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"

[Ghostse]

Zack desperately wanted to be a famous writer but he learned the hard way that goon standards are much lower than non-goon standards, which are hilariously low to begin with. After Liminal States bombed, he kept writing for SA until this time last year.

He didn't grasp that 'minimal-effort, let the reader fill in the blanks' writing style doesn't work outside of the web if you haven't sucked of the critics and aren't writing about gender and being oppressed by the KKK.

 

[proteus4994]

Zach’s front page articles were shit, his books were shit, and his moderation was shit. Just an all-around shit.

 

[Splendid]

his videos have never appeared in my recommendations. Not once.

I've had him in my recommended since then. In fact, that's how I found him. Youtube's algorithm is just fucked.

 

[TurdFondler]

Zack effectively killed the front page. Before his garbage creative writing exercises the content was amateurish and weird, interesting if not actually funny. Then it was all the same insufferable bullshit. If LowT had cared he'd have given Zack his own little fiefdom and tard wrangled him away from the front page.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

He was funny when he had David Thorpe there to play off, they made some good content together like the Fashion SWAT, but on his own he was too busy shilling his book to be interesting.

 

[Welcome to the Show]

Zack effectively killed the front page. Before his garbage creative writing exercises the content was amateurish and weird, interesting if not actually funny. Then it was all the same insufferable bullshit. If LowT had cared he'd have given Zack his own little fiefdom and tard wrangled him away from the front page.

This sounds about right. I would read the SA front page 20 years ago. Lowtax always sucked. I can’t remember who was actually half amusing, I want to say Spokker Jones had some stuff that I enjoyed. Zach Parsons was Lowtax level of awfulness and you are right about how he basically hijacked the front page with his stupid shit. Hijack might not be the right word considering I’m pretty sure he was the only guy who would do it for peanuts at that point.

I was trying to find some reviews for his Liminal States book. I remember seeing him hype the shit out of it when occasionally browsing the site. All the reviews I found were surprisingly positive but they are all from 2012 and I have a very strong feeling they are all goon shills.

Does anyone have anymore info about his books and how they did? I could never imagine picking up a copy even it was for free considering it was hard to make it through one page of one of his articles. I couldn’t imagine trying to make it through a whole book of his.

 

[TurdFondler]

The wiki page for his book exists but he couldn't be bothered to fill it in lmao

The reviews are all shills, I found a 5 star review on amazon that was actually a pretty biting critique:


Liminal States" is divided into three novellas, each one telling a portion of a story that spans over 100 years. The first novella I really did not like. I felt it was drawn out and the characters were universally unlikable (not a good combination). Throughout the book, not liking the characters is a central theme.

There really isn't anyone to root for or hope that they make it out alive and in one piece; the differences between the heroes and the villains isn't even shades of grey, it's shades of black. I know that the author kept the first novella at the length it was to balance the story out, but it would have been wise to consider chopping it down to a prologue. This book could be subtitled, "Despicable people doing despicable things to each other and themselves". It has the general sense of doom that you get from a Kafka or Brett Easton Ellis book, and that's not a "fun" experience. All the same... the concept of "Liminal States" is sheer brilliance. Despite its length, I pushed through it with eagerness, once I got through the first novella, because I was anxious to see how things would change and happen.

The vision of an alternate history of the world is terrifying. The third novella in particular is oppressively dark, and kudos to Parsons on it (though there was one scene which was eerily similar to a part of "Restaurant at the End of the Universe", and that's not something you want the readers comparing a very noir novel to... if I were the editor, I would have seen the relationship immediately and had it taken out or changed, I think). There were a number of excellent plot swerves along the way.

Other reviewers have called out the book for its flaws, like the use of stereotypes for the dialog, the pacing (especially of the first novella), and the characters. I won't disagree with their assessment, and in fact, I agree with them. But this book is a case where the brilliant originality is able to carry the book far, far beyond its technical merits, and for that I give it five stars. I look forwards to reading more from Zack Parsons, particularly as he refines and hones his style. J.Ja

 

[Welcome to the Show]

So it seems like it had a few good ideas that were poorly and lazily executed. Sounds like the complete history of SomethingAwful.

 

[Leonard Helplessness]

The more I see about how much SA's other contributors failed, the more clear it is that Yahtzee Croshaw dodged a fucking bullet. He does a lot of shit in addition to Zero Punctuation Reviews, and I've read and genuinely enjoyed two of his novels. Jam is basically about the city of Brisbane, Australia (and the entire continent) getting hit by a bizarre apocalypse that kills all the normies and leaves only various types of weirdos who think that post-apocalyptic life is the coolest thing ever, and they all act like retards and kill each other and destroy everything around them in various comedic ways. There's an entire mall full of people who act like Something Awful goons, down to ~ironically~ being creepy dickheads and ~ironically~ murdering each other over the most petty shit imaginable.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

This sounds about right. I would read the SA front page 20 years ago. Lowtax always sucked. I can’t remember who was actually half amusing, I want to say Spokker Jones had some stuff that I enjoyed. Zach Parsons was Lowtax level of awfulness and you are right about how he basically hijacked the front page with his stupid shit. Hijack might not be the right word considering I’m pretty sure he was the only guy who would do it for peanuts at that point.

I was trying to find some reviews for his Liminal States book. I remember seeing him hype the shit out of it when occasionally browsing the site. All the reviews I found were surprisingly positive but they are all from 2012 and I have a very strong feeling they are all goon shills.

Does anyone have anymore info about his books and how they did? I could never imagine picking up a copy even it was for free considering it was hard to make it through one page of one of his articles. I couldn’t imagine trying to make it through a whole book of his.

I forgot about that book, I was thinking of his endless plugs for "My Tank Is Fight!"

 

[TurdFondler]

He plugged his idiot tank book so much and provided so many ~previews~ that there were like 2 tanks that goons hadn't seen when they bought it. The dingus posted the entire thing including artwork piecemeal to the front page.

 

[Karl der Grosse]

Pre-internet, My Tank Is Fight would have been an interesting book. Everyone likes reading about cool military experimental programs and the weird shit they come up with. But everyone has the internet now. All you have to do is use google and you can find all the info you could ever want about shit like that. For free, even.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I liked a lot of Zack Parsons articles and even read one of his books, Your Next Door Neighbor is a Dragon, which wasn't bad, although his take on Weebs was very "I know nothing about this beyond the absolute surface level" and the weakest part of the book, if nothing else though it's a pretty good snapshot of web culture around 2007/2008.

That said when he started going Woke I stopped following him, he's yet more evidence of the connection between SJWs and the bitterly cynical.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

I liked a lot of Zack Parsons articles and even read one of his books, Your Next Door Neighbor is a Dragon, which wasn't bad, although his take on Weebs was very "I know nothing about this beyond the absolute surface level" and the weakest part of the book, if nothing else though it's a pretty good snapshot of web culture around 2007/2008.

That said when he started going Woke I stopped following him, he's yet more evidence of the connection between SJWs and the bitterly cynical.

When he started started going woke?

He's the guy who banned "nigger" on SA which was the beginning of censorship on the site. In like 2003.

I look forwards to reading more from Zack Parsons,

...said no one, ever.

 

[Dom Cruise]

When he started started going woke?

He's the guy who banned "nigger" on SA which was the beginning of censorship on the site. In like 2003.



...said no one, ever.

The dude was always very clearly left leaning, but there's a difference that and full on Woke, in fact when that phenomena was first gaining steam he would poke a little fun at it, before going full on Woke himself.

I know it's fun to bash anything even vaguely related to SA by this point, but back in the day he was a pretty funny writer, not anymore of course.

 

[Sabrina]

Just more junkieposting, good references for court

 

[Hesa]

Well if he cannot get a proscription his drinking will go up as compensation.

 

[dflatline]

How the hell did he get neuropathy did he go into hypovolemic shock because of dehydration from excessive drinking or does he have diabetes? Maybe he's just making shit up as drug seeking behaviour.

 

[Goodbye Horses]

Maybe he's just making shit up as drug seeking behaviour.

Ding ding ding!

 

[Dan Abrams]

Of fucking course Lowtax wants Lyrica. It's commonly prescribed for fibromyalgia, a fake condition that mentally ill middle-aged women suffer from that is diagnosed when the doctor can't find anything else wrong with you and just wants you to get out of his office.