Something Awful
Encyclopedia
Something Awful, often abbreviated to SA, is a comedy
website
housing a variety of content, including blog
entries, forums
, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so did its contributors and content. Since then, the website has helped to perpetuate various internet phenomena, and has been cited as an influence on internet culture.
Since the website's creation, its forums have amassed over 165,000 accounts, and the website in general has been involved in a number of notable events. These include a conflict with the Spam Prevention Early Warning System
, a Hurricane Katrina
relief fund being caught in PayPal
's red tape
, and an exhibition boxing match between Kyanka and movie director Uwe Boll
.
who remains in control of the site but is supported by other contributing writers and administrators.
Kyanka started Something Awful several months before leaving his previous job, after using his "Cranky Steve" persona to write a comedic website update deriding the attitude and work performance of a fellow Planet Quake administrator. The original idea for the website arose when Kyanka was a student at Turtle Mountain Community College
. He moved the "Cranky Steve" personality he had created to the Something Awful site in 1999. In the years immediately following Something Awful's launch, several sponsors, including GameFan and eFront
, failed to compensate Kyanka as promised for advertising on the site.
In 2001, the site began charging an activation fee (currently US$
9.95) for forum access. Non-members are not able to post messages or threads. The site and forums draw continuous income from fees for new accounts, forum upgrades such as custom avatars and access to the forum archives and search features, and merchandise sales.
(SPEWS) added an entire class-B subnet with the Cogent
ISP to their spammer list, since Cogent was hosting a known spammer that SPEWS found difficult to block. Something Awful was added to the list in the process, disrupting its ability to communicate with its customers who were using SPEWS. Upon appeal, SPEWS initially refused to delist SA. The Something Awful administrators responded by telling their users to post their support in the Usenet
newsgroup
news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting. However, that group and news.admin.net-abuse.email were flooded with off-topic posts and trolls from Something Awful users, incensing SPEWS advocates. The SA administrators claimed that SPEWS was attempting to hack the Something Awful server. Forum users responded by threatening to perform a distributed denial of service attack on SPEWS, although this type of behavior was strongly discouraged by Kyanka and assistant editor Zack Parsons.
account where people could donate money to the survivors of the hurricane via the Red Cross
. Kyanka put in $3,000 of his own money,
and promised to give some free merchandise to anyone who donated more than $10.
In under half a day, visitors helped to raise US$
27,695.41 before PayPal froze the account under suspicions of fraud; automated messages said that there had been "more than one report of suspicious behavior from your buyers."
PayPal stated that they would unfreeze the account once it was provided with proof of shipping from aggrieved buyers. Due to the nature of the collection, there were no actual "buyers", and it was impossible to provide proof of shipping for an intangible good such as a donation. Eventually, Kyanka contacted a customer service representative over the phone, and asked to have PayPal donate all of the money to the Red Cross
. However, he was told that PayPal would only give the money to United Way of America due to their business affiliation; Kyanka initially agreed, but after receiving several emails from readers detailing alleged corruption and inefficiency within United Way, he changed his mind and told PayPal to refund all of the money to the individual donors. PayPal refunded the money, but did not refund exchange and handling fees for international donors.
seminar hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery. The presentation, "Enabling the Online Community through Vertical PSOTs and Automated Adverse Content Delivery Systems", primarily focused on Kyanka's professional history, the development of Something Awful, and internet subculture.
, who had offered to fight critics of his movies in a series of 10-round boxing matches. Something Awful had posted a humorous review that was critical of one of his films. The event took place in Vancouver
, British Columbia
on September 23, 2006; after being knocked down several times and eventually forfeiting the fight in the first round, Kyanka claimed that he had been told by Boll, a trained amateur boxer, that the fight would be just for show. To that effect, Kyanka had acted like a silent film comedy character during the fight rather than seriously attempt to fight Uwe Boll.
several days before embarking on a shooting, in which he killed two people before committing suicide. Freund had stated in the thread, which was closed before the killing spree, along with his ability to post comments being revoked, that he intended to use the ammunition to defend his Halloween pumpkins from vandals.
On September 25, 2007, a forum user posted a thread about a double homicide in Oviedo, Florida
that involved an acquaintance. As the thread grew, other forum users eventually found the website of Andrew Allred, who posted on the forums as "Bomber166". The website contained significant details about the victims and the murder; Allred's account was subsequently banned and Allred himself was later arraigned on two counts of homicide, attempted murder and armed burglary. He has since pleaded guilty to the murders of Tiffany Barwick and Michael Ruschack.
Attack of the Show. He made several absurd claims, such as that the site started up as a monster truck
rally newsletter and that the forums were a front for a cult that required a registration fee of $80 per month.
On June 4, 2007, website columnist Jon "DocEvil" Hendren wrote "The Art of Wikigroaning", coining the term wikigroaning. Wikigroaning is a game in which readers explore two Wikipedia
articles with similar topics of contrasting seriousness, such as half-life
(the scientific concept) and Half-Life (the game), and compare the length and comprehensive depth of the articles. Hendren's article was featured in the Wall Street Journal.
s, which charge an initial registration fee of US$9.95, and fees ranging from US$4.99 to US$29.99 for additional features.
The forums have helped to perpetuate Internet memes, such as All your base are belong to us
and Tourist guy
. The forum's users refer to themselves as "Goons". A weekly activity is "Photoshop Phriday", where users will modify existing images to create parodies through the use of image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop
. Another periodic activity is "The Blue Ball Machine", where users create animated images that tile together in such a way as to appear like a seamless whole; these tiles are incorporated into a screensaver which displays them in random order. The feature gained popularity when users on the website YTMND
looped the animation to music from Pee-wee's Big Adventure
. The website also highlights some of what its administrators believe to be exceptional forum threads in the Comedy Goldmine feature. A forum member also launched 4chan
.
During Entertainment Weekly
s 2001 "Entertainer of the Year" contest, in which votes are submitted online, forum users quickly found a weakness in the voting system, and scripts were written to vote for Kyanka dozens of times per second, thus ensuring his victory. Kyanka was quickly disqualified when Entertainment Weekly found that many of the votes were coming from very few IP addresses. Kyanka did, however, get his name mentioned on their website.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
housing a variety of content, including blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
entries, forums
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so did its contributors and content. Since then, the website has helped to perpetuate various internet phenomena, and has been cited as an influence on internet culture.
Since the website's creation, its forums have amassed over 165,000 accounts, and the website in general has been involved in a number of notable events. These include a conflict with the Spam Prevention Early Warning System
Spam Prevention Early Warning System
The Spam Prevention Early Warning System was an anonymous service which maintained a list of IP address ranges belonging to Internet service providers which host spammers and show little action to prevent their abuse of other networks' resources...
, a Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
relief fund being caught in PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
's red tape
Red tape
Red tape is excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making...
, and an exhibition boxing match between Kyanka and movie director Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll is a German director, producer and screenwriter, whose work includes several films adapted from video games. He finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. He is often cited as the worst director of all time.-Early life:...
.
History
Something Awful was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka,who remains in control of the site but is supported by other contributing writers and administrators.
Kyanka started Something Awful several months before leaving his previous job, after using his "Cranky Steve" persona to write a comedic website update deriding the attitude and work performance of a fellow Planet Quake administrator. The original idea for the website arose when Kyanka was a student at Turtle Mountain Community College
Turtle Mountain Community College
Turtle Mountain Community College is a tribal college in Belcourt, North Dakota. It was founded by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in 1972 and offers two-year Associate degrees in a number of subjects as well as four-year Bachelor degrees in elementary and secondary science.-External...
. He moved the "Cranky Steve" personality he had created to the Something Awful site in 1999. In the years immediately following Something Awful's launch, several sponsors, including GameFan and eFront
Efront
eFront was an affiliate marketing network which purchased successful websites, such as Penny Arcade and BetaNews, and pooled traffic to those sites to command higher prices for advertising during an industry wide ad revenue slowdown...
, failed to compensate Kyanka as promised for advertising on the site.
In 2001, the site began charging an activation fee (currently US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
9.95) for forum access. Non-members are not able to post messages or threads. The site and forums draw continuous income from fees for new accounts, forum upgrades such as custom avatars and access to the forum archives and search features, and merchandise sales.
Spam Prevention Early Warning System
On July 20, 2003, the spam filtering organization Spam Prevention Early Warning SystemSpam Prevention Early Warning System
The Spam Prevention Early Warning System was an anonymous service which maintained a list of IP address ranges belonging to Internet service providers which host spammers and show little action to prevent their abuse of other networks' resources...
(SPEWS) added an entire class-B subnet with the Cogent
Cogent Communications
Cogent Communications is a multinational internet service provider whose network spans more than 53,300 intercity fiber route miles and 15,800 metro fiber miles. Cogent provides service in over 165 markets across 31 countries in North America and Europe...
ISP to their spammer list, since Cogent was hosting a known spammer that SPEWS found difficult to block. Something Awful was added to the list in the process, disrupting its ability to communicate with its customers who were using SPEWS. Upon appeal, SPEWS initially refused to delist SA. The Something Awful administrators responded by telling their users to post their support in the Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup
Newsgroup
A usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting. However, that group and news.admin.net-abuse.email were flooded with off-topic posts and trolls from Something Awful users, incensing SPEWS advocates. The SA administrators claimed that SPEWS was attempting to hack the Something Awful server. Forum users responded by threatening to perform a distributed denial of service attack on SPEWS, although this type of behavior was strongly discouraged by Kyanka and assistant editor Zack Parsons.
Hurricane Katrina charity
Since the website's servers were located in New Orleans, the site temporarily went offline in August 2005 during the flooding from Hurricane Katrina. After the site was brought to a semi-functional state, Kyanka set up a link to a PayPalPayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
account where people could donate money to the survivors of the hurricane via the Red Cross
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human...
. Kyanka put in $3,000 of his own money,
and promised to give some free merchandise to anyone who donated more than $10.
In under half a day, visitors helped to raise US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
27,695.41 before PayPal froze the account under suspicions of fraud; automated messages said that there had been "more than one report of suspicious behavior from your buyers."
PayPal stated that they would unfreeze the account once it was provided with proof of shipping from aggrieved buyers. Due to the nature of the collection, there were no actual "buyers", and it was impossible to provide proof of shipping for an intangible good such as a donation. Eventually, Kyanka contacted a customer service representative over the phone, and asked to have PayPal donate all of the money to the Red Cross
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross , also known as the American National Red Cross, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S...
. However, he was told that PayPal would only give the money to United Way of America due to their business affiliation; Kyanka initially agreed, but after receiving several emails from readers detailing alleged corruption and inefficiency within United Way, he changed his mind and told PayPal to refund all of the money to the individual donors. PayPal refunded the money, but did not refund exchange and handling fees for international donors.
Public appearances
In October 2005, Richard Kyanka was invited to speak at the University of Illinois for their reflections❘projectionsReflections Projections
Reflections Projections is an annual technology-related conference hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery...
seminar hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery. The presentation, "Enabling the Online Community through Vertical PSOTs and Automated Adverse Content Delivery Systems", primarily focused on Kyanka's professional history, the development of Something Awful, and internet subculture.
Uwe Boll fight
In June 2006, Kyanka accepted an open challenge from German movie director Uwe BollUwe Boll
Uwe Boll is a German director, producer and screenwriter, whose work includes several films adapted from video games. He finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. He is often cited as the worst director of all time.-Early life:...
, who had offered to fight critics of his movies in a series of 10-round boxing matches. Something Awful had posted a humorous review that was critical of one of his films. The event took place in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
on September 23, 2006; after being knocked down several times and eventually forfeiting the fight in the first round, Kyanka claimed that he had been told by Boll, a trained amateur boxer, that the fight would be just for show. To that effect, Kyanka had acted like a silent film comedy character during the fight rather than seriously attempt to fight Uwe Boll.
Shooting deaths
In 2005, William Freund sought advice in the Something Awful gun subforum about purchasing Hevi-Shot brand ammunitionAmmunition
Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
several days before embarking on a shooting, in which he killed two people before committing suicide. Freund had stated in the thread, which was closed before the killing spree, along with his ability to post comments being revoked, that he intended to use the ammunition to defend his Halloween pumpkins from vandals.
On September 25, 2007, a forum user posted a thread about a double homicide in Oviedo, Florida
Oviedo, Florida
Oviedo is a city in Seminole County, Florida, United States. The population was 26,316 as of the 2000 census. As of 2009, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 32,961...
that involved an acquaintance. As the thread grew, other forum users eventually found the website of Andrew Allred, who posted on the forums as "Bomber166". The website contained significant details about the victims and the murder; Allred's account was subsequently banned and Allred himself was later arraigned on two counts of homicide, attempted murder and armed burglary. He has since pleaded guilty to the murders of Tiffany Barwick and Michael Ruschack.
Site content
Something Awful is home to a variety of content, including photo manipulation, parodies, pranks, satirical reviews of products, and reviews of websites, video games, and movies. The material is written by several different editors, and occasionally by members of its forums as well. On July 12, 2005, David Thorpe, the author of the features Your Band Sucks and Fashion SWAT, "represented" the website on G4'sG4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...
Attack of the Show. He made several absurd claims, such as that the site started up as a monster truck
Monster truck
A monster truck is a pickup truck, typically styled after pickup trucks' bodies, modified or purposely built with extremely large wheels and suspension...
rally newsletter and that the forums were a front for a cult that required a registration fee of $80 per month.
On June 4, 2007, website columnist Jon "DocEvil" Hendren wrote "The Art of Wikigroaning", coining the term wikigroaning. Wikigroaning is a game in which readers explore two Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
articles with similar topics of contrasting seriousness, such as half-life
Half-life
Half-life, abbreviated t½, is the period of time it takes for the amount of a substance undergoing decay to decrease by half. The name was originally used to describe a characteristic of unstable atoms , but it may apply to any quantity which follows a set-rate decay.The original term, dating to...
(the scientific concept) and Half-Life (the game), and compare the length and comprehensive depth of the articles. Hendren's article was featured in the Wall Street Journal.
Forums
The site is home to a collection of Internet forumInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
s, which charge an initial registration fee of US$9.95, and fees ranging from US$4.99 to US$29.99 for additional features.
The forums have helped to perpetuate Internet memes, such as All your base are belong to us
All your base are belong to us
"All your base are belong to us" is a broken English phrase that became an Internet phenomenon or meme in 2000–2002...
and Tourist guy
Tourist guy
The "tourist guy" was an Internet phenomenon that featured a fake photograph of a tourist who appeared in many manipulated pictures after the September 11, 2001 attacks...
. The forum's users refer to themselves as "Goons". A weekly activity is "Photoshop Phriday", where users will modify existing images to create parodies through the use of image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
. Another periodic activity is "The Blue Ball Machine", where users create animated images that tile together in such a way as to appear like a seamless whole; these tiles are incorporated into a screensaver which displays them in random order. The feature gained popularity when users on the website YTMND
YTMND
YTMND, an initialism for "You're the Man Now, Dog", is an online community centered on the creation of hosted web pages featuring a juxtaposition of an image centered or tiled along with optional large zooming text and a looping sound file...
looped the animation to music from Pee-wee's Big Adventure
Pee-wee's Big Adventure
Pee-wee's Big Adventure is a 1985 American adventure comedy film directed by Tim Burton in his full-length debut and starring Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman. Reubens also co-wrote the script with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol. Supporting roles are played by Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton, Diane...
. The website also highlights some of what its administrators believe to be exceptional forum threads in the Comedy Goldmine feature. A forum member also launched 4chan
4chan
4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
.
During Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s 2001 "Entertainer of the Year" contest, in which votes are submitted online, forum users quickly found a weakness in the voting system, and scripts were written to vote for Kyanka dozens of times per second, thus ensuring his victory. Kyanka was quickly disqualified when Entertainment Weekly found that many of the votes were coming from very few IP addresses. Kyanka did, however, get his name mentioned on their website.
See also
- Anonymous (group)Anonymous (group)Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
- DiggDiggDigg is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4, its cornerstone function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg's popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with story submission and voting systems...
- Fark.comFark.comFark is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. As of June 2009, the site boasts approximately four million unique visitors per month, which puts it among the top 100 English language websites...
- News aggregator
- SlashdotSlashdotSlashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
- O RLY?O RLY?O RLY? is an Internet phenomenon, typically presented as an image macro featuring a Snowy Owl. The phrase "O RLY?", an abbreviated form of "Oh, really?", is popularly used in Internet forums in a sarcastic manner, often in response to an obvious, predictable, or blatantly false statement...