop out of her school; and reminder that his "job" was running an internet forum a job that could have been done anywhere including the country where the mother of his child could have given birth for free thanks to the social health care. Let her give birth and raise their child. Treated her as a fuck maid and then just a maid when opiate dick reared its head. Took her passport and locked it in a safe. Made her wash the pants he pantshitted in. He refused to do the dead-simple paperwork to get her immigration status normalized so she could do things like look for a job or otherwise leave the house instead of being a live-in maid & nanny. Then abandons her FOR A WHOLE MONTH over BOTH CANADIAN AND AMERICAN THANKSGIVING, instead leaving her isolated in the house with only their daughter and occasional visited by Lowtax's mom as company to go fuck a BPD cokewhore.

I am no fan of women's sufferage, and unlike @NavyGuzzler I am not putting in work to get a taste of second hand maple-flavored pussy discarded by Lowtax, but my niggas... he didn't need to lay a hand on Maplewife to have abused the shit out of her.
I know it doesn't have quite the succinct ring of "WifeStomper58 & Sweaty Toes" but I feel like the non-violent but still absolutely depraved shit his narcissistic, addict ass did to his partners gets lost in the sauce.

 

[Mikoyan]

His ONE WEIRD TRICK that had never been tried by any aggrieved husband ever didn't work the judge.

I can only imagine that getting buck broken in a divorce does something to your brain where you can convince yourself that your scheme to get out of paying the ex is totally brand new and also going to work. You see it all the time. See also: Ralph, Ethan.

 

[Tanner Glass]

He didn't lose Something Awful. He sold it to ensure that on-going income wouldn't be garnished.

Right.

But he only sold it because he lost the site. People pulled money from his Patreon (going from like $12,000/month to less than $1,000/month) and expressly stopped giving money to the site in any way - with mods/admins in full rebellion. Advising users to not sign up, not buy stuff, and in many cases giving it away for free. Users demanding that Lowtax sell the site and piling up CC chargebacks, whatever they could do to be pains in asses. All in all - losing SA took Lowtax from earning something in the realm of $150,000/year for doing nothing down to like $20,000/year, not a livable wage for someone who lives in a mansion full of $100 pies and $3,000 tranny hookers. But had that not happened, it's very likely he would have just coasted on $150,000/year for the rest of his life and that was likely his plan - to just get free money forever.

He could have put a huge amount of work in to try and fix SA, but ultimately he knew that it was easier to just sell it for a large markup to some moron who thought it still had value. As it turns out - Lowtax would literally rather die then do any actual real work. He seemingly resigned himself to suicide right then and there and just went out on a 1-2 year binge of blowing all of the money he had left and then his brains out.

If he had any balls or integrity - he would have not sold SA, deleted it, then killed himself.

 

[Ghostse]

But he only sold it because he lost the site.

I'd argue it wasn't the money. It was the fact people making fun of him and the admins weren't banning them. Registrations didn't slow down very much during the tranny revolt.

If Lowtax hadn't been an addict, he would have money set aside for a short disruption. He could have evicted all the admins and replaced them, and just waited out the buck-broke trannies because other than some vocal flounces they weren't going to leave and even the flouncers would crawl back; see: Bread and Roses.

The patreon wouldn't have ever come back to what it was (it was already melting even before MapleWife dear richard'ed him) but the site was still netting 50K/year just on forum purchases for him doing nothing. He was making another 10-30K in advertising bux and could have gotten that 40-50K if he wasn't a fucktard and actually attended calls to advertisers - Ads on something awful reach a guillible, terminally online, and constantly spending base.

But Lowtax was an addict and his ego wouldn't let him sit by.
Also remember that Lowtax had to pay alimony to Chinkwife out of SA bux, so he'd done that dance before. That's why he sold, he didn't want the hassle of paying alimony and thought if he sold the forum (his only non-mom related source of income) and spent all the money, he wouldn't have to pay alimony and could just sponge off mom in the meantime.
Sadly, he couldn't just permaban the judge or disappear into an ambien coma till they went away when his gay little plan was unraveled.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

He didn't lose Something Awful. He sold it to ensure that on-going income wouldn't be garnished.

I think Lowtax basically sold SA at the behest of and for the approval of his remaining friends and confidants. It was a rather illogical move--why the fuck would he sell it? Because the trannies on the site were bitching? Why would he care? Because people near him did, and they talked him into giving up the one thing he had to be proud of in his disaster of a life.

Obviously if he was even half a man it wouldn't have gotten to this point, but he should have just stood up, best his disintegrated spine would allow, said "I DID NOT DO THIS!" and ban the trannies and Make SA Great Again. But he couldn't do that, because he craved the instant appreciation and approval of his dwindling inner-circle.

Everything Lowtax did on SA was at the behest of his friends. That's how EPG and FistGrrl basically held soft control of the site and turned it into a progressive garbage dump. That's why he kept on radium. So on and so forth. Lowtax always made low-quality decisions for these people. He craved respect and admiration.