Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2021-11-11
This was on HN
"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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SolRo - 2021-11-11 Rest In Piss, Shitlord.
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Meerkat - 2021-11-11 Well that's one way to get out of child support payments.
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Cena_mark - 2021-11-12 SA led to 4chan which led to 8chan/kun. In other words, Lowtax was indirectly responsible for the alt-right, the election of Donald Trump, Qanon, and the Jan 06 insurrection.
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crojo - 2021-11-13 moot was definitely a goon, but blaming SA for 4chan et al seems like a stretch.
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Cena_mark - 2021-11-13 It's said that the catilous for the creation of 4Chan was when Lowtax banned hentai from the SA forums
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duck&cover - 2021-11-15 That's how bouncers spell it, wiseguy.
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Chicken the Did - 2021-11-11
I am on the fence.
Before I read Purple's post there I figured ol' Lowtax was generating buzz before popping up to do a gross 'TA DAAAAAAAAAA!' announcing some new internet venture$$$. That's so Lowtax.
However dragging his ex into (Via a fabricated quote) it to create buzz would be gross even by Lowtax standards. If he is dead it's a suitable end for the man. Nobody even knows who he is circa 2021 and it didn't even make it to page 10 of any news outlet. Congrats for fucking your kids up for life I guess.
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Herr Matthias  - 2021-11-11
I'll readily admit that a lot of early-2000s Internet culture shaped me into the person I am today, but it doesn't surprise me that some of the people behind it were real shitheels.
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Miss Henson's 6th grade class - 2021-11-11 It shaped me too, but I'm still glad I hung out at the Portal of Evil instead of Something Awful or Fark. The Prime Directive meant that it didn't, you know, intentionally set out to hurt anyone, which is more than you can say for SA. Not everyone on POE was a saint, but I still fondly remember and the sheer joy people took in examples of real-life weirdness. Also, I've still seen more weird shit online than most people can imagine.
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Herr Matthias - 2021-11-12 Seanbaby was my introduction to the whole OMM/POE extended universe.
Looking back at his older stuff, a lot of it was making fun of people that really didn't deserve it. (Fortunately, he himself appears to grown past that as well.)
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glasseye - 2021-11-12 100%.
People could be pretty cruel in their mocking of exhibits, but at least it was all hidden behind the PD.
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badideasinaction - 2021-11-12 Poe was different because the key people running the show knew when to take a step back. Maybe not all of the members, but…
I joined poe mostly as a lurker in the super early days and it was amazing and subsequently terrifying seeing the world of that weird as it crossed over into the real world.
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Nominal - 2021-11-14 I remember the POE community being this utopia up until around 2002. Prior to that, there was NO bickering, fighting, or posturing. None. Zero. Imagine an online community like that? Part of it was probably that Internet 1.0 thing where you were just so amazed that you were connecting to a community of fellow misfits and outcasts.
Can't remember when it started turning into a typical online community piss fest. It certainly metastasized when the POE/Bo News Xiaphis/Nocash/Frostilicious group showed up, along with the other types of people who always have to be drawing up clique lines in every social gathering. But I do remember my first thoughts of "wait, some of these aren't good people" when King Prawn showed up (along with Big Beef Burritos Supreme and Slagathor).
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Miss Henson's 6th grade class - 2021-11-14 Oh, Slagathor. I didn't really mind some of the people you mentioned -- and rather liked Xiphy -- but Slagathor was something else. He went from being an insufferable left-winger to being an insufferable right-winger in a matter of minutes. The dude gave autists a bad name. Simply one of the most emotionally clueless, self-obsessed people I've ever met. Man, could he irritate me.
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Nominal - 2021-11-14 Was he the one who was some adjunct professor of medieval history? Like an even more insufferable Lindy Beiege?
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Nominal - 2021-11-14 Oh, and how could I forget our friend Purple XIV.
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Quad9Damage - 2021-11-15 POE/News was my in top of five of websites in the late '90s and '00s. The forums were absolutely beyond incredible, just a community of the funniest, edgiest people my Protestant upbringing could've never imagined. Half of my stupid teenage life was about what Dragonguyver was doing, or the guy who thought Squaresoft was going to buy his Final Fantasy ripoff ideas, dead baby memorials, Lil Amber, Alysa's Cosplay, those gross at home birth people...
I read over that disastrous "minutemen of CP," Slaggy's Bible commentary, and Christmas Cat many, many, many times. I embarrassed the piss out of my self many more times on the forums because I was a very stunted teenager with a lot to learn.
And yes, it all imploded after Chet sold the site, when Xiphias and the other separatists waged crybully war until they pissed off to live under their own angry mountain. As paved over and corporate as the Internet is now, and as staunchly divided into political factions as we are, there will never be another forum community like POE. I wish I'd known that back then. I took it for granted.
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Herr Matthias - 2021-11-15 The "Final Fantasy" guy was Veon Prism. That was pretty much my all-time favorite. He was very clearly profoundly autistic, but also rich, so that made it a lot easier to laugh at him.
I actually wrote a Veon Prism wikipedia article at one point, back before it had quite the level of quality control it did today. It got deleted eventually.
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Nominal - 2021-11-15 Imari Stevenson of Veon Prism!
I remember Kthor (or maybe TEDA?) played a prank where they called him pretending to be the president of Sony offering to fund all his game ideas.
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badideasinaction - 2021-11-16 I think for me the most amazing part was having multiple exhibits join the forums and a handful of them becoming relatively regular posters. Like some bad fighting anime trope where the defeated for joins the heroes.
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yogarfield - 2021-11-11
aaaand fart.
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Binro the Heretic - 2021-11-11
While SomethingAwful is a very important milestone in the history of the culture of the Internet, I don't know if Kyanka was.
I'm thinking he's more like Jeff Bezos. He did a thing when a lot of other people were doing the same thing but for some reason, his was the thing that succeeded.
Granted, I don't know the full story. Feel free to let me know if you think he really was a visionary genius.
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duck&cover - 2021-11-11 Maybe he wasn't a very good person, but his style was influential on the internet and he did provide a lot of free entertainment.
I'm sorry to hear that he killed himself.
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MacGyver Style Bomb - 2021-11-11 He was more like the internet version of Phil Spector. Notable producer but a massive fucking abusive scumbag.
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Crackersmack - 2021-11-11
I kept abreast of Rich Kyanka for, to paraphrase Hilton Edwards, the "pleasure of putting the tongue upon the painful tooth." No more total disgrace for a petty tyrant than to be eulogized for mere adjacency to importance. Just as a tooth is filled and forgotten, so too his grave.
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Crackersmack - 2021-11-11 I copied that from a tweet by someone that posted it with a picture of Orson Welles
*bong rip*
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cognitivedissonance - 2021-11-11
Chris-Chan is in prison and Lowtax is dead.
We didn't quite get the consequences we voted for, but we did get something.
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SolRo - 2021-11-11 Turns out our legends were mortal after all
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Cena_mark - 2021-11-12 Not Maddox. He's still awesome. He's a NY Times best selling author and he still runs the Best Page in the Universe which gets more views than KFC.com. He's a badass pirate who eats beef jerky and headbutts children. He's not afraid to speak truth to power.
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SolRo - 2021-11-12 Beef jerky is beef and high in sodium, both factors for increased risk of colon cancer in men
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jfcaron_ca - 2021-11-12 What about Stile of Stileproject? I think Seanbaby is doing alright as a formerly-internet-famous comedian and podcaster.
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badideasinaction - 2021-11-12 Always wondered what happened to Jay Stile. I did a search a while back and didn't find much other that an unsourced real name that went nowhere.
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scrungus - 2021-11-11
i bought a JP-8080 from lowtax.
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Cena_mark - 2021-11-12 I didn't know he was a synth guy.
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Gmork - 2021-11-12 10 note polyphony, i'm jealous
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love - 2021-11-12 ditched my jp-8000 a year ago, it was a complete nightmare to service, and it needed service. the caps were breaking down and it was crackling constantly, disassembly was freakishly complex.
have since cut the stable down to old ensoniq and moog stuff, that is meant to opened maintained.
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Gmork - 2021-11-16 Ensoniq.. Synthesis wouldn't be the same without their influence but they're pretty obscure name-recognition-wise
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Cena_mark - 2021-11-11
Looks like Eric Bauman and Uve Boll get the last laugh. Lowtax is forever an hero.
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Nominal - 2021-11-12
Dean Stockwell just died!
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BHWW - 2021-11-12
Poor Lowtax, we hardly knew ye. May he be buried in a pharaoh's tomb truly befitting the creator of Something Awful dawt com. In a golden gaming chair. surrounded by jars of mangosteen, urns full of scrolls of foot porn, and of course, his horde of 10bux gleefully taken from goon after goon. Also his sarcophagus made from pieces of his soon to be demolished ugly ass travesty of a McMansion.
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Quad9Damage - 2021-11-15
I haven't browsed Something Awful in a long time. I liked it a lot better in the ROM Pit/Awful Anime/troll review days, when Rich's then-girlfriend Emily was writing content for the site.
Also I don't like to mock the dead or tread where I am not welcome, but sudden alimony payments is a shit reason to kill yourself. Like you can't just take the hit and get up later, but leaving behind traumatized kids is the easier way out.
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Nominal - 2021-11-15 Front page looks like a mid 00s link farm now.
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