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"

[Ilmseil]

There is an event happening where law enforcement responded, yes. But it appears to be a nothingburger "DV event". Most places require someone to leave the house for at least the night, or someone gets arrested for a night in other states,.

 

[Leonard Helplessness]

There’s absolutely nothing worth saving on SA. It’s a Web 1.0 relic and has been done better many times since. Besides hairy troons and fragile tankies, SA has failures like Zack Parsons and Bob Mackey, the latter of which is one bad day away from turning into those hobos that smears shit on the walls and humps trees in broad daylight.

There's still some good shit in TCC if you like to watch dumb people destroy their bodies and lives with mystery chemicals. I liked the trip report by a guy who slammed a bunch of mystery drugs, went to hang out at some furry's house, stripped naked, and became convinced that the furfag was trying to kill him and chased him around his own house trying to murder him first until the police were called.

 

[Antisocial Justice Wario]

There's still some good shit in TCC if you like to watch dumb people destroy their bodies and lives with mystery chemicals. I liked the trip report by a guy who slammed a bunch of mystery drugs, went to hang out at some furry's house, stripped naked, and became convinced that the furfag was trying to kill him and chased him around his own house trying to murder him first until the police were called.

TCC is a fuckin treasure trove of schadenfreude

 

[TurdFondler]

You can't save SA. If you ever tried to do 2010 Cracked or the onion/the hardtimes but different it wouldn't be funny or interesting because those things have been done.

Lowtax's only strength was novelty. The internet back then was either Usenet grognards or idiot kids and SA catered to every maladjusted teen online.

SA will never recapture the energy and just by sheer virtue of having the forums as the main draw for content creators it will only attract the kind of people already on there.

The only way I see SA regaining notoriety is by becoming a haven for internet griefers again but that would mean harboring all manner of idiocy and wrong think.

 

[Terrorist]

I honestly think all of SA's problems over the years can ultimately be traced back to Lowtax having always prioritized the site being subjectively amusing to himself even if it means no one else reading it, over it being amusing to a wide audience if that means him not finding it funny. For a brief period, in the early aughts, what amused Lowtax and what amused a huge amount of nerdy people on the internet briefly intersected for a few years and SA was a huge deal.

Low T could have successfully embraced FYAD/weird twitter irony if he wanted to, but didn't because (1) he liked dogshit reference based lolrandumb humor ("all your base are belong to us"/ chuck norris jokes) more and (2) it was un-PC. It's telling that weird twitter people almost universally don't know who he is and look at SA with contempt if they do (even though most of them are pretty leftist themselves).

You can't save SA. If you ever tried to do 2010 Cracked or the onion/the hardtimes but different it wouldn't be funny or interesting because those things have been done.

Lowtax's only strength was novelty. The internet back then was either Usenet grognards or idiot kids and SA catered to every maladjusted teen online.

A 10bux internet forum was doomed, as a business model, the moment social media was invented. Nobody posts on forums anymore (KF is an exception proving the rule) and they especially would not wanna pay for the privilege.

The whole business model extremely Web 1.0. RICHARD assumed an internet where it was genuinely hard to find what you wanted, and communities of like-minded internet nerds were rare, so ppl would pay for both.

 

[TurdFondler]

Yeah for sure. First thing that has to get dropped is the pay wall. Reddit the shithole that it is has a genius approach to the model. Charge autists for worthless shit they can lord over other autists. Open the floodgates to SA, let posters buy out their probes and add some special secret forum/discord you pay a monthly fee for

 

[AnOminous]

The whole business model extremely Web 1.0. RICHARD assumed an internet where it was genuinely hard to find what you wanted, and communities of like-minded internet nerds were rare, so ppl would pay for both.

But we're in a different situation where the people here do not want a community of like minded nerds, we want a community of sociopaths we don't fucking agree with at all, because communities of fucking cultists who all agree with each other is ALL THAT IS OUT THERE, and this is the only place we can find crazy people who don't agree with us about anything other than wanting people we don't agree with.

 

[Terrorist]

But we're in a different situation where the people here do not want a community of like minded nerds, we want a community of sociopaths we don't fucking agree with at all, because communities of fucking cultists who all agree with each other is ALL THAT IS OUT THERE, and this is the only place we can find crazy people who don't agree with us about anything other than wanting people we don't agree with.

Exactly why we're the exception. KF has an audience, but not an audience that follows the nerd social fallacy of "We have to accept everyone no matter what bc nobody else will accept us" that leads to groupthink and ironically, a lot of purges and infighting

 

[Fatal Cardiac Infarction]

Fuck you all, I came here to laugh at retarded faggots again. I miss Portal of Evil.

 

[Hesa]

But we're in a different situation where the people here do not want a community of like minded nerds, we want a community of sociopaths we don't fucking agree with at all, because communities of fucking cultists who all agree with each other is ALL THAT IS OUT THERE, and this is the only place we can find crazy people who don't agree with us about anything other than wanting people we don't agree with.

One thing that many of these loons use is sophistry. Whether some knobhead like LT is knowingly using it or it's just a thing he has figured out is another.

 

[Ghostse]

A 10bux internet forum was doomed, as a business model, the moment social media was invented. Nobody posts on forums anymore (KF is an exception proving the rule) and they especially would not wanna pay for the privilege.

The whole business model extremely Web 1.0. RICHARD assumed an internet where it was genuinely hard to find what you wanted, and communities of like-minded internet nerds were rare, so ppl would pay for both.

I'll add a caveat to that:
The 10bux internet forum was doomed as soon as it stopped having content worth 10bux.

SA used to have that content. They had the critical mass of talented people that attracted other talented people. Sure that talent was photoshopping mouths in place of eyes, but they were Rembrants at it. And in addition to this content, nck when the moderators weren't doing epeen measuring contests, inquisiting for wrongthink, or sucking tranny cock and actually being forums janitors and discouraging white-noise posters, you had an experience worth 10 bucks because you could enjoy it and discussion of it. Also porn.

 

[Fagnacious D]

Fuck you all, I came here to laugh at retarded faggots again. I miss Portal of Evil.

Kiwi Farms is basically the new Portal of Evil / Awful Link of the Day.

 

[Fatal Cardiac Infarction]

Kiwi Farms is basically the new Portal of Evil / Awful Link of the Day.

I'd gathered that by lurking before making an account. Wendigo Jack alone was worth it, but digging into the tranny sideshows is always a great spot of entertainment.

 

[NavyGuzzler]

I honestly think all of SA's problems over the years can ultimately be traced back to Lowtax having always prioritized the site being subjectively amusing to himself even if it means no one else reading it, over it being amusing to a wide audience if that means him not finding it funny. For a brief period, in the early aughts, what amused Lowtax and what amused a huge amount of nerdy people on the internet briefly intersected for a few years and SA was a huge deal.

But times and tastes change, and Lowtax dug his heels in and refused to alter what SA did because, heaven forbid, he might no longer find it funny himself, which is an absolutely shit way to run a business. It'd be like a restauranteur refusing to alter his menu to adapt to changing tastes, after getting increasingly more negative Yelp reviews and seeing his patronage shrink exponentially because "well *I* like my food, so why should I change it? I'd rather have 10 patrons who can truly appreciate my culinary genius than 10,000 who want to eat mass-marketed slop".

He has had dozens of opportunities to expand SA or change directions, and he's always refused because "that's not what I want SA to be". I remember in the mid-2000's, when it became clear that Youtube was going to be an absolute juggernaut and the future of internet content, that people on SA were asking Lowtax to change gears and do more video content -- and bonus: here's Youtube that will literally host the videos for free because that's the entire point of the site -- and he STILL said no because he wanted SA to stand out from the crowd and that videos were somehow a 'lazy' way to make content and that most Youtube videos "weren't funny".

I don't know what the root of it is, be that a fear of change, or just not being creative and ambitious enough to adapt, or what -- his toxically contrarian mindset ("don't you tell ME not to air intimate details of my pending divorce that involves small children and allegations of abuse publicly on Facebook GOOFTROOP") is clearly a part of it, too -- or whether he's simply arrogant enough to think that he should be making mad bank to essentially amuse just himself, but any changes he does make have always been absolutely glacial to the point he invariably looks like a Johnny Come Lately, a copycat or just straight up desperate; his Gaming Garbage thing is going on 15 years late to the Youtube party, 12 years late to the "sarcastically commenting on bad video games" party and 10 years late to the Let's Play party.

Lowtax is a junkie. There's no need and no point to analyzing him or his motives any further than that. If you look any further than the end of his nose, you're already looking farther than he can or will, and giving him too much credit into the bargain.

Lowtax is incapable of thinking beyond his next buzz/orgasm/and as an afterthought maybe junk food to give any shits about the site as anything other than free money at this point. His every post indicates that he has come to despise the forums for requiring even a minimal amount of his time and effort. He hates interacting with goons, and has for some time.

His recent forum presence is all damage control and attempting to manipulate the narrative.

Maybe years ago, Lowtax cared more about the forums. Kind of. But even then, he was obviously painfully short-sighted. Otherwise he would have done something smarter than, say, allowing whatever mentally-ill losers would work for free to have the keys to his livelihood while he skipped away to ambien-land and dipped his wick into whatever goonette was willing to hold still for it.

Lowtax was never smart. He was lucky. And even then he was too dumb to properly capitalize on it.

 

[AnOminous]

Lowtax was never smart. He was lucky. And even then he was too dumb to properly capitalize on it.

And now he's the kind of person who sucks off troons. Who even cares why someone does that? Once you are a slave to troons you are subhuman and nothing you do matters.

 

[Weppers]

I honestly think all of SA's problems over the years can ultimately be traced back to Lowtax having always prioritized the site being subjectively amusing to himself even if it means no one else reading it, over it being amusing to a wide audience if that means him not finding it funny. For a brief period, in the early aughts, what amused Lowtax and what amused a huge amount of nerdy people on the internet briefly intersected for a few years and SA was a huge deal.

But times and tastes change, and Lowtax dug his heels in and refused to alter what SA did because, heaven forbid, he might no longer find it funny himself, which is an absolutely shit way to run a business. It'd be like a restauranteur refusing to alter his menu to adapt to changing tastes, after getting increasingly more negative Yelp reviews and seeing his patronage shrink exponentially because "well *I* like my food, so why should I change it? I'd rather have 10 patrons who can truly appreciate my culinary genius than 10,000 who want to eat mass-marketed slop".

He has had dozens of opportunities to expand SA or change directions, and he's always refused because "that's not what I want SA to be". I remember in the mid-2000's, when it became clear that Youtube was going to be an absolute juggernaut and the future of internet content, that people on SA were asking Lowtax to change gears and do more video content -- and bonus: here's Youtube that will literally host the videos for free because that's the entire point of the site -- and he STILL said no because he wanted SA to stand out from the crowd and that videos were somehow a 'lazy' way to make content and that most Youtube videos "weren't funny".

I don't know what the root of it is, be that a fear of change, or just not being creative and ambitious enough to adapt, or what -- his toxically contrarian mindset ("don't you tell ME not to air intimate details of my pending divorce that involves small children and allegations of abuse publicly on Facebook GOOFTROOP") is clearly a part of it, too -- or whether he's simply arrogant enough to think that he should be making mad bank to essentially amuse just himself, but any changes he does make have always been absolutely glacial to the point he invariably looks like a Johnny Come Lately, a copycat or just straight up desperate; his Gaming Garbage thing is going on 15 years late to the Youtube party, 12 years late to the "sarcastically commenting on bad video games" party and 10 years late to the Let's Play party.

This was someone else's idea, but I remember it because I think it explains everything:

The only thing Lowtax values is the attention he gets for things he made himself.

15 years ago, when Something Awful was still booming and Lowtax was doing interviews about his incredible internet success story, he said that the reason he started Something Awful was that he wanted to write. That's it. He wanted his own platform for his own writing. It's why he had such a short fuse for cracks about the front page. The front page, and specifically his content on the front page, was the only part of Something Awful that was ever supposed to matter. Everything else was an unintended side effect, completely insignificant, and that is how he treated it until the money dried up and he had to start doing things he didn't want to do again.

 

[Red Mask]

I miss Portal of Evil too. Shame it went out so quietly. I think POE TV is still around though. I also miss SA's MS Paint. They used to have quite a bit of that.

 

[Invoke-Mimikatz]

The front page, and specifically his content on the front page, was the only part of Something Awful that was ever supposed to matter. Everything else was an unintended side effect, completely insignificant, and that is how he treated it until the money dried up and he had to start doing things he didn't want to do again.

"“Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk?"

A quote from Naked Lunch

Did I ever tell you about the manwho taught his asshole to talk?His whole abdomen would move up and down,you dig, farting out the words. It was unl...

www.goodreads.com

 

[AnOminous]

I miss Portal of Evil too. Shame it went out so quietly.

Better than whatever Dickard is doing, which is pathetic.

 

[repentance]

Better than whatever Dickard is doing, which is pathetic.

He might as well just bring back LF at this point. They're the type of posters to whom SA 2020 would still appeal.