Editing Something Awful

{{Topquote|The Internet makes you stupid.|Something Awful motto (They got the "stupid" part right at least.)}}
[[File:SADoor.jpg|400px|thumb|right|The Penguin introduces Robin to Something Awful.]]

'''Something Awful''' is a "comedy" website and message board (formerly) operated by Richard Kyanka, better known to the Internet as Lowtax. It was founded in the late 1990s, with the forums appearing around 2000. It is most famous for the latter, with the front page consisting of random shit skimmed from the forums and a side order of blogging from the forums' moderators. [[Moot]] came from here, as did almost all of 4chan's original userbase, now long since vanished in favor of newfags. Much like any father of a mentally retarded crack baby, Something Awful doesn't like to talk about this; much like any son of a abusive deadbeat who keeps cutting himself for attention, 4chan doesn't like to talk about Something Awful either. 

SA forum members are called '''goons'''. To become a goon, you have to pay [[Meme|10bux]] as a registration fee, not including the amount you have to pay on top of that to get basic features like access to old threads and forum searches. The justification for this is that it improves forum quality, as the paywall prevents [[4e|underage idiots]] and drive-by [[troll]]s from shitting things up. In practice, it just selects for users with a "unique" combination of high disposable income, low dignity, and an unwavering belief that the Internet is [[serious business]] enough to pay actual money for it.

In early/mid 2020, it was revealed that Lowtax was a serial domestic abuser, and all-around piece of shit<ref>[https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3984488&pagenumber=120&perpage=40#post519160186 Emphasis on 'was':] After a judge ruled in favour of his ex-wife in a divorce case in 2021, Lowtax decided to become [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/an-hero an hero] rather than provide for his kids.</ref>. In addition to being a wifebeater, he also routinely shortchanged the writers who bothered to cobble together "content" for the front page of the site, bullied mods/admins until they quit their volunteer position, scammed people into giving him '''$10,000 per month''' on Patreon to cover the hosting costs for Something Awful (which amount to somewhere under $2,000 per month), and spending said money on [[Meme|Goldbelly cookies]]. He was pressured into selling the site to one of the admins - which means that goons who still browse the dead "comedy" forums at least have the peace of mind to know that throwing money at a mostly-defunct site isn't financing a wifebeater's cookie habit (or, at least, it's financing a ''different'' piece of shit's as-yet unknown criminal proclivities).

== What Something Awful gave to 4chan ==
* Creative image editing for [[lulz]] generation, motivated by the weekly "Photoshop Phriday" threads.
* [[Loli]] as a distinct concept from child pornography, and a morbid fascination with CP in general; many of the CP posters from 4chan's early history were in fact SA goons who openly bragged about wanting to fuck children and got banned (possibly several times) for threatening Lowtax's moneymaker.
* Burning hatred for [[Furry|furries]]. [[Fail|Note that several of SA's most privileged contributors turned out to be diaper-wearing fursuiters.]] Such is the wonder of Something Awful.
* [[/a/|Unjustified elitism.]]
* A style of humor built on shock value, nerd [[rage]], and gratuitous profanity, intended for those bored with conventional social norms.
* Many "original" memes, including:
** <span style="color:#FF0000"><b>(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)</b></span>
** ''"Kill it with fire!"''
** "Banhammer" as a term for someone getting [[Mods|banned]]. Banhammers are Something Awful's primary source of revenue.
** [[/b/|"Random"]] humor, by way of the "secret club" board FYAD.
** Demotivational posters and image macros.

== Why the hell should I care? ==
One of the few things from Something Awful that /tg/ has reason to care about is [[FATAL]] & Friends, a set of writeups on RPG books posted by forum members dedicated to both the obscure (in relative terms; usually it's just old shit like [[Rifts]]) and the terrible segments of the industry's output. These writeups are usually in-depth, covering both [[fluff]] and [[crunch]], with examples of character generation where appropriate. While some controlling for the... colorful views of SA's userbase is necessary, if you find an old rulebook or something at a bookstore and /tg/ doesn't know anything about it, there are worse places to look for a second opinion.

The other reason why /tg/ might conceivably care about SA is that a disproportionately large number of indie RPG writers are goons, or are close enough friends with a goon to give them free stuff that they then shill for in the aforementioned F&F. This may be surprising until you remember that two of the primary goon talents are sucking cock for brownie points and [[/tg/ gets shit done|wasting large amounts of time and effort on shit nobody cares about]]. A disproportionate number of [[White Wolf]] employees past and present are also goons, surprising absolutely nobody who has had the misfortune of interacting with both groups.

== External Links ==
*[https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Something_Awful Encyclopedia Dramatica's article on Something Awful.]
*[https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/ A homestuckfag's archive of FATAL & Friends threads] so you don't have to get goon on yourself. See what your favorite [[sup/tg/]] mods say when they think nobody's watching!
[[Category:4chan]]