32 ms·

Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

347 points by Gelob 5y ago

havkd 5y ago
Why does it say “dies” when he killed himself? And please, no trick answers. One of my favourite posts of his, why lingerie is fucking stupid: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3863579 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=38...
- lotophage 5y ago
  Did he not die?
  - vadfa 5y ago
    When someone gets killed or kills himself we don't usually say he's "died". The verb "died" in some way has a sense of having been an accident or simply passing because one is too old.
    - orra 5y ago
      Actually, no, saying somebody "died of suicide" is preferred language[1]. It's important when reporting on suicide deaths not to glorify suicide. Copy cat suicides are a real risk. Words like "successful" have a harmful effect. In fact, the media often doesn't state the cause of death, to prevent copy cats. On the other hand, you don't want to dæmonize depressed people living with suicidal thoughts. "Committed" would imply people with suicidal thoughts are considering sinning or acting like a criminal, which isn't the case. Suicidal thoughts are serious, but people with them aren't evil, and should reach out for help and support. [1] https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/language-matters-committed-suicide https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/language-mat...
      - vadfa 5y ago
        "killed himself"
        orra 5y ago
        What is your point? That clearly isn't typical terminology for news reporting. Moreover, I explained it is bad terminology, for it trivializes and normalises suicide.
- corobo 5y ago
  That information came out a few hours after this thread was posted if HN/SA's timestamps are showing the right times
alexose 5y ago
Link to Fragmaster's eulogy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UkcZ4LtSE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UkcZ4LtSE8
- smcl 5y ago
  A Doom House!?
lolski 5y ago
I don't know whether he's a good / bad person, but what I know is that I grew up with SA and this saddens me.
hprotagonist 5y ago
d-did he have stairs in his house?
- Bluecobra 5y ago
  Apparently he was not protected after all...
curuinor 5y ago
Someone on twitter was talking about the Franz Ferdinand insane ripples of the man's decision to ban anime pornography on his site: 1. He bans it 2. One "moot" was then currently showing around his futaba channel clone "4chan" and not getting many bites 3. The pornography-obsessed people decide to abscond to 4chan en masse, determining the culture of /b/ and all that 4. This leads to the proliferation of fascism and other foolish ideology in /b/ and eventually to the quarantine zone, /pol/ 5. Someone starts posting as "qanon" 6. A depressing number of people start believing in that crap 7. Many depressing things e: looks like 4chan also has a banner for the occassion: " RIP Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka Our dad who disowned us" which one would surmise would also describe moot. Who wouldn't disown 4chan if it was created from their actions?
- throwaway2077 5y ago
  - porn wasn't the defining feature of /b/ - qanon thing originated on another chan and it didn't have a cult following on /pol/, where people generally lost interest in trump pretty early into his presidency and largely denounced him by the end of it, although for very different reasons than everyone else
- sweetbitter 5y ago
  >Who wouldn't disown 4chan if it was created from their actions? Coincidentally, the current owner of 4chan[0] happens to be the original owner of futaba channel (2ch), so the answer to that question is one Hiroyuki Nishimura. Also, I am sure that a significant portion of imageboard users feel satisfied by the chaos they have sown; they aren't disgusted by it, they really lust for it, and that is how they have always been. [0] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2015/09/23/4chan-sold-hiroyuki-nishimura-qa-christoper-poole-moot-new-owner/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2015/09/23/4chan-s...
  - noduerme 5y ago
    >> and that is how they have always been Technically, before they were given computers and internet access by smart people, they only raped their daughters and terrorized their local trailer park.
dirtyid 5y ago
"the internet makes you stupid"
donatj 5y ago
Well dang, that sucks. Something Awful circa 2003 really shaped my sense of humor as a teen. Photoshop Phriday was something I and all my friends waited for each week. In my opinion this deserves the black bar.
- smt88 5y ago
  By all accounts, the good things about Something Awful were in spite of Kyanka rather than because of him. He neglected the site for many years before selling it. He was also a terrible person who serially abused his wives and girlfriends. His site was very influential (in good and bad ways), but that doesn't mean he is someone we should canonize or mourn.
  - HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
    I doubt you have much direct information about him being a "terrible person" or the abuse he's alleged to have committed. Do you suppose it's possible that he was intelligent and creative and troubled and flawed? That's not such an uncommon combination of elements in a person.
  - serf 5y ago
    >He was also a terrible person who serially abused his wives and girlfriends. >His site was very influential (in good and bad ways), but that doesn't mean he is someone we should canonize or mourn. "You know what they say, speak ill of the dead!" - Norm MacDonald. A person need not be wholesome or kind to warrant mourning their death. Even if you despise the person, their death has caused real human suffering and pain among those around and associated to them. fwiw I think it's incredibly tacky to go into a what is in essence a memorial thread to post a list of grievances against a dead person that has no means of explanation or defense. I don't know about Lowtax's personal life -- this isn't a comment on that; it's a comment about those that feel the compulsion to post vitriol on memorials. If you feel the need to shine light on the despicable , make a thread and let's discuss it there -- that way we at least stand the chance of sparing the bereaved.
    - 5y ago
MrLeap 5y ago
SA in the early 00's was really special. It was like someone dumped a whole chemical supply closet into a pot and brought it to a boil. Equal parts trash and alchemy. Gold was inexplicably made there, and as long as you had your kitty litter scoop it was easy to find.
- lollowtax 5y ago
  Goons screwing around with Poser was probably peak gold or close to it. The large-scale projects like Goon City and Goon Tower stick with me as inspirational with respect to what spontaneous groups of idiots can accomplish pushing in the same direction.
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    Goonswarm is still dominating in EVE Online.
  - kalleboo 5y ago
    > The large-scale projects You just reminded me of the Blue Ball Machine https://ytmnd-fads.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Ball_Machine https://ytmnd-fads.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Ball_Machine
    - rexreed 5y ago
      Quite a piece of work! https://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/ https://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/
  - dkdbejwi383 5y ago
    Failed goon projects, too, like the "amazing innovative RPG that does away with all the cliches", which was inevitably completed cliched and gave us johnny.jpg Also the Goon Island idea that came up all the time: if every goon contributed $10, we could buy an island and it would be a paradise.
    - Apfel 5y ago
extortionist 5y ago
He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It's important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can't be set aside. At the same time, SA's influence on the modern internet can't be understated. The 'image macro' of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today's common meme image--impact font text over a silly image, easily accessible to anyone who wants to post it. Many of today's well-known internet comedians and writers grew up with the site. And it's hard to estimate how big the impact (positive or negative) of things like ADTRW leading to 4chan have been, not to mention things like the rise of Let's Play videos, or the creation and eventual shutdown of BitTorrent Barnyard (and its ensuing spinoffs). The site itself still remains one of the last vestiges of the old internet--one of the few sites that both survived and managed not sell out and go headlong into monetization--and as a result, is one of the last sites on the modern internet that (maybe ironically) is not entirely awful.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- xenihn 5y ago
  I remember hearing that image macros originated on TribalWar (a forum for Starsiege: Tribes), but they were definitely popularized by SA
  - busterarm 5y ago
    Shazbot!
    - mjfl 5y ago
      I am the greatest.
      - ghuntley 5y ago
        VGH
harles 5y ago
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the domestic abuse allegations. The Something Awful forums almost completely melted down because of that, and it’s certainly left me with a very negative final impression of the man who’s sense of humor I once idolized.
- snowl 5y ago
  See: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3984488&pagenumber=120&perpage=40#post519160186 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&th...
  - ralfd 5y ago
    > An hour later I was contacted by my attorney who informed me that Rich had shot himself earlier in the morning. > So. There it is. His other ex and I got to tell our children that their father died without saying goodbye to them, or that he loved them, or to my knowledge, left a note for them. This rubs me the wrong way. Also the countless posts dissing someone who committed suicide.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      That's just goon culture, though. The same culture that Lowtax helped to invent.
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      What rubs me the wrong way is that he shot himself an HOUR after the judge ruled he would lose his daughter and what sounds like huge amount of money. The explanation from the ex-wife sounds very fishy as well. > confirmed his treatment of me was Domestic Violence * this is not for a divorce court to decide. This is a criminal offense not civil. Something feels off.. >He was due to get our daughter for Christmas * thats brutal he doesn't get to see his daughter for months at a time? >help me and my daughter stay in our home in Canada and allow me to provide a good life for her * define good life? Taking all of a guys money would definitely provide a good life for someone. This piece sounds very carefully written to make the wife look like the good person and demonize the dude. But I would be willing to bet it's not that simple. """" Yesterday I recieved a divorce ruling that would help me and my daughter stay in our home in Canada and allow me to provide a good life for her as well as pay back numerous debts that had accrued during the past two years when I was receiving $350 a month in child support. In the divorce ruling the judge found that Rich had willfully spent down the martial fund, confirmed his treatment of me was Domestic Violence and put together a plan to pay for the attorney fees etc. He would still retain custody settled on previously in mediation. He was due to get our daughter for Christmas. An hour later I was contacted by my attorney who informed me that Rich had shot himself earlier in the morning. """
makeitrain 5y ago
I am so fascinated by all of this. The impact on internet history and culture. The challenges of creating and growing communities. The lifestyles and faults of leaders and the controversial realities we live in. I know about SA, but was never an active participant. Likewise I know about 4chan and other communities. From reading the first page of this thread, it seems very critical of the creator of the community. Even at a glance I can tell that is because of the personal flaws of that person, the mistakes they've made in their life, and how they hurt other people. I feel like it is such a shame for this to be your legacy to your community. I feel like we lost a pioneer, but it's now on us to learn from their mistakes and continue to build communities that we want to be in.
- parksy 5y ago
  I think what these stories reveal is just how much people underestimate how common domestic abuse is and it doesn't appear to discriminate based on status, fame, career choice, etc. As far as building healthier communities and what we can learn, I think it's definitely healthy to maintain and continue to improve the focus on helping victims and prevent potential victims from becoming a target of abuse. Everyone should be able to be part of a safe community without fear of harm. I think there's another dimension that is significantly less popular, which is about enabling people who may have abusive tendencies to get the help they need. Society generally wants to dismiss and discard these people but that just pushes the problem into the shadows, as it's social suicide basically to come forward and say "I need help, I can't control my behaviour / keep hurting people / etc." Especially if you have any degree of publicity around your life and career. Cancel culture was like a spark that started a fire that shone a light into these dark spaces, and some people are trash that need to be called out and exposed, especially people who get their rocks off on abuse, but there's shades of grey in between "victim" and "abuser" that don't fit the conventional good guy vs bad guy stereotypes, and it's in that realm I think there's a lot of progress yet to be made in identifying, preventing, and responding to abusive behaviours as a society. I don't really have solutions but it's a multifaceted issue that needs solutions from all angles.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  His relationship to the community was also complicated. I stopped visiting SA 10 years ago, but even back then he'd do something unpopular like ban someone for something petty, then when people called him out on it he'd rage-quit the forums saying they were a cesspit, and focus on the front page articles for a while. Famously his rules regarding moderation of anime content caused the creation of 4chan(!). I don't know what's happened in the intervening 10 years but reading some of the comments in the linked thread it seems like everything he did every time he returned was unpopular with the community, like deleting one of the most popular subforums, and justifying it with a blatant lie. So it's not too odd for the community he created to turn on him this violently if you add in how he treated the community in addition the problems in his personal life.
prvc 5y ago
Cause of death?
- makepanic 5y ago
  See https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3984488&pagenumber=120&perpage=40#post519160186 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&th...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- genocidicbunny 5y ago
  Some of the responses on the SA thread seem to indicate he shot himself.
waltbosz 5y ago
Anyone remember ezpics?
- kalleboo 5y ago
  I wrote a/the Mac client for parsing them! I also made a winampdb client to pull your current song from iTunes, remember when everyone had one of those in their signature?
  - waltbosz 5y ago
    I wrote the original Windows client, created quite a file sharing revolution back in the day. Ahh Winamp, good ole days before AOL ruined it.
tombert 5y ago
This isn't a joke; I had actually scheduled a lunch with Lowtax for this Saturday. Despite a (let's call it) checkered past, I was extremely excited to meet him, since he's been a huge influence to my sense of humor and Something Awful was really important to me as a teenager. ------- I had found him on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, and simply sent a message explaining that I'm a fan, would love a chance to buy him lunch and chat about Something Awful and Gaming Garbage. To my surprise, he responded back with "sure, I'd be up for it". I responded back with "How does early December sound to you? something on the order of December 11?" His response was "shit I dont even know if I'll still be alive then". This response was a little weird, but this isn't exactly "off brand" humor for Lowtax, so I ignored it. I then say something to the effect of "how about something along the lines of November 13?", which he said was better. He then said "and you have my permission to stab me". Again, not off brand for Lowtax. I bought a plane ticket to Kansas City, was ready to fly out this friday. But I had this deep feeling in my stomach that what he was saying wasn't just a joke. It's pretty well documented that he's been depressed, and I dunno, upon re-reading his messages a hundred times I got a dark feeling that these might be kind of bad omens. What exactly do I do with this? I discussed it with my wife and a friend, who weren't sure what the best solution was, and I ultimately decided not to say anything. I figured I'm just some dork who stalked him on LinkedIn, and I was afraid that if I said anything he would think I'm weird and cancel our lunch date. And now this shit happened. He finally did it, and now the thought keeps playing in my brain of "what if I had said something a few weeks ago?" I know I don't owe him anything, but I can't help but have this repeated feeling of "I valued an opportunity to meet my man-crush more than I valued someone showing suicidal tendencies," and it makes me feel downright rotten. That's not the kind of person I want to be, and it makes me feel legitimately sick that that's how my brain decided to work. At some logical level I know none of this is my fault really; realistically even if I had said something, I doubt much would have changed, and I doubt I had enough there to get him committed or anything, but there's a difference between logically knowing something and feeling something. As it stands, I think there's a reasonably good chance that I will feel partly responsible for this for the rest of my life. This sucks. -------- RIP Rich. I know you had a rough last couple years, you were the definition of a "complicated person", and despite everything you will be missed.
- 5y ago
hoseja 5y ago
Goons wrote the playbook for the internet culture war.
hbag 5y ago
good riddance but he even died like a fucking scumbag
throw7 5y ago
I don't know "Fragmaster", "Lowtax", "tinathan". "Everyone knows who Lowtax is!". Yeah no. Just stop.
malwarebytess 5y ago
His ex-wife posted on the forum. Basically she pursued 3,500/mo alimony and about 90,000 cash, and won a judgement in court. Lowtax apparently had a weak moment and decided the best way out of that was suicide. Can't say I blame him. Dude was broke, deep in addiction, lost everything, became public pariah, and now was financially fucked forever. Courts are wildly imbalanced against men.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I used to visit SA regularly. A lot of the humor was tasteless, but nowhere near the level of the chans. I avoided the forums, and only read the front page stuff. What kept me coming, was that they were amazing writers (it wasn’t just him -or he wrote under several nom de plumes). His essays, done in the style of famous writers, and deadpan humor, where a story seemed serious, up until the point that you suddenly realize you’re being punked, were masterful. But it sounds like his personal life was a disaster. I have known a number of folks like that. In most cases, I always hoped that, one day, they would “come out of the cesspool,” and start to realize their potential (I have also known a number of folks that did that, too). In my experience, these people were absolutely miserable, and difficult to be around. I only ever saw his creative output, so had no other stake in his personal life. I wish his exes and children the best. It sounds like they may need it.
- arpa 5y ago
  oh man, Zack Parsons' series "the insidious beast" and "instructions for a thing" were the best series i've ever read on the web. He kind of lost me a bit later on.
  - anonygler 5y ago
    My favorite Zack parsons article from my memory: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/were-all-gonna/ https://www.somethingawful.com/news/were-all-gonna/ “Your poison womb is making heaven too fucking crowded. - Zack”
petercooper 5y ago
Others are discussing the important and serious stuff, so I wanted to touch on something more lighthearted. I was in the e/n scene so knew of SA but never got involved, and it wasn't till 2013ish when he started doing YouTube playthroughs of the worst indie 'games' he could find which were quite entertaining on their own merits and showed off people's creativity that might otherwise be ignored. Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pIFud0Bsa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pIFud0Bsa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCF-mz6Y6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCF-mz6Y6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9II_cq01hY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9II_cq01hY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRQC9c6RkeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRQC9c6RkeI
- joshmanders 5y ago
  > I was in the e/n scene Geez that's a term I haven't heard in decades! I too was in E/N during SA times. Mostly on CFUS though.
  - petercooper 5y ago
    For anyone intrigued by the term, maybe this would help: http://www.hearye.org/1999/05/whats-an-en-site/ http://www.hearye.org/1999/05/whats-an-en-site/ – bear in mind 1999 predates the popular use of the term "blog" (which appeared only in that same year) but e/n sites were, more often than not, what we'd call blogs now.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
crossroadsguy 5y ago
What’s that site? Definitely not humorous. Soft bullying forum? A place to lodge whims and cerebral flatulation? I created an account and figured it could go two ways - abandon it, or try to invent the most effective mental faeces filter human kind has seen. It’s been years.
daneel_w 5y ago
Thanks for all the "crazy shit" I got to laugh about, marvel over, be disgusted with etc. as a young Internet user in the early 2000s.
monkey_monkey 5y ago
May he rot, and be forgotten.
Kye 5y ago
One of Richard Kyanka's latter acts at Something Awful was to edit the apology to furries down to one line: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/bolgy-wolgy/ https://www.somethingawful.com/news/bolgy-wolgy/ The author on the matter: https://twitter.com/MALTSCHLITZMANN/status/1298460809341919233 https://twitter.com/MALTSCHLITZMANN/status/12984608093419192... Lowtax is definitely not going to the fun hell with all the furries he told to yiff in hell.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Svperstar 5y ago
I'm old so I remember when SomethingAwful was like 4chan and reddit combined for its time. I never actually registered an account on the forums, I was busy on other sites. My biggest issue with the SA forums is how they abused their users("Goons"). Basically. Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you registered another account("10bux"). I knew a guy who was huge into SA and contributed a lot of their photoshop Friday threads. One time there was a thread about a new movie, most people liked it but he simply said "I just left the theater a few hours ago, I didn't really dig it" he was immediately banned for "trolling" simply for sharing his opinion. He was the biggest SA user I knew at the time. I think the last thing SA contributed to internet culture was Slenderman.
- coldpie 5y ago
  I've been a forums member since 2006. The SA forums are my home on the Internet. It's definitely had its ups-and-downs, as you describe. But the forums have taken me through all of my major hobbies and interests, from video games and Internet culture, to cars, to music, to guitar. I've even made real-life friendships there. I think over the past few years, and especially since the ownership transition last year, the forums have been in a bit of a golden age. Even if you've been turned off by historical decisions, I'd really strongly suggest joining and tuning in to some of the subforums that are related to your interests. It's a really great set of communities, and overall is actually a really welcoming and progressive community, especially compared to the lowest-common-denominator free-for-all that current ad-based social media promotes.
  - Svperstar 5y ago
    I might check it out since it is under new ownership. The era of SA I knew of was 1999-2003. I haven't thought very much about SA in a long time. I started using 4chan in like 2008 and didn't even know it was made by a former SA user till I bothered to look into the history of 4chan.
    - coldpie 5y ago
nsxwolf 5y ago
I forgot how nasty those forums could be. A random post to his daughters: “kids if your reading this: i paid for your meals. fuck you. i own you b*tch”
rexreed 5y ago
I don't think we'll be seeing a black banner on HN for this one, even though his controversial history is probably highly relevant to the growth of Internet society and culture. Is there specific criteria for who gets a black banner and who doesn't?
- avree 5y ago
  I haven't seen any confirmed serial domestic abusers get black banners on HN, if that helps you figure out the metric.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I guess the ones from Khorasan will have to do.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
devteambravo 5y ago
Been married 12yrs due to a goon meetup. RIP Lowtax, -Bad games crew
rmidthun 5y ago
All this eulogy for an abusive bully. Among the many "innovations", there was a feature where he would link to a website that he thought was worthy of ridicule. Often mentioning directly that it had a guest book to sign in. So a horde of bullies would descend on that website, fill the book and any forums with goatse porn and email the same. Some of the victims shut down their websites, their complaints posted to SA so people could laugh at them. Brigading and "cancelling"... Yes, some of the humor was funny, but the site was a cesspool that festered into the chans. Let's Play is good, but the worst of the Internet was fostered here as well. The best part was when he was tricked into a boxing match with Uwe Boll, which didn't work out well for him.
- Meekro 5y ago
  Agreed. I ran across SomethingAwful when I was quite young (maybe 12-14?) and it was rather upsetting. I kept seeing calls to action that sounded like "Hey guys, let's go be mean to _____ for entertainment! Bonus points if we make them cry!" The whole culture seemed to be like that, so I closed the site and never went back. I never understood what others saw in it.
  - pas 5y ago
    Those others saw a way to cope with their own powerlessness (for having healthy IRL relationships, eg. to set boundaries, and so on). (At least this was my experience on other forums.)
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  I think it is important to remember that while SA has become normalized as a community over time, more Reddit than 4chan, at its heart it was not simply a nerd community but a community for nerds to mock other nerds. Trolling and aggression was honed at SA. In many ways it was a bigger and broader successor to alt.tasteless and other shock sites. It definitely amplified the culture of snark and misanthropy in nerd culture.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Brigading those ugly guestbooks was relatively harmless fun. The owners were usually enraged and nonplussed but didn’t feel anything of value was touched. This was before death threats and harassing employers and roping traditional news in to amplify the attack, and all that. The Uwe Boll fight was very funny. I think, though, my favorite lowtax moment was a recorded talk he gave at a university, in which he expounded on the “greater parrot-in-ass theory” about how much worse the world becomes when people with extremely niche and unacceptable interests are able to find each other online and convince each other that they’re normal and healthy. Prescient. But yes, also a bully.
lordleft 5y ago
I became a goon in 2008. For better or for worse, it shaped my life on the internet. This is a jarring headline to see, and I hope he rest in peace, and that anyone he harmed also finds peace.
namelessoracle 5y ago
There seems to be some kind of weird cult thing that goes on in nerd spaces that always involves a person with major personal problems that manages to assemble a cult of personality around themself and that cult becomes the primary means by which they support themselves. Eventually the members rebel in a coup like fashion after one of the chief henchmen who has built their own coalition see their opportunity, and either splinter off with loyalists vs rebels becoming a new fashion, or the coup attempt being successful and the space being taken over. (with new management basically acting the same as old management) You see this play out in things as pedestrian as comic book shops. The comic book shop owner doesnt display anything resembling good business sense, but they have a coterie of people who support their business out of a sense of community and do stuff to help keep the business afloat where it would otherwise fail. Eventually someone (usually someone they know fairly well) takes a chunk of his cult and opens a new comic book shop while exposing all the horrible social abuses the old owner used to heap on people on the community space they owned. This pattern repeats over and over in these kind of social spaces. Maybe this happens in all social spaces that are owned by a specific person (like churches, comedy clubs, concert venues) too and I just dont see that part of the world.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Perhaps the same could be said of all societies
- fouc 5y ago
  Ironic, Paul Graham alluded to schools being like prison, in which they devolve into a popularity contest. But I'm not sure if he considered this angle.
- tinco 5y ago
  Not a comic book shop but a games shop, but same style of community I bet. The owner dedicated half of the building to an area where people could play MtG and Warhammer and Pokémon or whatever. Us geeks would hang out there for hours after school, sometimes during. For some it was basically a second home. At some point people started to get a little too familiar and he started to remind people to be respectful of the regular customers who he said we're still responsible for the majority of the stores income. I still wonder if it was actually true, MtG and Warhammer have insane profit margins and very loyal customers spending all of their disposable income on them. Then again just supplying every single family in the country with Settlers of Catan must be big business as well.
93po 5y ago
I started reading and posting on SA religiously starting around 2003, when I was only 14 years old. It really shaped me a lot (probably not for the better) in my teenage years. I probably still hold a lot of that shaping because I still spend way too much time on reddit. I never really liked Lowtax much or thought he did much that was funny, but I did appreciate the community he built because it did feel like friends for me when I was pretty lonely. Anyway, rest in peace Rich, sorry you had such a hard life. I know the struggle. I sent a final tenbux to your kids.
sidechaining 5y ago
Can someone please explain who this is and what this site is about? I poked around a bit but couldn’t make sense of it
- 93po 5y ago
  It's mostly an internet forum that had a lot of subforums for different topics (TV, anime, drugs, etc.). Lowtax was the guy that started the forums. The forums also splintered into other projects made by other people, most famously 4chan
  - sidechaining 5y ago
    Thanks for explaining!
overgard 5y ago
I feel devastated hearing this. Whatever was happening in his personal life, its none of my business, but he was a true innovator. Also reading the message from his ex really angers me. A man was so broken he took his own life, and she's concerned about the 350 dollars a month hes not giving her. It's gross. Like seriously a man she once loved killed himself and her reaction is like "he should've payed up"
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I think her point is she was being shafted relatively speaking
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Not to mention their children he left behind.
    - overgard 5y ago
      I doubt he felt good about that. A person died lets respect that. And also as a human being genuinely fuck you. That was a person. Jesus. Im not going to pretend I new everything about his life but he had a family, a life, and thats now gone. So seriously go fuck yourself. I will never regret this comment because where the fuck are you coming from?
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        Do you know anything about Something Awful at all? Lowtax made worse mockeries in his life, callousness and crudeness was the goon way. He would not have shown you this courtesy you’re so desperate to virtue signal. Don’t try to pontificate on cultures and people you know nothing about.
        overgard 5y ago
        I followed that site since its inception. It wasn't perfect but jesus don't beat a man to death in his death. What are you even trying to accomplish? The guy built one of the most influential sites ever, and he died in a horrible way, why make this worse. You are a fucking monster Btw what really bothers me? Wtf do you know? You pose the question to me but Im guessing you never met him. So im the weirdo for grieving the death of a man that brought a lot of joy into my life and youre like "let me shit on his legacy". So again fuck off. And by the way Im NEVER going to celebrate the suicide of a person. Because I have fucking empathy. Do you?

347 points by Gelob 5y ago

Why does it say “dies” when he killed himself? And please, no trick answers. One of my favourite posts of his, why lingerie is fucking stupid: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3863579 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=38...

lotophage 5y ago
Did he not die?
- vadfa 5y ago
  When someone gets killed or kills himself we don't usually say he's "died". The verb "died" in some way has a sense of having been an accident or simply passing because one is too old.
  - orra 5y ago
    Actually, no, saying somebody "died of suicide" is preferred language[1]. It's important when reporting on suicide deaths not to glorify suicide. Copy cat suicides are a real risk. Words like "successful" have a harmful effect. In fact, the media often doesn't state the cause of death, to prevent copy cats. On the other hand, you don't want to dæmonize depressed people living with suicidal thoughts. "Committed" would imply people with suicidal thoughts are considering sinning or acting like a criminal, which isn't the case. Suicidal thoughts are serious, but people with them aren't evil, and should reach out for help and support. [1] https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/language-matters-committed-suicide https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/language-mat...
    - vadfa 5y ago
      "killed himself"
      - orra 5y ago
        What is your point? That clearly isn't typical terminology for news reporting. Moreover, I explained it is bad terminology, for it trivializes and normalises suicide.
corobo 5y ago
That information came out a few hours after this thread was posted if HN/SA's timestamps are showing the right times

alexose 5y ago

Link to Fragmaster's eulogy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UkcZ4LtSE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UkcZ4LtSE8

smcl 5y ago
A Doom House!?

lolski 5y ago

I don't know whether he's a good / bad person, but what I know is that I grew up with SA and this saddens me.

hprotagonist 5y ago

d-did he have stairs in his house?

Bluecobra 5y ago
Apparently he was not protected after all...

curuinor 5y ago

Someone on twitter was talking about the Franz Ferdinand insane ripples of the man's decision to ban anime pornography on his site: 1. He bans it 2. One "moot" was then currently showing around his futaba channel clone "4chan" and not getting many bites 3. The pornography-obsessed people decide to abscond to 4chan en masse, determining the culture of /b/ and all that 4. This leads to the proliferation of fascism and other foolish ideology in /b/ and eventually to the quarantine zone, /pol/ 5. Someone starts posting as "qanon" 6. A depressing number of people start believing in that crap 7. Many depressing things e: looks like 4chan also has a banner for the occassion: " RIP Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka Our dad who disowned us" which one would surmise would also describe moot. Who wouldn't disown 4chan if it was created from their actions?

throwaway2077 5y ago
- porn wasn't the defining feature of /b/ - qanon thing originated on another chan and it didn't have a cult following on /pol/, where people generally lost interest in trump pretty early into his presidency and largely denounced him by the end of it, although for very different reasons than everyone else
sweetbitter 5y ago
>Who wouldn't disown 4chan if it was created from their actions? Coincidentally, the current owner of 4chan[0] happens to be the original owner of futaba channel (2ch), so the answer to that question is one Hiroyuki Nishimura. Also, I am sure that a significant portion of imageboard users feel satisfied by the chaos they have sown; they aren't disgusted by it, they really lust for it, and that is how they have always been. [0] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2015/09/23/4chan-sold-hiroyuki-nishimura-qa-christoper-poole-moot-new-owner/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2015/09/23/4chan-s...
- noduerme 5y ago
  >> and that is how they have always been Technically, before they were given computers and internet access by smart people, they only raped their daughters and terrorized their local trailer park.

dirtyid 5y ago

"the internet makes you stupid"

donatj 5y ago

Well dang, that sucks. Something Awful circa 2003 really shaped my sense of humor as a teen. Photoshop Phriday was something I and all my friends waited for each week. In my opinion this deserves the black bar.

smt88 5y ago
By all accounts, the good things about Something Awful were in spite of Kyanka rather than because of him. He neglected the site for many years before selling it. He was also a terrible person who serially abused his wives and girlfriends. His site was very influential (in good and bad ways), but that doesn't mean he is someone we should canonize or mourn.
- HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
  I doubt you have much direct information about him being a "terrible person" or the abuse he's alleged to have committed. Do you suppose it's possible that he was intelligent and creative and troubled and flawed? That's not such an uncommon combination of elements in a person.
- serf 5y ago
  >He was also a terrible person who serially abused his wives and girlfriends. >His site was very influential (in good and bad ways), but that doesn't mean he is someone we should canonize or mourn. "You know what they say, speak ill of the dead!" - Norm MacDonald. A person need not be wholesome or kind to warrant mourning their death. Even if you despise the person, their death has caused real human suffering and pain among those around and associated to them. fwiw I think it's incredibly tacky to go into a what is in essence a memorial thread to post a list of grievances against a dead person that has no means of explanation or defense. I don't know about Lowtax's personal life -- this isn't a comment on that; it's a comment about those that feel the compulsion to post vitriol on memorials. If you feel the need to shine light on the despicable , make a thread and let's discuss it there -- that way we at least stand the chance of sparing the bereaved.
  - 5y ago

MrLeap 5y ago

SA in the early 00's was really special. It was like someone dumped a whole chemical supply closet into a pot and brought it to a boil. Equal parts trash and alchemy. Gold was inexplicably made there, and as long as you had your kitty litter scoop it was easy to find.

lollowtax 5y ago
Goons screwing around with Poser was probably peak gold or close to it. The large-scale projects like Goon City and Goon Tower stick with me as inspirational with respect to what spontaneous groups of idiots can accomplish pushing in the same direction.
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  Goonswarm is still dominating in EVE Online.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  > The large-scale projects You just reminded me of the Blue Ball Machine https://ytmnd-fads.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Ball_Machine https://ytmnd-fads.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Ball_Machine
  - rexreed 5y ago
    Quite a piece of work! https://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/ https://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/
- dkdbejwi383 5y ago
  Failed goon projects, too, like the "amazing innovative RPG that does away with all the cliches", which was inevitably completed cliched and gave us johnny.jpg Also the Goon Island idea that came up all the time: if every goon contributed $10, we could buy an island and it would be a paradise.
  - Apfel 5y ago

extortionist 5y ago

He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It's important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can't be set aside. At the same time, SA's influence on the modern internet can't be understated. The 'image macro' of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today's common meme image--impact font text over a silly image, easily accessible to anyone who wants to post it. Many of today's well-known internet comedians and writers grew up with the site. And it's hard to estimate how big the impact (positive or negative) of things like ADTRW leading to 4chan have been, not to mention things like the rise of Let's Play videos, or the creation and eventual shutdown of BitTorrent Barnyard (and its ensuing spinoffs). The site itself still remains one of the last vestiges of the old internet--one of the few sites that both survived and managed not sell out and go headlong into monetization--and as a result, is one of the last sites on the modern internet that (maybe ironically) is not entirely awful.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xenihn 5y ago
I remember hearing that image macros originated on TribalWar (a forum for Starsiege: Tribes), but they were definitely popularized by SA
- busterarm 5y ago
  Shazbot!
  - mjfl 5y ago
    I am the greatest.
    - ghuntley 5y ago
      VGH

harles 5y ago

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the domestic abuse allegations. The Something Awful forums almost completely melted down because of that, and it’s certainly left me with a very negative final impression of the man who’s sense of humor I once idolized.

snowl 5y ago
See: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3984488&pagenumber=120&perpage=40#post519160186 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&th...
- ralfd 5y ago
  > An hour later I was contacted by my attorney who informed me that Rich had shot himself earlier in the morning. > So. There it is. His other ex and I got to tell our children that their father died without saying goodbye to them, or that he loved them, or to my knowledge, left a note for them. This rubs me the wrong way. Also the countless posts dissing someone who committed suicide.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    That's just goon culture, though. The same culture that Lowtax helped to invent.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    What rubs me the wrong way is that he shot himself an HOUR after the judge ruled he would lose his daughter and what sounds like huge amount of money. The explanation from the ex-wife sounds very fishy as well. > confirmed his treatment of me was Domestic Violence * this is not for a divorce court to decide. This is a criminal offense not civil. Something feels off.. >He was due to get our daughter for Christmas * thats brutal he doesn't get to see his daughter for months at a time? >help me and my daughter stay in our home in Canada and allow me to provide a good life for her * define good life? Taking all of a guys money would definitely provide a good life for someone. This piece sounds very carefully written to make the wife look like the good person and demonize the dude. But I would be willing to bet it's not that simple. """" Yesterday I recieved a divorce ruling that would help me and my daughter stay in our home in Canada and allow me to provide a good life for her as well as pay back numerous debts that had accrued during the past two years when I was receiving $350 a month in child support. In the divorce ruling the judge found that Rich had willfully spent down the martial fund, confirmed his treatment of me was Domestic Violence and put together a plan to pay for the attorney fees etc. He would still retain custody settled on previously in mediation. He was due to get our daughter for Christmas. An hour later I was contacted by my attorney who informed me that Rich had shot himself earlier in the morning. """

makeitrain 5y ago

I am so fascinated by all of this. The impact on internet history and culture. The challenges of creating and growing communities. The lifestyles and faults of leaders and the controversial realities we live in. I know about SA, but was never an active participant. Likewise I know about 4chan and other communities. From reading the first page of this thread, it seems very critical of the creator of the community. Even at a glance I can tell that is because of the personal flaws of that person, the mistakes they've made in their life, and how they hurt other people. I feel like it is such a shame for this to be your legacy to your community. I feel like we lost a pioneer, but it's now on us to learn from their mistakes and continue to build communities that we want to be in.

parksy 5y ago
I think what these stories reveal is just how much people underestimate how common domestic abuse is and it doesn't appear to discriminate based on status, fame, career choice, etc. As far as building healthier communities and what we can learn, I think it's definitely healthy to maintain and continue to improve the focus on helping victims and prevent potential victims from becoming a target of abuse. Everyone should be able to be part of a safe community without fear of harm. I think there's another dimension that is significantly less popular, which is about enabling people who may have abusive tendencies to get the help they need. Society generally wants to dismiss and discard these people but that just pushes the problem into the shadows, as it's social suicide basically to come forward and say "I need help, I can't control my behaviour / keep hurting people / etc." Especially if you have any degree of publicity around your life and career. Cancel culture was like a spark that started a fire that shone a light into these dark spaces, and some people are trash that need to be called out and exposed, especially people who get their rocks off on abuse, but there's shades of grey in between "victim" and "abuser" that don't fit the conventional good guy vs bad guy stereotypes, and it's in that realm I think there's a lot of progress yet to be made in identifying, preventing, and responding to abusive behaviours as a society. I don't really have solutions but it's a multifaceted issue that needs solutions from all angles.
kalleboo 5y ago
His relationship to the community was also complicated. I stopped visiting SA 10 years ago, but even back then he'd do something unpopular like ban someone for something petty, then when people called him out on it he'd rage-quit the forums saying they were a cesspit, and focus on the front page articles for a while. Famously his rules regarding moderation of anime content caused the creation of 4chan(!). I don't know what's happened in the intervening 10 years but reading some of the comments in the linked thread it seems like everything he did every time he returned was unpopular with the community, like deleting one of the most popular subforums, and justifying it with a blatant lie. So it's not too odd for the community he created to turn on him this violently if you add in how he treated the community in addition the problems in his personal life.

prvc 5y ago

Cause of death?

makepanic 5y ago
See https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3984488&pagenumber=120&perpage=40#post519160186 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&th...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
genocidicbunny 5y ago
Some of the responses on the SA thread seem to indicate he shot himself.

waltbosz 5y ago

Anyone remember ezpics?

kalleboo 5y ago
I wrote a/the Mac client for parsing them! I also made a winampdb client to pull your current song from iTunes, remember when everyone had one of those in their signature?
- waltbosz 5y ago
  I wrote the original Windows client, created quite a file sharing revolution back in the day. Ahh Winamp, good ole days before AOL ruined it.

tombert 5y ago

This isn't a joke; I had actually scheduled a lunch with Lowtax for this Saturday. Despite a (let's call it) checkered past, I was extremely excited to meet him, since he's been a huge influence to my sense of humor and Something Awful was really important to me as a teenager. ------- I had found him on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, and simply sent a message explaining that I'm a fan, would love a chance to buy him lunch and chat about Something Awful and Gaming Garbage. To my surprise, he responded back with "sure, I'd be up for it". I responded back with "How does early December sound to you? something on the order of December 11?" His response was "shit I dont even know if I'll still be alive then". This response was a little weird, but this isn't exactly "off brand" humor for Lowtax, so I ignored it. I then say something to the effect of "how about something along the lines of November 13?", which he said was better. He then said "and you have my permission to stab me". Again, not off brand for Lowtax. I bought a plane ticket to Kansas City, was ready to fly out this friday. But I had this deep feeling in my stomach that what he was saying wasn't just a joke. It's pretty well documented that he's been depressed, and I dunno, upon re-reading his messages a hundred times I got a dark feeling that these might be kind of bad omens. What exactly do I do with this? I discussed it with my wife and a friend, who weren't sure what the best solution was, and I ultimately decided not to say anything. I figured I'm just some dork who stalked him on LinkedIn, and I was afraid that if I said anything he would think I'm weird and cancel our lunch date. And now this shit happened. He finally did it, and now the thought keeps playing in my brain of "what if I had said something a few weeks ago?" I know I don't owe him anything, but I can't help but have this repeated feeling of "I valued an opportunity to meet my man-crush more than I valued someone showing suicidal tendencies," and it makes me feel downright rotten. That's not the kind of person I want to be, and it makes me feel legitimately sick that that's how my brain decided to work. At some logical level I know none of this is my fault really; realistically even if I had said something, I doubt much would have changed, and I doubt I had enough there to get him committed or anything, but there's a difference between logically knowing something and feeling something. As it stands, I think there's a reasonably good chance that I will feel partly responsible for this for the rest of my life. This sucks. -------- RIP Rich. I know you had a rough last couple years, you were the definition of a "complicated person", and despite everything you will be missed.

5y ago

hoseja 5y ago

Goons wrote the playbook for the internet culture war.

hbag 5y ago

good riddance but he even died like a fucking scumbag

throw7 5y ago

I don't know "Fragmaster", "Lowtax", "tinathan". "Everyone knows who Lowtax is!". Yeah no. Just stop.

malwarebytess 5y ago

His ex-wife posted on the forum. Basically she pursued 3,500/mo alimony and about 90,000 cash, and won a judgement in court. Lowtax apparently had a weak moment and decided the best way out of that was suicide. Can't say I blame him. Dude was broke, deep in addiction, lost everything, became public pariah, and now was financially fucked forever. Courts are wildly imbalanced against men.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I used to visit SA regularly. A lot of the humor was tasteless, but nowhere near the level of the chans. I avoided the forums, and only read the front page stuff. What kept me coming, was that they were amazing writers (it wasn’t just him -or he wrote under several nom de plumes). His essays, done in the style of famous writers, and deadpan humor, where a story seemed serious, up until the point that you suddenly realize you’re being punked, were masterful. But it sounds like his personal life was a disaster. I have known a number of folks like that. In most cases, I always hoped that, one day, they would “come out of the cesspool,” and start to realize their potential (I have also known a number of folks that did that, too). In my experience, these people were absolutely miserable, and difficult to be around. I only ever saw his creative output, so had no other stake in his personal life. I wish his exes and children the best. It sounds like they may need it.

arpa 5y ago
oh man, Zack Parsons' series "the insidious beast" and "instructions for a thing" were the best series i've ever read on the web. He kind of lost me a bit later on.
- anonygler 5y ago
  My favorite Zack parsons article from my memory: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/were-all-gonna/ https://www.somethingawful.com/news/were-all-gonna/ “Your poison womb is making heaven too fucking crowded. - Zack”

petercooper 5y ago

Others are discussing the important and serious stuff, so I wanted to touch on something more lighthearted. I was in the e/n scene so knew of SA but never got involved, and it wasn't till 2013ish when he started doing YouTube playthroughs of the worst indie 'games' he could find which were quite entertaining on their own merits and showed off people's creativity that might otherwise be ignored. Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pIFud0Bsa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pIFud0Bsa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCF-mz6Y6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCF-mz6Y6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9II_cq01hY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9II_cq01hY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRQC9c6RkeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRQC9c6RkeI

joshmanders 5y ago
> I was in the e/n scene Geez that's a term I haven't heard in decades! I too was in E/N during SA times. Mostly on CFUS though.
- petercooper 5y ago
  For anyone intrigued by the term, maybe this would help: http://www.hearye.org/1999/05/whats-an-en-site/ http://www.hearye.org/1999/05/whats-an-en-site/ – bear in mind 1999 predates the popular use of the term "blog" (which appeared only in that same year) but e/n sites were, more often than not, what we'd call blogs now.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

crossroadsguy 5y ago

What’s that site? Definitely not humorous. Soft bullying forum? A place to lodge whims and cerebral flatulation? I created an account and figured it could go two ways - abandon it, or try to invent the most effective mental faeces filter human kind has seen. It’s been years.

daneel_w 5y ago

Thanks for all the "crazy shit" I got to laugh about, marvel over, be disgusted with etc. as a young Internet user in the early 2000s.

monkey_monkey 5y ago

May he rot, and be forgotten.

Kye 5y ago

One of Richard Kyanka's latter acts at Something Awful was to edit the apology to furries down to one line: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/bolgy-wolgy/ https://www.somethingawful.com/news/bolgy-wolgy/ The author on the matter: https://twitter.com/MALTSCHLITZMANN/status/1298460809341919233 https://twitter.com/MALTSCHLITZMANN/status/12984608093419192... Lowtax is definitely not going to the fun hell with all the furries he told to yiff in hell.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Svperstar 5y ago

I'm old so I remember when SomethingAwful was like 4chan and reddit combined for its time. I never actually registered an account on the forums, I was busy on other sites. My biggest issue with the SA forums is how they abused their users("Goons"). Basically. Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you registered another account("10bux"). I knew a guy who was huge into SA and contributed a lot of their photoshop Friday threads. One time there was a thread about a new movie, most people liked it but he simply said "I just left the theater a few hours ago, I didn't really dig it" he was immediately banned for "trolling" simply for sharing his opinion. He was the biggest SA user I knew at the time. I think the last thing SA contributed to internet culture was Slenderman.

coldpie 5y ago
I've been a forums member since 2006. The SA forums are my home on the Internet. It's definitely had its ups-and-downs, as you describe. But the forums have taken me through all of my major hobbies and interests, from video games and Internet culture, to cars, to music, to guitar. I've even made real-life friendships there. I think over the past few years, and especially since the ownership transition last year, the forums have been in a bit of a golden age. Even if you've been turned off by historical decisions, I'd really strongly suggest joining and tuning in to some of the subforums that are related to your interests. It's a really great set of communities, and overall is actually a really welcoming and progressive community, especially compared to the lowest-common-denominator free-for-all that current ad-based social media promotes.
- Svperstar 5y ago
  I might check it out since it is under new ownership. The era of SA I knew of was 1999-2003. I haven't thought very much about SA in a long time. I started using 4chan in like 2008 and didn't even know it was made by a former SA user till I bothered to look into the history of 4chan.
  - coldpie 5y ago

nsxwolf 5y ago

I forgot how nasty those forums could be. A random post to his daughters: “kids if your reading this: i paid for your meals. fuck you. i own you b*tch”

rexreed 5y ago

I don't think we'll be seeing a black banner on HN for this one, even though his controversial history is probably highly relevant to the growth of Internet society and culture. Is there specific criteria for who gets a black banner and who doesn't?

avree 5y ago
I haven't seen any confirmed serial domestic abusers get black banners on HN, if that helps you figure out the metric.
selimthegrim 5y ago
I guess the ones from Khorasan will have to do.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

devteambravo 5y ago

Been married 12yrs due to a goon meetup. RIP Lowtax, -Bad games crew

rmidthun 5y ago

All this eulogy for an abusive bully. Among the many "innovations", there was a feature where he would link to a website that he thought was worthy of ridicule. Often mentioning directly that it had a guest book to sign in. So a horde of bullies would descend on that website, fill the book and any forums with goatse porn and email the same. Some of the victims shut down their websites, their complaints posted to SA so people could laugh at them. Brigading and "cancelling"... Yes, some of the humor was funny, but the site was a cesspool that festered into the chans. Let's Play is good, but the worst of the Internet was fostered here as well. The best part was when he was tricked into a boxing match with Uwe Boll, which didn't work out well for him.

Meekro 5y ago
Agreed. I ran across SomethingAwful when I was quite young (maybe 12-14?) and it was rather upsetting. I kept seeing calls to action that sounded like "Hey guys, let's go be mean to _____ for entertainment! Bonus points if we make them cry!" The whole culture seemed to be like that, so I closed the site and never went back. I never understood what others saw in it.
- pas 5y ago
  Those others saw a way to cope with their own powerlessness (for having healthy IRL relationships, eg. to set boundaries, and so on). (At least this was my experience on other forums.)
Apocryphon 5y ago
I think it is important to remember that while SA has become normalized as a community over time, more Reddit than 4chan, at its heart it was not simply a nerd community but a community for nerds to mock other nerds. Trolling and aggression was honed at SA. In many ways it was a bigger and broader successor to alt.tasteless and other shock sites. It definitely amplified the culture of snark and misanthropy in nerd culture.
1123581321 5y ago
Brigading those ugly guestbooks was relatively harmless fun. The owners were usually enraged and nonplussed but didn’t feel anything of value was touched. This was before death threats and harassing employers and roping traditional news in to amplify the attack, and all that. The Uwe Boll fight was very funny. I think, though, my favorite lowtax moment was a recorded talk he gave at a university, in which he expounded on the “greater parrot-in-ass theory” about how much worse the world becomes when people with extremely niche and unacceptable interests are able to find each other online and convince each other that they’re normal and healthy. Prescient. But yes, also a bully.

lordleft 5y ago

I became a goon in 2008. For better or for worse, it shaped my life on the internet. This is a jarring headline to see, and I hope he rest in peace, and that anyone he harmed also finds peace.

namelessoracle 5y ago

There seems to be some kind of weird cult thing that goes on in nerd spaces that always involves a person with major personal problems that manages to assemble a cult of personality around themself and that cult becomes the primary means by which they support themselves. Eventually the members rebel in a coup like fashion after one of the chief henchmen who has built their own coalition see their opportunity, and either splinter off with loyalists vs rebels becoming a new fashion, or the coup attempt being successful and the space being taken over. (with new management basically acting the same as old management) You see this play out in things as pedestrian as comic book shops. The comic book shop owner doesnt display anything resembling good business sense, but they have a coterie of people who support their business out of a sense of community and do stuff to help keep the business afloat where it would otherwise fail. Eventually someone (usually someone they know fairly well) takes a chunk of his cult and opens a new comic book shop while exposing all the horrible social abuses the old owner used to heap on people on the community space they owned. This pattern repeats over and over in these kind of social spaces. Maybe this happens in all social spaces that are owned by a specific person (like churches, comedy clubs, concert venues) too and I just dont see that part of the world.

Apocryphon 5y ago
Perhaps the same could be said of all societies
fouc 5y ago
Ironic, Paul Graham alluded to schools being like prison, in which they devolve into a popularity contest. But I'm not sure if he considered this angle.
tinco 5y ago
Not a comic book shop but a games shop, but same style of community I bet. The owner dedicated half of the building to an area where people could play MtG and Warhammer and Pokémon or whatever. Us geeks would hang out there for hours after school, sometimes during. For some it was basically a second home. At some point people started to get a little too familiar and he started to remind people to be respectful of the regular customers who he said we're still responsible for the majority of the stores income. I still wonder if it was actually true, MtG and Warhammer have insane profit margins and very loyal customers spending all of their disposable income on them. Then again just supplying every single family in the country with Settlers of Catan must be big business as well.

93po 5y ago

I started reading and posting on SA religiously starting around 2003, when I was only 14 years old. It really shaped me a lot (probably not for the better) in my teenage years. I probably still hold a lot of that shaping because I still spend way too much time on reddit. I never really liked Lowtax much or thought he did much that was funny, but I did appreciate the community he built because it did feel like friends for me when I was pretty lonely. Anyway, rest in peace Rich, sorry you had such a hard life. I know the struggle. I sent a final tenbux to your kids.

sidechaining 5y ago

Can someone please explain who this is and what this site is about? I poked around a bit but couldn’t make sense of it

93po 5y ago
It's mostly an internet forum that had a lot of subforums for different topics (TV, anime, drugs, etc.). Lowtax was the guy that started the forums. The forums also splintered into other projects made by other people, most famously 4chan
- sidechaining 5y ago
  Thanks for explaining!

overgard 5y ago

I feel devastated hearing this. Whatever was happening in his personal life, its none of my business, but he was a true innovator. Also reading the message from his ex really angers me. A man was so broken he took his own life, and she's concerned about the 350 dollars a month hes not giving her. It's gross. Like seriously a man she once loved killed himself and her reaction is like "he should've payed up"

selimthegrim 5y ago
I think her point is she was being shafted relatively speaking
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Not to mention their children he left behind.
  - overgard 5y ago
    I doubt he felt good about that. A person died lets respect that. And also as a human being genuinely fuck you. That was a person. Jesus. Im not going to pretend I new everything about his life but he had a family, a life, and thats now gone. So seriously go fuck yourself. I will never regret this comment because where the fuck are you coming from?
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Do you know anything about Something Awful at all? Lowtax made worse mockeries in his life, callousness and crudeness was the goon way. He would not have shown you this courtesy you’re so desperate to virtue signal. Don’t try to pontificate on cultures and people you know nothing about.
      - overgard 5y ago
        I followed that site since its inception. It wasn't perfect but jesus don't beat a man to death in his death. What are you even trying to accomplish? The guy built one of the most influential sites ever, and he died in a horrible way, why make this worse. You are a fucking monster Btw what really bothers me? Wtf do you know? You pose the question to me but Im guessing you never met him. So im the weirdo for grieving the death of a man that brought a lot of joy into my life and youre like "let me shit on his legacy". So again fuck off. And by the way Im NEVER going to celebrate the suicide of a person. Because I have fucking empathy. Do you?