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Lowtax/Richard Kyanka Dead at 45 (for Something Awful fans/posters)

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I'm kind of surprised that....something didn't kill Lowtax before now, and I'm not talking about Uwe Boll's fists (and no, I have not heard of a cause of death).  He was what he was, and the little respect I had for him went out the window with all of his familial bullshit/drama that he created, and was glad he had sold SA off to others.

Now when Vilerat/Sean Smith was killed in Libya....fuck me, that really hurt, as I knew him for a long time, both through SA and through EVE.  but Lowtax....someday his daughters will hit up the internet and yeah, that won't be pleasant.

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Vice/Motherboard saying they talked to the local cops and it was suicide.  I am not surprised at all.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dmqb/richard-lowtax-kyanka-founder-of-something-awful-is-dead-at-45

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Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka—the creator of the era-defining Something Awful forums—died by suicide on November 9, Motherboard confirmed with the Lee’s Summit, Missouri police department.

 

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2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

The guy was “era defining” and 2 years older than me and I’ve never heard of him until this second. 

Have you at least heard about 4chan, which spun off from Something Awful (it's founders were banned from SA if I recall).

Ironically, I heard of Shaggy because somebody was passing around Thujone photoshops to UT fans on the SA forums and telling us to check out Shaggy.

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3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Is it like consumption junction or ebaums world?  

It is hard to describe.  Humor/parody that could go way over the line.  Lots of assholes.  Occasionally murderous assholes (I remember some dipshit  asked for advice in the gun forum for something to defend their fucking pumpkins, then promptly killed a couple of people and himself).

ebaums basically spawned from SA. 4Chan did as I mentioned.  "All Your Base are belong to us" spawned from there. Something Awful had a habit of banning people or certain types of posts/forums when the mood struck, and then those people would go off and start up their own sites, which got big.

Oh, and the whole "Let's Play" movement started on SA, so all those fucking shitty YouTubers and twitchers you see playing games, yeah, the concept was created there.

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TriStone

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Until I saw this thread I hadn't thought of SA since college or lowtax since the Uwe Boll thing so I did some quick reading to catch up.  So ... pressured by the users into selling the site, then immediately perma-banned from it upon turning over control?  Yeah.  Fuck that.  I'd have taken the site offline and burned the servers in my backyard on a livestream before I allowed that to happen

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11 minutes ago, TriStone said:

Until I saw this thread I hadn't thought of SA since college or lowtax since the Uwe Boll thing so I did some quick reading to catch up.  So ... pressured by the users into selling the site, then immediately perma-banned from it upon turning over control?  Yeah.  Fuck that.  I'd have taken the site offline and burned the servers in my backyard on a livestream before I allowed that to happen

Once the domestic abuse stuff fully came to light, it was either sell it and still get some money, or not sell it and watch the goons bail.

He had turned into a piece of shit well before then, and wasn't doing a lot of day-to-day shit for a long time, but the stuff that came out was the tipping point for everybody.  And that's saying a lot, given the makeup of the site.

Edit: Friend pointed out that all the good shit was in spite of him, not because of him.

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burntorangebongos

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I remember one guy that had a new roommate that used to leave shit stains on the toilet seat at the back of the toilet. He was grossed out but also baffled as to why there were stains there.  Everyone tried to figure it out and posted drawings of the guy on the toilet. Somehow the roommate figured out that the posts were about him or the guy showed him how much he was mocked for his gross shit stains and he stopped being a dirty slob. 

goon squad came from there. There would be threads where someone posted a news story or told a story about some asshole and they would organically decide that they needed to fuck with that person and post about it. It would snowball and people got harassed for the lulz. I think the worst of that behavior got rooted out and those goons became 4chan. 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, burntorangebongos said:

I think the worst of that behavior got rooted out and those goons became 4chan. 

Yeah, the Hentai posters got the boot one night from what I recall, and started up 4chan so they could post all of the really vile shit the rest of us didn't care for.  I can't remember if that was tied to when the mods went and banned everybody who had pedophile tendencies or what.

But when 4chan got going, it pretty much proved everybody right about that bunch.

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Captainant

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According to his ex-wife (LadyAmbien), he shot himself.

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I have been sitting for hours debating whether or not to disclose this, and I feel like it's something I do need to get off of my chest.
Frankly, I'm tried of being quiet. I've mostly had to stay quiet for years about things happening behind the scenes. I've held things inside so long and so hard my chest physically hurt the same way it is now.

I considered not sharing this out of respect for Rich's parents and sister, but after thinking on the incredibly vitriolic wall of text Rich's Mother sent to me this morning, saying upon many other things, that his blood is on my hands, I need to share it to regain some sense of control over what's taken place in the past 48 hours.

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.

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.

If you've made it this far thank you for giving me space to let this go so I know longer have to hold onto it.

 

 

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Judge Roybeanbag

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9 hours ago, burntorangebongos said:

I used to frequent Something Awful for a while before there was Shaggy. I was on a small sleepy UT message board so SA was the place to laugh at things and read weird TMI posts. That was a long time ago and I haven't lurked there in years.

Same here.  The photoshop contests were pretty great.

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Johnny Chimpo

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I too read something awful back in the day… maybe from 2002-2008. It was full of some weird and crazy people for sure. 
 

Not just normal harmless weird and crazy internet people. Straight up nut jobs. 
 

there was a lot of good stuff in there too though. 
 

I remember that one forum, FYAD, was basically a non stop stream of consciousness thread shit. 

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20 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

I’m actually learning shit on the shag tonight.  Early aughts message board culture is fucking wild. 

Yeah, it was a weird transition time from BBS/Usenet/AOL culture to social media.

18 hours ago, MonkeyCigarette said:

I've spent the last hour reading about the Battle of B-R5RB, which is absolutely fascinating, and apparently Something Awful helped drive.

SA's Goonswarm/Goonwaffe/etc. drove a lot of the really big EVE battles early on.  And they had some folks who made some amazing YouTube videos for recruiting and for recapping battles.

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MaybeACoordinator

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Kyanka's "Lowtax" inspiration is quite a story himself. 

Tl;dr:

1. Twentysomething West Point dropout named Byron Looper gets himself elected tax assessor in a rural Tennessee county after legally changing his middle name to Lowtax. His campaign relied solely on negative reviews on his opponent. No debates, no doorknocking, no public appearances.

2. He immediately uses his office to rule over the county like a petty tyrant, raising assessments on all who won't contribute to his political campaigns. Allegedly impregnates a woman after coercing her into sex, and then forces her to appear in campaign ads in a subsequent campaign as his wife. Then uses his office to steal her house.

3. Got a little ahead of myself -- even though he's under indictment for all the crap he pulled as tax assessor, he runs against popular TN state rep Tommy Burks, who he has no chance of defeating fairly.

4. So, Lowtax assassinates him. Personally. Shot him in the head. Via a technicality, the Democrats could not field an opponent because the murder took place within 30 days of the election.

5. Burks's widow defeats him as a write-in candidate. Somehow Lowtax still got 1500 votes.

6. Lowtax sentenced to life in prison w/o parole. He died of heart disease in his 30s.

 

Supposedly Kyanka almost worked for him as an intern. IIRC Kyanka attended Vanderbilt and Lowtax stories were all over the papers in Nashville at the time. 

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Cliff Yablonski updates have aged well, even with TIVO references.

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.....

Way back in World War I when we bombed that yellow menace and were slinging napalm around like a hornet's nest on a stick, our fearless leader Harry S. Truman said to the leader of Japan, General Whatever, "okay, we'll promise not to bomb you cretins back to the ice age if you promise to stop ripping off hard working Americans with your cheap cut-rate crap" and the Japanese said okay because you don't say no to a bunch of dedicated, patriotic, red-blooded American soldiers who aren't afraid to get in the ditches and choke as many women and children as necessary. Me and Jack Gates were stationed in the Philippines in either 1943 or 1986 and I was in charge of calling in airstrikes whenever the natives started getting real uppity and pulling tricky shit like hiding guns under their children or thinking about communism while going to the store. Me and Jack saw all kinds of shit you wouldn't believe there pal, and if you think I'm lying then I'll be more than happy to tell you the story about the dog that we threw out of the window because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ.

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My computer started acting all possessed and stupid and fancy and crazy last week around the time I got into a shouting match with it about how much the new TNN evening lineup stinks to high hell and back. If those ad executives at TNN had an ounce of intelligence, which they goddamn don't, they'd simply rename their zero-bit TV station to "The Law and Order Network" and have Jerry Orbach do all the commercials because I'd fucking buy whatever that man wants to sell me. Hell, Jerry Orbach should buy the whole network and do all the programming and hosting and advertising and everything, I've seen what kind of amazing shit he can pull off on "Law and Order" and I have absolutely no doubt that he'd be able to run a TV station smoother than a Crisco-chugging whore shot out of a clown cannon in an roller skating rink. Did you guys see that episode of "Law and Order" where that stupid little fat fuck bastard kid murdered the retired man outside of the tire store and Jerry Orbach was called to testify and he got up and shouted, "YOU, YOU LITTLE BUGEYED FUCKER, I'M GONNA GET OFF THIS WITNESS STAND AND STRING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS THROUGH YOUR LUNGS AND USE THEM TO FLOSS YOUR COLON YOU LITTLE FUCKING SHITBLIMP!!!" That was a great episode, especially in the end when the guy's car exploded and you could see his pregnant wife flying through the air and flipping off the camera. If I knew how to work my Betamax, I would've taped that. My idiot son bought me something called a "Tivo" which is a black box that is supposed to play television shows and record all kinds of junk from Portugal, but I couldn't get it to do anything except prop up the back wheel of my Chrysler after the transmission fell out because I used the car to open a keg of beer I found behind the bait and tackle store which burned down that night.

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Anyway, yesterday was supposed to be Veteran's Day and I was supposed to legally be able to take the day off, but since I never bothered coming into work and I don't even have a job, I didn't really get shit from the government except for reruns of that show on PBS about the puppets who teach each other how to comb their hair and avoid getting molested by fat hairy Italians on the subway. I've spent over 80 years of my life fighting for the great USA and old Uncle Sam won't even pay for me to have the day off? What kind of Veteran's Day is this shit? I've given so much for this country that this unpatriotic treatment of me is a downright embarrassing disgrace for all Americans and especially that big green statue deal of the broad in New York, the Statue of America Freedom or whatever. For example, one month in 1973 I gave the United States 400 rounds of automatic gunfire by putting it in the library's wall after the atlas there really pissed me off.

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I sideswipe her car because she fucking pulls out in back of me on my blind side and I don't see anything until she's right on top of me and her little toy car is trying to hump my back windshield like a poodle in heat. She pulls over and gets ready to start giving me the third degree, so before she can say anything I shout, "before you say a single word, you better remember I'm not afraid to hit women in the face." Then she launches into her little dog and puppet show about wah, I almost killed her Nintendo-jockey droolbit kid who was either in the passenger seat or trunk or Wichita and she just bought this car and I don't have the right to drive around drunk.

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Then I got really pissed off because she doesn't have any say in how I run my life and I point to the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand and shout, "hey you gussied-up withered spinster, this bottle gives me the right to be drunk" and I tried to break the bottle in half and stab her through the heart with it because that's the only way you can kill leprechauns like her. No wait, that's how you kill werewolves. Hell, I don't remember, but I guess it doesn't matter because I missed her and fell down that hill which has been coated in mud and medical waste ever since that tanker truck fell over on it a couple years ago and the assbarn city government was too lazy to pay some illegal immigrant 39 cents and a coupon for a free six-pack of black cherry cola to clean it up.

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A couple hours later I finally got to Denny's and my family pants were just absolutely covered with this completely disgusting mud which smelled like the orangutan make-out rooms that they have in the back room of the West Appleton City Zoo and charge four dollars to enter. I've never personally been in there but once I went to the zoo and saw these two guys give this other guy money and then they went through a door and came out later and they were acting pretty fucking weird, so you can see the connection here. I called the cops on those two simpering halfwits but the police refused to do jack squat because I think they were mad I spent the previous three hours calling in bomb threats using my Charleston Heston voice. I walk into the Denny's and start shouting, "I want a window booth and I want one right now and I want my coffee and I want my free Veteran's Day buffet and I want the chick with the uneven tits to be my waitress and I want it all RIGHT NOW" and the manager comes out and pretends like he doesn't know me, even though it's damn obvious that he remembers me from when I dug a moat around his house and tried to fill it with lighter fluid to keep out the hobos. To make a long story short, the wa

 

 

 

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