#from a web forum in 1999

[speakertoyesterday]

Dog in elk

There are apparently halloween pumpkins commemorating the funniest thing on the internet ever.

[empty-movement]

Chiho Saito’s 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection

IT’S HERE. IT’S DONE. IT’S FINISHED. NOW…IT’S YOURS. Happy Holidays, my friends.

Vanna here! I have posted some already about this project, and the responses I got, public and otherwise, have been absolutely incredible. Y’all have been reblogging and hyping this before it even finished…I haven’t felt so encouraged about an Utena project since the musicals! (Yes, streams soon, I promise.) You can read the other post to get more details, and catch my post here with more details about the process if you’re interested. The long and short of it?

This is the first artbook I ever scanned. I did it in 2001. In Photoshop, using multiple scans per page that took hours to process. But it was 2001. A half megabyte file that was 1250px wide was considered extremely hardcore and impressive. That’s just always been the business I’m in when it comes to Utena art, you know? 

It’s now the latest artbook I’ve scanned, and so much of the process, and effort involved, is unchanged. What has changed, is the result. Welcome to your new desktop background. Your new phone background. Your new poster print. 

What I’ve done here is attempt to create definitive digitized images of Chiho Saito’s work as offered by this book--I have removed the print moiré of the original scans, and used my literal decades of experience to try and tease out as much information from them as possible. Without being physically in front of the original artwork (which is a thing I’ve had the great fortune to get to do) this is The Most Chiho Saito you are ever going to get. I’ve tried my best to make sure there is a way to get it that works for everyone:

Do you just wanna scope 'em out? Look at some disaster gays? Grab your favorite one or two? This is the path for you! Check out the ‘compressed’ (not very) 10k ‘web friendly’ (not really) copy at the Bibliothèque, the media archiving wing of the Something Eternal forums at Empty Movement*. All the following links are also available from here. Do you want these copies? All of them? Don't just grab them individually, friend. This batch is 375MB and can be downloaded as a zip of the individual files here on our Google Drive.

Do you like digital archiving? Are you looking for a copy that preserves the archival quality of the effort but sits nice and comfy in a single file? This is for you. A minimally compressed 10k, 513MB version worked into a PDF is now up, shiny and chrome, on the Internet Archive. Do you like the idea of the minimal compression, but want the individual files in a zip? Yep I did that too, here's the drive link.

Are you looking to print these in a larger size? This is probably the only reason on Earth you’d ever want them, and yet a bunch of you are going to go straight for these. Here are the zero-compression JPG full size copies, most of them are 15k across, like simply a ridiculous size. Pick your fave and download it from our Google Drive! 

I am genuinely really proud of this work.** I was able to tease out so much new detail from these…her incredible layering techniques, the faintest brush of her highlights, and the full range of her delicate hand at whites and blacks… details commonly lost in digitization. I sincerely hope you find something here that you’re looking for, as an artist looking for inspiration, as a weeb looking for a desktop, as an archiver excited to see incredible 90s manga artwork saved forever in the digital realm. I feel like I have already said so much about them, and could keep going, but you know what? This work speaks for itself. Enjoy, use, explore, and definitely tell us what you think!

We love y’all. ~ Vanna & Yasha

* AHEM ASTERISK AHEM

You might be wondering what any of that is. Something Eternal? Biblewhatawhat??? EmptyMovement.com? You might even have done a double take at the word ‘forum.’ And you should!!!

I have a confession. This artbook was my ‘side project’ as I worked on this, *the main project.* For a couple years I’ve been banging around with a new domain, and originally I had other plans for it, but Elon Musk ruined my Twitter and Discord is well along on its way to enshittification, and well….we joke on the Discord a lot about ‘reject modernity, embrace forums’ and you know what? We’re right. So Yasha and I are putting our money where our mouths are once again, and doing something insane. We are launching, in 2023, a website forum. Obviously, this is not the official ‘launch’ per se, but I cannot announce the artbook without directing you to the forum, since it sits on the attached very cool gallery system. Oops! Told on myself. Another post more focused on the forum will be forthcoming, but if you are just that motivated to get in right away, you absolutely can! (This will help stagger new arrivals anyway, which is good for us!) If you would rather wait for the ‘official’ launch, by all means that’s coming, including a lengthy screed about how and why we’re doing this. In either case, remember: this is a couple weebs trying to make internet magic happen, we are not website developers by trade. Give us grace as we iron things out and grow into this cool new website thingie…hopefully along with some of you! :D

If you do join up, naturally, there is a thread about this project!

** If you like this kind of content, consider helping us pay for it! We do have a Patreon! If you’re wanting to use these in some public-facing distributive way, all we ask is for credit back to Empty Movement (ohtori.nu or emptymovement.com, either will work.) 

I would like to say ‘don’t just slap these files on RedBubble to get easy money’ but I know that saying this won’t effectively prevent it. Y’all that do that suck, but you’re not worth letting it rain on the rest of this parade. :)

[blazescompendium]

Blaze's Compendium Entry #9:

Turbo Granny

Warning: Faith and religion are important real life topics, that tackles the culture and way of life of millions of real life people. It is a cultural expression, and must be respected by all means. Here, we use a video-game ( some times) and other media series only to ignite the flame of learning about the matter, using its art when well depicted, but we do this with all due respect to the cultures we talk here, grounded by real life sources, cultures and people. And i mean this with respect. Hope you all enjoy.

Turbo Granny is a somewhat modern Yokai that has been popularized lately by pop culture. In 2024, Turbo Granny has made a resurgence due to the hit anime: Dandadan and her apparition in Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, both happening in the spam of just 4 moths.

But before that she also made cameos in the anime Mob Psycho circa 2018, Hell Teacher in 1997 and was first introduced as a playable monster in Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner Soul Hackers in 1997. She was absent from the franchise for some decades, upon her return in 2022 for Soul Hackers 2, which coincided with her debut in the -at the time- new manga Dandadan.

Despite that, its origins are so obscure, that I was enticed to dig deep into the lore of this monster and understand if it is even a real urban legend. And here is what i found.

First information that we have about her is that she hails from the Hyogo region in Japan. Supposedly. Hyogo is a southern Region of Japan, between Okayama and Kyoto. Capital is Kobe. So i started by researching about the area, to see if anything about the Region itself has any connections to the particular legend, but did not found anything. The biggest news on the region in the timeline we are looking after was a big earthquake in 1995.

Both western and Japanese Wikipedia pages for this region did not include any mention about Turbo Granny. SMT VV compendium mentions the specific location: MT. Rokko, that is located in the metropolitan area of Kobe. Could no find anything about Turbo Granny on this specific location as well, at the western web.

Addendum: I know that blog posts are hardly scientific accepted sources. However, since we are dealing with an urban legend that survived via word of mouth, this kind of data gathering is the most optimal.

However, using the key words: 六甲山 妖怪 (Mount Rokko Yokai) I could find more content than before. This particular blog mentions some variations of the Yokai, like the way she is called 100km/h hag in Hokkaido, for example. However it lacked any sources and seems to have more of a comedic purpose. Other sites specifically mentions the highways around Mt. Rokko and their tunnels as specific apparitions spots for this creature, but then again no source of whatsoever.

Highway and tunnel at Mt. Rokko, supposedly where the Turbo Granny legend began.

Other Japan web content, showed me the Yokai has been discussed in forums lately, like this one that mentions its resurgence in pop culture as of lately.

But it also mentioned something about the legend being from the Edo period, that could run faster than a horse. And the user speculates that the modern take evolved from there, when cars were introduced in Japan. They, however, provides no source for this information. (Hold this information with yourself for now)

A common thread in all discussions online about this particular monster, be it on Japanese forums, or blog posts, are the outcomes the encounter with Turbo Granny can lead to. From what I could gather, those are:

1- Nothing happens, the granny just scares you. 2-if she passes your car, you get a curse 3- if you passes her, your car will break down completely in less than a week. (Terrifying)

They also speculate that this legend could be from 2ch, which brings us to the first myth about this legend, it did not in fact originated on 2ch! Since the SMT game Soul Hackers, from 1997. 2ch was created in 1999.

But if you keep going through the Japanese web enough, you find more blog posts talking about this Yokai. For example, this other one.

That mentioned the Turbo Granny, but divided in categories. The blog mentioned that this guy called Toshiro Yamaguchi described a version called 60km/h hag that could just run at the max speed of 60 km/h. The Turbo Granny we know can reach up to 100 km/h. Other blogs mentions 140 km/h or as fastest as the target.

This also became a common thread in all registers of this Yokai.

Still in Japanese web, I forgot to check Japanese wikipedia. It got some interesting results, as some interesting variations, and some lore. But only contained one source: This book:

口敏太郎 『本当にいる日本の「現代妖怪」図鑑』 笠倉出版社" In a direct traanslation:

''Illustrated catalogue of modern yokai from Japan that really exist'' This book was released in 2007, 10 years after the granny being featured in the Soul Hackers game, so it is not a good original source.

Sadly I could not find this book anywhere on the internet, only the illustration it has about the Turbo Grannny:

The Wikipedia article states a bit of lore from the book. Keep in mind that I have to use machine translation, so feel free to correct me:

''鞠つきをしている最中にひき逃げされた少女の霊が、自動車以上のスピードで道路を疾走する「鞠つきマリちゃん」[1]'' It mentions that it is the ghost of an once a little girl who died after being hit by a car, playing a ball game in the highway or tunnel with friends.

This is an interesting report, but so far is the only place I have found that contains it. It can be just an invention of the author, or just a regional tale. Other sources generally do not touch on the origins of the ghost.

It all gave me the idea to go at Google Books, and check what i could find on the matter.

You see, earlier in the research I was discussing at Discord if this creature could be a SMT OC, which would be huge. That is because the oldest citation about this ghost was from Soul Hackers, in 1997.

But this was ruled out, going by Google Books, found this book mentioning her at the 29th page, from 1996:

'走るお婆さん: 日本の現代伝說' (Direct translates to: Running Granny: Modern Japanese Folklore)

This book seems to tackle a lot of modern Yokai and Urban Legends in Japan at the mid to late 90s. Its descriptions says:

''A four-legged grandmother chases you in a car at 100 km/h? If you remember the phrase "purple mirror" until you're 20, will you die? If you ride the lion statue in a certain department store, will you pass the exam? Among other urban legends about sex, food and more, the third edition of the anthology that collects and deciphers the modern legends of turn-of-the-century Japan.''

At the 29th page:

(No. 5, June 1994, Issue 6), Kayoko Ikeda's discussion on modern legends titled The Secret of the Running Grandma was published. In that, there are mentions of the Turbo Grandma (with a piece of paper on her back that says 'TURBO' as she rushes by) and the Dash Grandma, who runs along the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway…"

It also had a mention in the 103rd page:

… There are many modern yokai, like Turbo Grandma, who chase after motorcycles and cars. Also, there are ghosts that get into vehicles, such as in the story of 'The Vanishing Passenger' (The White Thread of the Earring, page 22). These eerie phenomena often manifest when they are reflected in the rear view mirror, often occurring around 2:00 AM…"

This means that we can go even further back, to 1994 as the oldest report of this Yokai. And this book states that it was recorded by a woman called Kayoko Ikeda. I went by her name through Japan web to find her complete list of works, and sure enough I followed the path to the book:

ピアスの白い糸―日本の現代伝説 The white thread- Modern Japanese Urban Legends

Supposdely, this book should mention Turbo Granny, but i can not find it online, nor check its index clearly. There is however, a chapter dedicated to car related Yokai and legends, which can be what we look for. It seems to fit with the page 22, mentioned in the other book.

Ikeda who is a translator of German to Japanese, was involved into it. But could not find much of her work related to Yokai. But she is in fact, an academic.

By this, we can kind of conclude the book White Thread from 1994 was the first recorded instance of Turbo Granny in a book. At least, I personally could not find anything else older than that. The idea of the White Thread book was to report urban legends that were being told around at the time, so it may be just that this was really the first person to write about that.

Similar case happened to the Saci, from our entry #7 in Brazil, which was a popular word of mouth legend up until it started to be recorded in books.

Another name that was hot in this research was of Toshiro/Yoshitaro Yamaguchi (山口敏太郎.). He is a celebrated occultist and urban legends enthusiast in Japan, have written several books, currently also makes videos for the internet discussing the case, but it seems he was a frequent apparition on television shows, and somewhat of an authority in the matter.

For example, Yamaguchi has mentioned the Turbo Granny several times, like this one, where he compares her to other Yokai. But Yamaguchi has published several books, and I lack the Japanese knowledge to verify every one of them, that is assuming I would find it online. But it is clear that he mentioned the creature more than once online.

The other claim I went to check was if the idea of Turbo Granny having an Edo Period ancestor checked. And it kinda surprised me.

By combining Edo period and Turbo Granny in the Japanese web, i was directed to a blog article that aimed to find this originnal legend:

The article traces a parallel to another Yokai: Yama-Uba.

Yama Uba is a yokai that is a monstrous hag, that acts like a witch and often is a sort of Japanese Baba Yaga, or Boggeyman. The connection is interesting, because Yama-Uba is often reported to attack travelers on their ox-cars at roads, and in at least one tale they ran pretty fast for an old hag. The story is called:

''Three Talisman'' (三枚のお札』だろう)

The story is about a monk that was hunt down by the YamaUba, and used its magical talisman to escape. During most of the tale, the Yama Uba was running after him with supernatural speeds.

The author of the article speculates that the parts of the tales showing the Yama Uba running after the travelers, that tried to escape by foot, horse or ox-cars, stuck in the collective mind, and slowly evolved to the imagery of a hag running after cars nowadays.

Yama Uba is a very well documented Yokai, being popular as a bogeyman. There are several tales and folklore regarding her, but it checks out that she indeed had tales about chasing her prey.

Personal theory

Now it is time for that part of my text where I give my personal theory, which is totally my own and based on what I have read and researched. This can be debated and disregarded, but it was my own conclusion. Feel free to disagree with me. And even better, if you are a Japanese citizen who had contact with this legend, let me know and correct me if necessary.

Urban legends are extremely hard to pinpoint, and we can only presume their origins, specially with a big language barrier. But we often can also use deduction and a bit of ''taxonomy'' to co relate myths and folklore that could have birthed the legend, the time and place.

I like to compare this to when a paleontologist finds an incomplete fossil, and have to rely on the closest sibling specimens to try and understand the biology of that animal.

In this case, my Personal theory is that I agree with the said article, and i really think that Yama Uba, and its associated imagery birthed the idea of a hag chasing after vehicles, and people.

If you take a close look, the oldest mention I could find about the Turbo Granny is from 1994, then 1996 and then it appeared again in 1997 in SMT. The idea is that this legend was already been spoken about before the internet exploded, and just slowly was registered. If I had to guess, Id say this legend could have originated by word of mouth in the mountain highways and tunnels of Kobe, in the late 1980s. Those places are naturally where people speed up the most with their cars, and even some times host car meet ups. Initial D is a good example of this culture.

Imagine the big showdown that those two would put up....

Of course, i am not Japanese and i can be completely wrong on that interpretation, but at least the connection with Yokai, and the start of the registration of Turbo Granny is factual and can be assured. It is weird however, that Shigeru Mizuki never registered this Yokai, because even if it appeared as late as 1994, he would probably get to know it. But the man was not all powerful.

I had ran across Japanese people online theorizing the Yokai is a warning against old people causing traffic accidents, but it was just that one person, really. I do not believe much in this theory.

The legend probably spread around Japan during the 90s, appearing in probably occult magazines such as the ones the SMT dev team had access, and the rest is history. Surprisingly Kaneko's commentary on the hag for SH book, has no mention of his sources.

''The ghost of an old woman appears on the highway and runs at full speed. She only overtakes cars without causing any harm, and is more of a frightening presence than a horrifying one. There is also the "Dash Granny" of the same kind. There is also the "100km Granny" which causes accidents in cars that overtake her. It's an old woman running on all fours. There are all kinds of old people, like the Jumping Old Man or the Dash Old Man. Anyway, when you're driving at night, apparently there's one that passes you at incredible speed. Apparently it has the word "Turbo" written on its back, or a piece of paper with that written on it stuck to its back. What's more, it's written in hiragana. Personally, I wrote "Porsche Turbo" on its kimono. Still, old people play a lot of important roles in yokai.'' -Kazuma Kaneko, Soul Hackers Subete (machine translation)

Turbo Granny strikes back: The resurgence of the legend.

Turbo Granny gathered a recent cult following, due to her appearance in pop culture media. SMT was a pioneer in this regard, followed by the after mentioned Hell Teacher manga.

Mob Psycho 100 also featured the Yokai, but due to unforeseen forces, 2024 has became the Turbo Granny year and she is indeed having a brat summer.

When the Dandadan animation hit Netflix at the start of October, the Yokai was instantly recognizable. It became one of the main antagonists and characters of the work, that also dabbles in other Yokai and spirits.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance not only re added the monster, but also gave her an unique side quest, where you have to hunt down the hag through the pre apocalyptic Tokyo, stop her, and photograph her for an occult magazine.

And finally, my favorite piece of media related to the granny...

In 2017 the Turbo Granny was the star of a Broad Wimax commercial, which is a company that sells internet connection. They commercial was about how their internet speeds were able to be faster than the Turbo Grannyy, and it was starred by a comedian. The whole commercial starts as a documentary, but gets progressively funny.

Conclusion

As any urban legend, Turbo Granny will forever be a mystery in terms of origins and original sources. We can say for sure this was not invented by Dandadan artist nor Shin Megami Tensei devs, since the legend was around for a long time. It seems people in Japan recognize it as popular as the Slit Mouthed Woman, for instance. This makes this Yokai unique because of how modern and popular it is, through pop culture.

Of course, Dandadan mangaka added his own flavor to the monster, but that is part of the fun.

Honestly it is pretty cool to witness that kind of popularity for a specific Yokai, and watch how the legend slowly evolves and change over time. Who knows?

I hope this put your itch to know this hag's history to sleep!

Turbo Granny at the Soul Hackers for 3DS opening.

Special thanks to Eirikr for the help with the Kaneko commentary!

[nesiacha]

Archives of the site dialogus

The site was created in 1999 by Sinclair Dumontais and René Pibroch. It disappeared in 2019. It was a public forum that supposedly allowed visitors to communicate with individuals they wouldn't otherwise be able to contact: deceased historical figures or prominent characters from universal fiction (thanks to Wikipedia for this copy-paste).

In reality, it was run by a large of moderators who tried to take on the personas of these characters and respond to questions as accurately as possible while attempting to embody the figure. However, as you will see, there were instances of anachronisms or unreliable answers, whether intentional or not, such as in the message sent to Robespierre regarding the case of Lucile Desmoulins.

The site covered a wide range of characters, from literary figures (like Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Javert, for instance) to real-life personalities, politicians, stars, musicians, or philosophers from various eras and backgrounds. It also featured some horrific figures from totalitarian regimes, but always with a historical purpose and not to glorify them. There were also profiles of victims of totalitarianism.

While reading, I felt that despite their efforts, some moderators struggled to fully immerse themselves in their characters when answering questions, whereas others responded so well that it genuinely felt like the historical figure was speaking (I’m particularly thinking of the one who portrayed Lenin. Even though I don’t like Lenin as a historical figure, the correspondence was quite good).

Unfortunately, this site has been shut down recently, and the responses can only be found in archives.

However, there are three drawbacks regarding the links I'm sending you. The first one is manageable: you won’t immediately have access to the full correspondence. You need to click on the word "captures" next to the profile (specifically beside the words "Internet Archive Wayback Machine"). You’ll be directed to a sort of calendar where you can click on the link for the most recent snapshot.

Another problem is that it's in French.

The third and more significant issue is that some messages have been deleted. For example, the profile of Archduchess Sophie of Austria now only has one response left out of several. This is unfortunate, as it could have provided balance with that of Elisabeth of Austria, and it unjustly reinforces the image of the wicked mother-in-law. But nothing beats a good biography by a serious historian on any character discussed on Dialogus, and the best one I’ve read about Elisabeth of Austria is by Brigitte Hamann.

Don't forget to have the links that are sent to you analyzed before opening them, it is a security measure that is essential and that includes the link on the post. I did not find any viruses concerning me but maybe on you. Here are the two links (some have included additional characters) https://web.archive.org/web/20031026090322/http://www.dialogus2.org/

https://web.archive.org/web/20060615020905/http://www.dialogus2.org/

P.S: For more links to the dialogus go to wikipedia

[kinopioa]

It's fascinating seeing people go "I miss the wild west era of the internet" and then learn they were born in 2003

Like fuck off. By the time you're 6 it was dead. The cutoff is around 06/7, and even that's debateable to have ended earlier

If we're being brutally honest-

1993-1998: True Wild West. Not much could happen due to limited tech, but it was completely unmonitored. I'm honestly surprised to find archives of old chats on Google

1998: The Coppa act is established, further taking effect in 2000. This made people aware that kids can access the internet. Teens barely gave a shit, though it made corporations more aware of them, and how to consider them for a market. It also unfortunately promoted age fraud to access barred login sites

1999-2005/6: User oriented era. This is when a lot of custom sites, blogs, and forums popped up, as well as many image hosting sites that are sadly defunct now. Google being a popular search engine further encouraged discovering these user made sites. Contrary to popular belief, user sites were mostly made and "moderated" by edgy kids and teens, so you WILL see the opinion of a 14yr old. Incidentally, due to domains being expensive, a lot of these teen made forums and personal sites died extremely fast, ignoring raids, doxxing, and flamewars

Video sharing while possible also was really crappy for quality...except for

User created flash games and anims enabled a massive spread of content. Newgrounds was a popular hosting spot. Shame Flash died

Outside that, we least we got bbphp as a solid forum template be popularized after many other ones died. For those less tech savvy, in 2003

We got social media. This was the main goto till smartphones and Twitter got popularized after 2006, and still was going strong until mid 2010s. Despite older netiquette of being encouraged to not post anything indentifiable about yourself, many users expressed themselves with music tastes and eventual personal blogs

2005/6: YouTube is released, as well as Dailymotion. Bootlegged Newgrounds anims popped up for uploads, but also shared tv show clips

Fun thing, before mid 2010s, users can only upload at max 15min of video

Similarly around 2005, Reddit similarly sparked up. More modern image hosting sites spurred around 2007/8

~~~

But regardless, the public internet already changed massively after 2000. Web 2.0 was already a term from 1999 that described the change, with it being redefined for it occuring around 2004. I think one thing not noticed, the development of this tech mostly happened in the UK, due to general smaller population and faster telocommunication services compared to the US at the time. This similar impacted the type of audience that used this

I see people longing for a freer internet, and I agree online corporate control is shitty. But the dretches of humanity has severely stunted user diversity and interest, same with over prioritizing skill over general good collaboration and behavior. The modern tech bro absolutely not giving a shit for the userbase or societal problems and being very selfish can unfortunately be traced here. Same for rsmpant political misinformation being unmoderated, and early 90s fandom woes still having a negative impact on some franchises

I see dumbass self censoring like "unalive" on sites, and it's not even enforced. It's just stupid assumption that advertisors care so much

Which brings the question, why are we trying to heavily get into monetizing expression? I genuinely feel Ytube enabling users to do so is exactly why user content got obnoxious after 2013 when it got popular. Unfortunately it's way too late to undo that. Many rely on the monetizing

Though I find it funny when people ignore just...making their own site to bypass the censorship. bbphp again is open source, and there are many other online web creation tools. I can't even say the rise of tech illiteracy is why, tech illiterate people aren't the ones complaining of sites crapping out

Anyway, if you miss pre algorithm search engines results leading to you finding random shit, try this;

Unfortunately the reducing of child safe sites is another convo

[bakedbakermom]

can you tell use more stories of what it was like waiting/watching the x files when it was on air?>:)

i was late to the fandom - i stumbled across the episode Humbug during the hiatus between s6-s7 and was HOOKED. i was also, unfortunately, 13 at the time, and not allowed to use the internet nearly as much as i wanted. so i can't tell you about what the fandom was like before 1999.

HOWEVER i can tell you that the end of s7 was a nail biter, and the summer between 7 and 8 was filled with an unprecedented surge in fanfic as we all tried to imagine what season 8 would bring. (i wrote one that i may return to at some point, it was very apocalyptic.) there were a LOT of angry fans when robert patrick was announced as joining the cast, to the point where many of us felt like scully hitting him with water in Within was meant to be a catharsis for US.

what i miss most about those days, however, is how creative and connected the fandom was. there were web hosts out there like angelfire and geocities where anyone could make their own completely free website about whatever they wanted, with a simple wysiwyg interface (what you see is what you get, aka drag and drop) so even the most tech-illiterate among us could make something cool - and if you knew html (or had lissaexplains bookmarked) you could make something truly spectacular.

there would be surges of new fic and fanart after every episode (some more than others lol). you would find screencaps and videos on napster from those who had better tech than you. being 13 with a strict 10pm bedtime and no computer of my own, i couldn't hop on the forums after the episode like i wanted; instead i'd have to wait until monday afternoon after school to catch up on all the hot goss and new content, and i had NO irl friends who watched the show until high school (literally day one a girl named jenn spotted xf art on my binder and we were friends immediately). so you can imagine that by the time 3:00 rolled around i was positively VIBRATING with the need to talk about it.

there was one official forum and dozens of fan-made offshoots (walter's wenches, for example, started as a sub-board on the main forum and then became its own group) that felt like small towns. you could follow individuals or threads and get notifications for posts and updates. this was before social media, so it was all as anonymous as you wanted it to be.

i met several penpals on the official board that i stayed in touch with for years after the series ended and the board was shut down. one of them was a collector of xf memorabilia up in canada from whom i was able to buy several tapes of hard-to-find episodes (if you missed one, you had to hope for a rerun or a marathon) and merch (xf barbies my beloved) as well as extras like interviews and music videos and the celebrity deathmatch segment etc.

i miss late 90s/early 00s fandom so much.

also i was in catholic school and learned more about sex through fic than my school's pitiful sex ed would ever begin to touch on (did you know the penis goes in the vagina? because they never said that. did you know women can orgasm? because they never said that. etc)

[missmcspooks]

Cannibal Cafe: Should He Have Been Convicted or Murder of Manslaughter?

In 2002, a man who had a lust for human flesh was arrested and convicted of murder. However, this man was not the typical murderer we all tend to see in the world. This man, as awful as his crime was, had a big sense of morals when it came to taking someone’s life. This case is somewhat of a controversial case. Should this man have been convicted of murder? Or was this more so of an assisted suicide, rather than a murder?

WHO WAS ARMIN MEIWES?

Armin Meiwes was born on December 1st, 1961, and was 42 at the time of his arrest. He was born and raised in Germany, and was a former computer repair technician. His father was a police officer and was very wealthy, so much that he had purchased a 16,000 square foot mansion with 36 rooms for his family. His home life growing up was very toxic. His parents married when his mother was 40 years old, and his father was only 21. According to Armin, his mother was the biggest reason for the tension in the home. He claims that she was manipulative, very jealous, and constantly accusing his father of having affairs. She was very possessive of him, and their fights got so out of hand that she would actually threaten to kill him. It’s assumed that she didn’t really want to have a child, but she had Armin to basically lock down his father and keep him from leaving. However, he wasn’t the only child, and had two older half brothers from his fathers previous relationship. But once they got old enough, the two older siblings had enough of the toxicity within the home, and moved out, leaving Armin by himself. 

Armin states that he was very lonely after his brothers left the home. His father abandoned him after he turned eight years old, leaving him with just his mother, who never showed him any affection, wasn’t loving, and would basically ignore him when she wasn’t giving him orders to do all the housework himself. Armin didn’t really have many friends, so he picked up a lot of introverted hobbies, such as reading. He began reading Robinson Crusoe, which had a part in the story all about cannibalism. It’s believed that this is where his desire for eating humans came from, and he became quite obsessed over it. This obsession began when he was ten years old.

After Armin turned 19, he left home and joined the West German Army, and spent 12 years in the armed forces. During this time, this distraction helped stop him from acting on any impulses regarding cannibalism. He tried making friends with women, but never pursued any romantic relationships with them, and he started questioning his sexuality. He also started heavily drinking, causing two car accidents due to being very intoxicated. All of this caused him to get permanently kicked out of the army, which led to him moving back in with his mother. 

WHAT WAS THE CANNIBAL CAFE?

After Armin moved back home, the internet started to become a thing. Back when the world wide web started, things were very low-monitored, including things that could specifically be illegal. He decided to start poking around the internet, looking things up about cannibalism, and he stumbled across a community specifically for cannibals. This forum was called the Cannibal Cafe, where everyone would come together to discuss their fantasies, seek advice, and sometimes even act out their fantasies in role-play. Armin wanted to brag about eating people so badly, that he would go down to the butcher-shop, get meat, and cut it up and make it look like real human flesh, just so he could post pictures about it online, pretending like he actually killed someone and is eating their flesh. This caused people to start idolizing him. 

On September 2nd, 1999, his mother passed away, which made Armin very happy. Not only was he finally away from his mother's abuse for the rest of his life, but he can really experiment with his cannibalistic urges since he no longer shares a home, and no one was there to judge him anymore. He ended up taking one of the bedrooms and turning it into his “Cannibal Dungeon.” 

Two months after his mother passed away, he decided that he was going to take his fetish to the next level. An EXTREME level. Now, the Cannibal Cafe forum wasn’t just for people who wanted to eat other people. It was also for people who had a fetish for wanting to be eaten by other people. Armin posted on the forum looking for a volunteer, asking if anyone would be willing to be eaten. He specifically wanted a willing participant, as he didn’t want to take anyone's life without their complete permission. In Armin’s mind, this wouldn’t be murder to him. It’s more so a willing sacrifice, or like an assisted suicide, sort of. He didn’t only use the Cannibal Cafe forum for this, but also a few other cannibal forums he stumbled upon as well, and would post these advertisements in both German and English. 

Also, this website is NOT still up! However, if you use the Wayback Machine, and search up Cannibal Cafe, you’ll probably find it. Most of Armin’s posts have been deleted when everything crashed and burned, however, there’s still one or two messages there with the correspondence between him and his victim. 

“I’m in search for a young boy between 18 and 30 years old. If you have a normal build body, and you’re willing to die, then come to me. I am butchering you and eat your horny flesh.” 

He ended up getting many responses, but nearly all of them would end up backing out before they even came to his house. There was one person who did make it all the way to his home, went inside the home, went into the Cannibal Dungeon, and laid upon the table. Armin begins to explain to him everything that’s going to happen to him in detail. The man all of the sudden starts to panic and have second thoughts. He tells Armin that he’s suddenly feeling sick, and no longer wants to go through with this. Since Armin is specifically looking for a willing participant, he tells him that it’s okay, we don’t have to go through with it, and that he can leave. The man then gets up and leaves. 

Armin was pretty disappointed that this didn’t go the way he had planned, but was very determined to find someone to fulfill his fantasies. He continued to post fake pictures of bodies online, and people continued to praise him. He also took another one of the rooms in his mansion and made it the Slaughter Room. Unlike the Cannibal Dungeon, there were no windows inside this room, there were lots of meat hooks dangling around, and even a cage so he could hold his victims in there. After this is completed, he finally gets another response on his post, and this would be the last response he ever gets. Armin finally found his perfect participant for his fantasy. 

THE MURDER

This man’s name was Brandes, he was 34, and was an engineer. He was also married, but told his wife that he was bi-curious and wanted to experiment with men, and they ended up separating. The two message each other back and forth, making sure he’s truly willing to go through with this, discussing with each other the best ways to be eaten, and everything he planned on doing with his body. Brandes actually gave some ideas to Armin, and requested that Armin use his skull as an ashtray. He also wanted his penis to be cut off, and he requested that they both eat it together. 

On March 9th, 2001, Brandes goes over to the mansion, and the two have a sexual encounter. After they are finished with that, Armin gives him a few sleeping pills, NyQuil, and Alcohol. He does this because he didn’t want Brandes to experience any pain, and he thinks taking these measures will refrain from that happening. Armin explains to Brandes that he’s going to be recording everything, and sets up his camera, and Brandes lays down on the table. Armin tells him that they’re going to start off with the penis so they could eat it together, and begins cutting it off, which took about 20 seconds. During an interview with Armin, he states that Brandes was able to feel it, and ended up screaming. He also explains that the blood was squirting from the open wound, similar to a fountain. He then goes into the kitchen to cook the penis as requested, and puts some salt, pepper, and garlic on it, chops it up, and fries it up in some oil. He then returns to Brandes with the cooked penis, and they eat it together. Armin states that he didn’t like the way it tasted at all, and said it was gross and way too chewy. 

Since Brandes was bleeding tremendously, Armin decided to take him and put him into the bathtub so he could run some water to cause less of a mess. He was planning on letting Brandes just bleed out to death, and would check up on him every 15 minutes or so to see if he was still alive. In the interview he said that this process took a very long time, so to kill time faster he took out his Star Trek book and began reading. However, three hours later Brandes was still alive. Armin begins to get very impatient and tells Brandes that he’s just going to have to slit his throat at this point. He kisses Brandes, and then slits his throat. 

He then takes his body out of the tub and brings him into the Slaughter Room so he can chop up the body. He buries the skull in the garden, instead of making his skull into an ashtray like his victim specifically requested, and puts some of the other body parts into the freezer. During one of his interviews, Armin states that he decorated his table with lovely candles, and said: “I took out my best dinner service, and I fried a piece of rump steak, a piece from his back, and made what I called princess potatoes and sprouts. After I prepared my meal, I ate it. The first bite was of course very strange. It was a feeling I can’t really describe. I spent over 40 years longing for it, dreaming about it, and now I was getting the feeling that I was actually achieving this perfect inner connection through his flesh. The flesh tasted like pork, but stronger.” He also explained that his fetish was sort of like the story about Hansel and Gretel. He stored the remainder of the body parts in ziplock bags, hidden under pizza boxes in his freezer, and would slowly consume the body over the next six months. He would even add chunks of the flesh as pizza toppings. 

He didn’t just take footage evidence of everything, but he also took a lot of photos as well, and posted these photos onto the Cannibal Cafe website, which again, caused everyone to go crazy for Armin, like he was some Cannibal King. Around late November he decided to go back onto the Cannibal Cafe website to begin advertising again, because his supply of human meat was starting to run low, and he needed more. However, little did he know that an Austrian student found all of Armins photos regarding the death and consumption of Brandes, and he saw that he was looking for another willing participant, and he tipped off the police about this new information. On December 10th, 2002, police came to Armin's mansion and started a search for evidence regarding the murder of Brandes. When the police got to the freezer they opened it up, moved the pizza boxes, and found at least 50 pounds of meat, which Armin told them was wild pig meat. Another officer comes over to take a closer look at the meat, and he notices that there's still skin on it, and they take the meat out to get a better look, and they confirm that this was 100% human meat. 

When the police asked him if this was human meat Armin finally breaks down and says that it was, and ends up telling them everything that happened. He told them about the photos, the video recording, the websites, the messages between himself and Brandes, etcetera. He was arrested and on January 30th, 2004, he was convicted of manslaughter and was only sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. Many people became outraged that this man got such a short sentence for what he did, while others thought it was justified considering they didn’t believe what he did was actually murder, as evidence showed that this was completely done willingly by the victim. Not only did all of the evidence prove that Brandes was a willing volunteer, but German lawyers learned that Cannibalism is actually legal in Germany. So they ended up charging him with murder for sexual pleasure, and with disturbing the peace of the dead. They also showed the court around 19 minutes of the video that Armin took. People argued that he should’ve been convicted of murder and not manslaughter, and that he should’ve been given a full life sentence, and not just eight years. 

During the retrial, on May 10th, 2006, it was argued that Brandes was not in the right mind to properly give consent to what was happening, and his conviction turned to murder and was given a life sentence. Armin is still in prison to this day, and he actually turned into a vegetarian and no longer eats any meat whatsoever. You can find interviews regarding this on YouTube. He also states that if he was ever given the opportunity to be released on parole, he would turn it down and stay in prison, because he believes he would go back to his old ways and look for more volunteers to eat. He also states that he knows what he did was wrong, but his craving for human flesh was just so strong.

[sterek-and-stuff-events]

Mead Moons Event: Prompts 13-15

Is Stiles a villager chosen to make sure viking raider Derek's cup is always full? Or is he a modern home brewer giving expert advice to the novice sourwolf over a web forum?

Does Derek court Stiles with a symbolic gift of honey wine? Or is he transported to another land when accidentally taking a drink of that realm's mead and runs into Creature Stiles?

Is apothecary Stiles making a special metheglin to heal a cursed, always beta-shifted Derek? Or do they enjoy tasting a variety of melomels and bochets on a date at a meadery?

Make up something sweet...or dry!

Is new emissary Stiles matched with Derek's pack in Fairbanks, Alaska? Or are they trying to track down an important artifact in Svalbard, Norway where the sun doesn't set for 4 months?

Is it a futuristic space AU where Derek and Stiles live under the ever-present light of a dome on a hostile planet? Or is some major supernatural bullshit going on to keep night from falling in Beacon Hills?

Is Midnight Sun the name of Derek's new album, which super fan Stiles is determined to get autographed? Or is it what they call the strange place where they can meet up in their shared dreams?

Bring your ideas to light!

Is Stiles a stage actor whose latest performance as Puck is reviewed by theater critic Derek? Or is he an actual fey being who gets a kick out of reading the fantasy series Derek writes that's supposedly based on his people?

Do a jealous Titania and Oberon try to keep happy couple Derek and Stiles apart in the Preserve? Or does a trickster tired of their UST and obliviousness engage in all sorts of mischief until they finally confess their feelings?

Do they have their first kiss while randomly watching the 1999 movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream? Or is that the theme of the college party where they hook up and end up becoming more than a one-night stand?

Share your vision!

Accepting new and unpublished fic, art, and playlists June 3rd - July 3rd. See the pinned post here for more info. 

[principleofplenitude]

Today, nearly half a billion people qualify as Indigenous. If they were a single country, it would be the world’s third most populous, behind China and India. Exactly who counts as Indigenous, however, is far from clear. A video for the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues begins, “They were always here—the original inhabitants.” Yet many peoples who are now considered Indigenous don’t claim to be aboriginal—the Maasai among them. According to Maasai oral histories, their ancestors arrived in Tanzania several hundred years ago from a homeland they call Kerio, likely situated near South Sudan. Conversely, being first doesn’t seem to make you Indigenous. A handful of Gaelic monks and then the Vikings were the first people to arrive in Iceland (they settled there earlier than the Maori arrived in New Zealand), yet their descendants, the Icelanders, are rarely touted as Indigenous. Farther east, modern-day Scandinavians can trace most of their ancestry to migrations occurring in 4000 and in 2500 B.C., but it’s the Sami reindeer herders, whose Siberian ancestors arrived in Scandinavia closer to 1500 B.C., who get an annual entry in the “Indigenous World” yearbook. In place of firstness, a U.N. fact sheet lists self-identification as the key criterion. This doesn’t quite work, either. It is true that some surprising candidates have gained recognition through activist self-designation, such as the Mincéirs of Ireland. (The Mincéirs, sometimes mistakenly called “Irish gypsies,” may have separated from the settled Irish population only several hundred years ago.) Other such groups have been denied recognition. In 1999, when Basters, mixed-race descendants of Khoi pastoralists and Afrikaners, read a statement at a U.N. forum about Indigenous affairs, hundreds of delegates walked out in protest. At the same time, many people are called Indigenous without their knowledge or consent. If it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the Indigenous to be indigenous, what fills the conceptual space? A natural candidate, worryingly, is primitiveness. As several recent books show, centuries of colonialism have entangled indigeneity with outdated images of simple, timeless peoples unsullied by history. In “Beyond Settler Time,” Mark Rifkin observes that popular representations freeze Indigenous peoples in “a simulacrum of pastness.” In “Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology,” Samuel J. Redman describes how efforts to document dying Indigenous cultures often centered on a search for “an idyllic, heavily romanticized, and apparently already bygone era of uncorrupted primitive societies. Indigeneity is powerful. It can give a platform to the oppressed. It can turn local David-vs.-Goliath struggles into international campaigns. Yet there’s also something troubling about categorizing a wildly diverse array of peoples around the world within a single identity—particularly one born of an ideology of social evolutionism, crafted in white-settler states, and burdened with colonialist baggage. Can the status of “Indigenous” really be globalized without harming the people it is supposed to protect? [...]  A politics built around indigeneity, many organizers fear, can reify ethnic boundaries. It encourages people to justify why their ethnic group, and not another, deserves particular resources and accommodations. It weakens domestic ties, which are otherwise critical for oppressed minorities. But it also contributes to one of the stranger consequences arising from a rhetoric of indigeneity: its co-option by far-right nationalists. As peoples like the Maasai have lost confidence in the rhetoric, ethnic nationalists worldwide have come to embrace it. Writing for a Hindu Right propaganda Web site in 2020, a columnist observed, “In the game of woke, we Hindus actually hold all possible cards. We are people of color. We come from an indigenous culture that is different from the organized religions. . . . How could we not be winning every argument?”

“It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of Indigenous” from New Yorker

[ijustwantedtobeoneofthestrokesuk]

Y2K Tech

Online

Today our mobile phone is our second brain, we use it for everything except for making phone calls…

We stream tv and music without thinking, we communicate via WhatsApp and DMs, our social media personality is our personality. We are online. In the late ‘90’s/early 2000’s we had to go online, it wasn’t fast, or convenient. It was a different time, unless you didn’t live through it, you didn’t live it.

In 1999 the way we communicated was being redefined as Nokia launched the 3210, the first mobile targetted to teens with snake and coloured covers (easily pleased back then). Over 160 million 3210’s were sold, making it the most popular phone to date. A year later BlackBerry released the first phone that had access to e-mails. BlackBerry were innovative as they brought instant messaging on the go to the market with BBM, their instant messenger service.

We had already been messaging our school friends (and strangers we’d befriended online) with MSN Messenger, on the desktop computer. Messaging strangers online is normal these days but back then you’d be warned out off it, in fear of being groomed but for a generation, it was a new place where friendships could blossom, with people who lived in other countries or people you met at a gig. 

Mobile phones changed language as the 140 character limit on text messages saw the introduction of “text language” to squeeze as much into your 10p text message using “u” for “you”, “4” for “for” etc… but it was MSN Messenger where LOL (laugh out loud) and BRB (be right back) just became modern-day shorthand, even if you weren’t actually laughing... 

How we access content today is unrecognisible to how we did in the 2000’s, but that change started in 1998…

The boom of the CD started in 1984 but it dramatically collapsed in 2000 thanks to 2 tech-obsessed 16-year-olds, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker who met each other online in 1998. They were both highly intelligent, Sean got into coding aged 7, at 14 he discovered ‘hacking’ which opened up a new community to him. Hackers would share information with each other in online forums (we call that world “the dark web” today). 

They both moved to Silicon Valley, the new tech hub in the Bay Area, Calfornia to develop their first project, Napster, leaving school behind. They didn’t think they were doing anything illegal, they were music fans themselves. Napster was revolutionary and has changed the way people consume and value music today but again, their battle was nothing new. The music industry had fought against ‘free’ music before with the introduction of the radio, When the Napster founders had to defend the platform in court, they compared it to photocopy machines and VHS recorders. Napster was a peer-to-peer platform that essentially cut out the middle man, users didn’t need to upload or download MP3 files (songs), they were transferred directly from the user's hard drive.  

The internet has reimagined creative industries including print and film, but it nearly killed the music industry.

Napster started to grow in the fall of 1999 on college campuses where high-speed internet was available. The founders tried to negotiate deals with record labels but they weren’t playing ball and reacted too slow, suddenly it was too late and meetings turned from conversations to legal battles. The ongoing, public legal battles only helped Napster get more popular and more music was shared. Its disruption was unique and investors poured money into the platform but it wasn’t built to make money, it couldn’t be monetized.  

Napster was the first ‘file-sharing’ platform. Before it, having the ability to get music for free was unthinkable, once Napster had gone huge it reached a stage where consumer habits were irreversible, for years.  

It revolutionised how we listen to music. It also birthed the ‘I want it now’ attitude, the ‘on-demand’ culture we live in now started here. We no longer needed to leave the house to buy a CD, come home and listen to it when you could press a couple of buttons, seven minutes later your dial-up connection would download it to your computer. Without Napster and the peer-to-peer generation, we wouldn’t be living in the streaming world. Consumers turn to piracy when they can’t get hold of a product legitimately.  It was morally and legally wrong, users knew that too but it was liberating. It was also an opportunity to discover new music as you could see what else is in the library of the user you’re downloading from. 

While some artists, such as Limp Bizkit supported the platform, seeing it as a gateway for new acts to reach an audience, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, became the most vocal name against it. The band spoke up after hearing one of their songs on radio stations around the world before it was even finished. They were baffled, they didn’t understand how this could have happened, it was traced back to Napster, which they hadn’t heard of. For Metallica, it wasn’t about money, it was about choice, they hadn’t been asked if they would like to be involved, it was out of their hands.  

Lars took the names of 300,000 Napster users who had downloaded Metallica's music to Napster HQ. The platform removed the users but within hours they had created new accounts under new names. Lars was portrayed as the villain but looking back, he was right. 

Napster was hijacking a multi-million-pound creative industry without doing anything however that was never the purpose, it was built with naivety, both Sean and Shawn just thought it was a good idea. It made sense to them.  

For years record labels had been used to making billions of £, suddenly that was taken away. Napster was forced to close down in July 2001 after the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) won the legal battle of copyright infringement but it didn’t solve the problem as users found other platforms. At its peak there were 80 million users on Napster, 20,000 of them were sued by record labels. 

The Birth of Online Music 

In January 2000 Pandora launched in the US, the initial version was an online radio station, an alternative to the already established stations while, 2 months later, in London, Freenet was created, an indestructible file-sharing site, the only way to stop it would be to remove it off every single computer that had used it. 

As Napster was gaining headlines with its very public court cases and legal spats, another peer-to-peer platform launched and this time, it wasn’t limited to sharing MP3 files, which for the user was both good and bad. 

On the 3rd May 2000 Limewire went live and it was responsible for 80% of illegally downloaded content in the US. During its 10-year lifespan, Limewire was downloaded 200 million times, at its most prominent time, it had over 50 million daily users. 

Internet was slow back in the early 2000’s, it could take 2 days to download a film and once downloaded it often didn’t work, it was the wrong film, wrong language, be porn or filled with viruses that would kill your computer. There were numerous court cases linked to videos of minors in porn being shared on Limewire, these were often accidentally downloaded. 

The third major player in peer-to-peer platforms was Kazaa, launched in March 2001 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (who would go on to create Skype). Like Limewire, files of all kinds could be shared and there were plenty of viruses knocking about, including some deliberately created by the RIAA. 

Kazaa’s downfall began in 2003 when the RIAA started to sue its users rather than the platform which saw its user base drop off dramatically and it closed down in 2004.  

Then there was The Pirate Bay from Sweden, created in 2003, the peer-to-peer file-sharing platform with a difference as it used torrent files that were harder to monitor. The platform was shut down several times, only to reappear under new domains. In 2009 The Pirate Bay founders were sentenced to 1 year in prison and fined £2.8 million after being found guilty of copyright infringement. 

To combat illegal downloads Apple launched the iTunes Store in April 2003 where users could pay for MP3s. It was a success story but it came too late, if it had been around when Napster was at its peak it might have had a bigger impact but people knew they could get music for free now. 

Limewire’s presence was much greater than Napster and Kazaa. In 2004 it became the biggest peer-to-peer platform and the second biggest access for digital music, behind the iTunes Store. It gained new users after Napster closed, people discovered it through online forums. Following criticism from the music industry, the developers created a code that would block copyrighted content being shared but users found ways around it. 

The RIAA took Limewire to court in 2006 for copyright infringement while MGM sued Kazaa’s parent company for $100 million. By 2007 the US music industry was losing $12 billion a year from music piracy and in 2010, after a 4-year court battle with the RIAA Limewire was shut down, initially asking for $72 trillion but settled out of court for $105 million. 

For all the bad that illegal downloading brought, it also allowed people to broaden their tastes, musicians had more ways to find influences and create more diverse music. The standard has also had to up its game, an album can no longer get away with a few singles and throw-away fillers.  

NEXT CHAPTER

[blockchainxtech]

What is Web 3.0 and why is it important?

Introduction

Over the last twenty years, the internet has changed dramatically. We have moved from Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to modern social media platforms. From basic digital payments to sophisticated online banking services. We have even experienced completely new internet-based technologies such as cryptocurrencies and blockchain. The Internet has become a vital part of human interactions and connectivity, and continues to evolve. So far, we've seen Web 1.0 and 2.0, but what exactly should we expect from Web 3.0? Let's examine the specifics and discover what lies ahead.

What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 (also known as Web3) is the next generation of Internet technology that relies heavily on machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain technology. The term was created by Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot and co-founder of Ethereum. Although Web 2.0 focuses on user-created content hosted on centralized websites, Web 3.0 will give users greater control over their online data. 

The movement aims to create open, connected and intelligent websites and web applications with improved understanding of machine-based data. Decentralization and digital economies also play an important role in Web 3.0, since they allow us to assign value to content created on the network. It is also important to understand that the concept of Web 3.0 is changing. There is no single definition and its exact meaning may differ from person to person.

How does Web 3.0 work?

Web 3.0 aims to provide personalized and relevant information faster by using AI and advanced machine learning techniques. Smarter search algorithms and developments in big data analytics will mean machines can understand and recommend content intuitively. Web 3.0 development services will also focus on user ownership of content and supporting accessible digital economies.

Today's websites often display static information or user-driven content, such as forums or social networks. While this allows data to be published en masse, it does not meet the specific needs of users. A website should tailor the information it provides to each user, similar to the dynamism of human communication in the real world. With Web 2.0, once this information is online, users lose ownership and control over it.

Another key figure in the Web 3.0 concept is computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. He provided his idea of ​​a future web in 1999:

I have a dream of a Web [in which computers] are able to analyze all the data: the content, the links and the transactions between people and computers. Though it's not yet a given, a "semantic web" will enable everyday processes like bureaucracy, commerce, and daily life to be managed by machines talking to machines.

Berners-Lee's vision has since been combined with Gavin Wood's message. An ocean of decentralized information will be available for websites and applications. That data will be understood and used in a meaningful way with individual users.  Blockchain acts as a solution to manage this online identity, data and property fairly.

A synopsis of the web's development

To better understand Web 3.0, let's look at where we are now and how we have developed. Over two decades, we have seen enormous changes:

Web 1.0

The original Internet provided an experience now known as Web 1.0. Author and web designer Darci DiNucci first used the term in 1999 to describe the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In the early 1990s, websites were created using static HTML pages that could only display information. There was no way for users to change data or upload their own. Social interactions were limited to simple chat messages and forums.

Web 2.0

In the late 1990s, a shift toward a more interactive internet began to take shape. With Web 2.0, users were able to interact with websites through databases, server-side processing, forms, and social media. These tools changed the web experience from static to dynamic. 

With the advent of Web 2.0, user-generated content and interoperability across various websites and apps became more important. Web 2.0 placed greater emphasis on participation than on observation. In the mid-2000s, most websites transitioned to Web 2.0, and large technology companies began creating social networks and cloud-based services.

The future and Web 3.0

The evolution of a semantically intelligent web makes sense when looking at the history of the internet. The data was first presented statically to users. Users could then interact with that data dynamically. Now, the algorithms will use all that data to improve the user experience and make the website more personalized and familiar. You only need to watch YouTube or Netflix to see the power of algorithms and how they have already improved.

Web 3.0, although not fully defined, can take advantage of peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies such as blockchain, open source software, virtual reality, Internet of Things (IoT) , and more. Web 3.0 also aims to make the internet more open and decentralized. In today's environment, users trust cellular and network providers to access their data and personal information. With the advent of distributed ledger technologies, that could soon change and users could regain ownership of their data.

Key features of Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is still far from being fully adopted, but its basic concepts are mostly already defined. The four topics we mention below are commonly mentioned as the most important aspects of the future of Web 3.0.

Semantic margin

Over time, machines have gotten better at understanding the data and content that humans create. However, there is still a long way to go to create a seamless experience where semantics are fully understood. For example, use of the word "cheap" can mean "affordable" or "poor quality," depending on the context. For a machine to understand this can be incredibly difficult. However, with big data and more information to study, AI is starting to better understand what we write on the web and present it intuitively.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies

Data ownership, online economies and decentralization are essential aspects of Gavin-Wood's Web3 future. We'll delve into this later, but blockchain provides a proven system to achieve many of these goals. The power of any person to tokenize assets, put information on chain, and create a digital identity is a significant innovation that lends itself to Web 3.0.

3D visualization and interactive presentation

In short, the appearance of the website will change greatly. We are already noticing a movement towards 3D environments that even incorporate virtual reality. The metaverse is an area that is venturing into these experiences, and we are already familiar with socialization through 3D video games. The areas of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are also working to present information more intuitively to web users.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is key to converting human-created content into machine-readable data. We're already familiar with customer service bots, but this is just the beginning. AI can present data to us and classify it, making it a versatile tool for Web 3.0. Best of all, AI will learn and improve itself, reducing the work needed for human development in the future.

What makes Web 3.0 superior to its predecessors?

In theory, combining the key features of Web 3.0 will generate a variety of benefits. Don't forget that all this will depend on the success of the underlying technology:

1. No central point of control: By taking middlemen out of the picture, they will no longer have any influence over user data. This freedom reduces the risk of censorship by governments or corporations and reduces the effectiveness of distributed denial of service (DoS) attacks .

2. Greater interconnectivity of information: As more products connect to the internet, larger data sets give algorithms more information to analyze. This can help them provide more accurate information that is tailored to the specific needs of the individual user.

3. More efficient navigation: When using search engines, finding the best results can sometimes be a challenge. However, engines have gotten better at finding semantically relevant results based on search context and metadata over the years. This results in a more convenient web browsing experience that can help anyone easily find the exact information they need.

4. Improved Advertising and Marketing: No one likes to be bombarded with online ads. However, if the ads are relevant to your needs, they could be helpful rather than a nuisance. Web 3.0 aims to improve advertising by leveraging smarter AI systems and targeting specific audiences based on consumer data.

5. Better Customer Support: Customer service is essential for a smooth user experience of web sites and applications. However, due to massive costs, many web services that become successful struggle to scale their customer service operations. Through smarter chatbots that can talk to multiple customers at once, users can enjoy a superior experience when dealing with support agents.

How do cryptocurrencies fit into Web 3.0?

In terms of Web 3.0, blockchain and cryptocurrency have enormous potential. Decentralized networks effectively incentivize more conscientious governance, content production, and data ow Some of its most relevant aspects for Web 3.0 include:

1.  Crypto Digital Wallets: Anyone can create a wallet that allows them to make transactions and acts as a digital identity. There is no need to store your data or create an account with a centralized service provider. You have full control over your wallet and often the same wallet can be used on multiple blockchains.

2. Decentralization: Transparent dissemination of information and power among a large number of people is simple with blockchain. This contrasts with Web 2.0, in which big tech companies dominate wide areas of our online lives.

3. Interoperability: DApps and on-chain data are becoming more compatible. Blockchains created with the Ethereum Virtual Machine can easily support DApps , wallets, and tokens. This helps improve the absolute presence necessary for a connected Web 3.0 experience.

Web 3.0 use cases

While Web 3.0 is still in development, we have some examples that are already in use today:

Siri and Alexa virtual assistants

Both Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa offer virtual assistants that meet many of the conditions of Web 3.0. 3. Digital economies: New digital economies are made possible by the capacity to use decentralized transactions and own data on a blockchain. The more people use Siri and Alexa, the more their AI will improve recommendations and interactions. This makes it a perfect example of a semantically intelligent web application that belongs to the Web 3.0 world.

Connected smart homes

The ability to be completely present is one of Web 3.0's main characteristics. This means we can access our online data and services across multiple devices. The systems that control your home's heating, cooling, and other utilities can now do so in a smart, connected way. Your smart home can know when you leave, when you arrive, and what temperature you like your home to be. You can use this information, and more, to create a personalized experience. No matter where you are, you can use your phone or other online devices to access this service.

Conclusions

The evolution of the internet has been a long journey and will surely continue into new iterations. With the Due to the vast increase in data available, websites and applications are moving toward a more engaging online experience. While there is still no concrete definition for Web 3.0, innovations are already underway. It's easy to see the direction we're going in, and of course blockchain appears to be a key part of the future of Web 3.0.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.12

538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city to the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius. 1088 – Election of Urban II as the 159th Pope of the Catholic Church. He is best known for initiating the Crusades. 1158 – German city Munich (München) is first mentioned as forum apud Munichen in the Augsburg arbitration by Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I. 1579 – Start of the Siege of Maastricht, part of the Eighty Years' War. 1622 – Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Society of Jesus, are canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. 1689 – James II of England landed at Kinsale, starting the Williamite War in Ireland. 1811 – Peninsular War: A day after a successful rearguard action, French Marshal Michel Ney once again successfully delays the pursuing Anglo-Portuguese force at the Battle of Redinha. 1912 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States. 1913 – The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra. 1918 – Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint Petersburg held this status for most of the period since 1713. 1920 – The Kapp Putsch begins when the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt is ordered to march on Berlin. 1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill 431 people. 1930 – Mahatma Gandhi begins the Salt March, a 200-mile (320 km) march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt in India. 1933 – Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This is also the first of his "fireside chats". 1938 – Anschluss: German troops occupy and absorb Austria. 1940 – Winter War: Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union, ceding almost all of Finnish Karelia. 1940 – The most destructive train accident in Finnish history kills 39 and injures 69 people in Turenki, Janakkala. 1942 – The Battle of Java ends with the surrender of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command to the Japanese Empire in Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies. 1947 – Cold War: The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism. 1950 – The Llandow air disaster kills 80 people when the aircraft they are travelling in crashes near Sigingstone, Wales. At the time this was the world's deadliest air disaster. 1967 – Suharto takes power from Sukarno when the People's Consultative Assembly inaugurate him as Acting President of Indonesia. 1968 – Mauritius gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1971 – The 1971 Turkish military memorandum is sent to the Süleyman Demirel government of Turkey and the government resigns. 1989 – Sir Tim Berners-Lee submits his proposal to CERN for an information management system, which subsequently develops into the World Wide Web. 1992 – Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 1993 – Several bombs explode in Mumbai, India, killing about 300 people and injuring hundreds more. 1993 – North Korea announces that it will withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refuses to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites. 1999 – Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO. 2003 – Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade. 2003 – The World Health Organization officially release a global warning of outbreaks of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). 2004 – The President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly: the first such impeachment in the nation's history. 2009 – Financier Bernie Madoff pleads guilty to one of the largest frauds in Wall Street's history. 2011 – A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. 2014 – A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others. 2020 – The United States suspends travel from Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[marketingprofitmedia]

How to Increase Alexa Rank of Your Website: 10 Killer Ways Step by Step

A provider of web information is Alexa.com. It began as a standalone company in 1996 and was acquired by Amazon.com in 1999. According to the number of visitors, Alexa ranks the most popular websites today.

8.5 million individuals visit the website every month to learn about other websites. This information demonstrates how well-liked alexa.com is. Most individuals, including online marketers, acquire data from Alexa and value it highly. Therefore, you should consider Alexa rank if you plan to monetize your website.

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By using its browser toolbar, Alexa gathers information about visitors. Visitors are only counted if they have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browsers; otherwise, they are not.

By way of illustration, if your website has 1,000 daily visits, but only 120 of them have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browsers, Alexa will only register 120 visitors to your website.

1. Produce Quality Content

Content is the backbone that holds a website together. Crafting high-quality, informative, and engaging content is paramount to increasing your Alexa Rank. A well-written article or blog post has the potential to attract a larger audience and encourage them to spend more time on your website, ultimately boosting your ranking. So, prioritize creating valuable content that caters to your target audience’s interests and needs.

2. Optimize Your On-Page SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results. To improve your Alexa Rank, focus on optimizing your on-page SEO elements. Start by conducting thorough keyword research to identify the terms your target audience is searching for. Incorporate these keywords strategically into your website’s meta tags, headings, and content to increase organic visibility and attract more traffic.

Conduct keyword research to identify popular search terms

Utilize tools such as Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush

Strategically incorporate keywords into meta tags, headings, and content

Optimize your website’s URL structure

Ensure proper internal linking and anchor text optimization

3. Utilize Social Media Engagement

In today’s digitally connected world, social media platforms have become a driving force in website promotion and brand awareness. To enhance your Alexa Rank, leverage the power of social media engagement. Create compelling and shareable content that resonates with your target audience. Promote your content on various social media channels, interact with your followers, and encourage them to share your posts. Increased social media engagement will result in more website visits and a higher Alexa Rank.

Create compelling and shareable content

Promote your content on various social media channels

Interact with your followers and respond to their comments and messages

Utilize social media analytics to identify trends and optimize your content strategy

4. Build High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are virtual endorsements that demonstrate the credibility and authority of your website. Generating high-quality backlinks from reputable websites can significantly impact your website’s Alexa Rank. Invest time and effort in building relationships with other website owners, guest blogging, and participating in relevant forums or communities. By acquiring authoritative inbound links, you increase your website’s visibility and, subsequently, boost your Alexa Rank.

Build relationships with website owners in your niche

Guest blog on reputable websites within your industry

Participate in relevant forums and communities

Monitor and disavow low-quality or spammy backlinks

5. Improve Website Loading Speed

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, users expect websites to load swiftly and smoothly. A slow-loading website not only discourages visitors but also adversely affects your Alexa Rank. Optimize your website’s loading speed by compressing images, minifying code, and utilizing caching mechanisms. Implementing these performance-enhancing techniques will provide a seamless browsing experience for your audience while positively impacting your website’s Alexa Rank.

Compress images to reduce their file size

Minify JavaScript and CSS code to reduce page load times

Utilize caching mechanisms, such as browser and server caching

Optimize your website’s HTML structure and reduce unnecessary elements

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6. Enhance User Experience

User experience (UX) plays a significant role in determining the success of a website. An excellent user experience not only keeps visitors engaged but also encourages them to explore different areas of your website, ultimately leading to improved Alexa Rank. Focus on creating a visually appealing design, intuitive navigation, and easy-to-use interfaces. Additionally, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly, as an increasing number of users browse the internet through their smartphones and tablets.

Invest in a visually appealing and responsive website design

Optimize website navigation for easy exploration

Ensure mobile-friendliness and responsive design

Conduct user testing and gather feedback to continuously improve UX

7. Increase Website Engagement

Engaging your website visitors and encouraging them to spend more time on your platform is crucial for boosting your Alexa Rank. Implement strategies to increase website engagement, such as offering interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or surveys. Additionally, encourage comments, feedback, and social sharing. Engaged visitors are more likely to become loyal followers, organically promoting your website and enhancing your Alexa Rank.

Offer interactive elements, such as polls, quizzes, or surveys

Encourage comments, feedback, and social sharing

Provide valuable and share-worthy content that sparks discussions

Create a sense of community within your website

8. Monitor and Analyze Your Website’s Performance

To effectively improve your Alexa Rank, it’s essential to monitor and analyze your website’s performance regularly. To monitor visitor activity, comprehend traffic trends, and pinpoint areas for development, use analytics tools like Google Analytics. Stay updated with the latest trends and industry best practices. By analyzing data-driven insights, you can make informed decisions and optimize your website accordingly.

Set up Google Analytics or similar analytics tools

Track website traffic and visitor behavior

Identify patterns and trends in user engagement

Continuously optimize your website based on data-driven insights

9. Network and Collaborate with Influencers

Influencer marketing has emerged as a powerful strategy for expanding your reach and improving your Alexa Rank. Find influential people in your sector and get in touch with them to discuss possible partnerships, collaborations, or endorsements. Influencers’ followers are more likely to visit and interact with your content when they mention or link to your website. Networking with influential individuals can significantly elevate your website’s visibility and boost your Alexa Rank.

Identify influencers in your niche

Reach out for potential collaborations or partnerships

Offer value and establish mutually beneficial relationships

Leverage the influence of others to increase your website’s exposure

10. Stay Consistent and Adapt

Improving your Alexa Rank is an ongoing process that requires dedication and adaptability. Stay consistent with your efforts and regularly evaluate your strategies to identify what works best for your website. Keep up with industry advancements, algorithm updates, and emerging trends to ensure you remain at the cutting edge. By continuously adapting and fine-tuning your approach, you’ll maximize your chances of attaining and maintaining a stellar Alexa Rank.

Continuously evaluate and adjust your strategies

Keep up with industry advancements and algorithm updates

Embrace emerging trends and new technologies

Be proactive in enhancing your website’s performance and ranking

Conclusion

You have reached the end of our guide on increasing the Alexa Rank of your website with ten killer strategies. By following these step-by-step methods, you are now equipped with the knowledge and tools to propel your website to new heights of popularity and visibility.

Remember, improving your Alexa Rank takes time, effort, and consistency. It’s essential to stay committed to implementing these strategies and monitoring your progress along the way. Results may not be immediate, but with patience and dedication, you’ll begin to see positive changes in your Alexa Rank.

As you continue on your journey, keep in mind that high-quality content remains the cornerstone of a successful website. Creating engaging, informative, and relevant content will not only attract visitors but also keep them coming back for more. Combine this with effective on-page SEO techniques to optimize your website for search engines and further enhance its visibility.

Don’t underestimate the power of building high-quality backlinks and engaging with your audience on social media. These strategies can help drive more traffic to your website, increase your online authority, and improve your overall Alexa Rank.

Last but not least, use applications like Google Analytics to routinely examine and track the performance of your website. This data will provide valuable insights into your audience’s behavior, allowing you to refine your strategies and make informed decisions to further boost your Alexa Rank.

Now, armed with these killer ways to increase your Alexa Rank, it’s time to put them into action. Embrace the challenge, stay persistent, and watch as your website’s popularity and authority soar. Wishing you success as you pursue your goals!

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Source : How to Increase Alexa Rank of Your Website: 10 Killer Ways Step by Step

Thanks for reading my article on “How to Increase Alexa Rank of Your Website: 10 Killer Ways Step by Step“, hope it will help!

[mlembug]

because the meme mentions "credit card info in plaintext": internet banks have been using HTTPS since at least mid 00s (this is as far as I am able to remember myself), but very likely since the beginning*. In fact, online banking and e-commerce have been a driving force for creating the HTTPS protocol in the first place (similarly how the original use case for cookies was "internet shopping cart"), and also because of how much internet banks were relying on the tech, they were responsible for teaching users how to spot a HTTPS-secured site in the first place (including teaching stuff like "before typing in your credentials to our bank site, check the near the address bar to see if there's "https://" in front and there is a padlock" in promotional materials and on TV), which was a necessary part to get people to trust and use online banking in the first place.

internet banks also have been using 2FA before most other sites did, in the form of single-use codes (if you were close to running out, the next batch of codes was sent to you by snail mail to your home)

or tokens that generated a time-limited password

I will admit that online shopping has been worse in adopting HTTPS than it should, however, most internet shops however delegated the responsibility of payments to someone else. In particular, processing card numbers is subject to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which explicitly specifies the credit card numbers can't be transmitted through plaintext communication.

As for everyone else, indeed, most sites did not use HTTPS until mid 2010:

1. Wi-Fi was not that popular back then, and intercepting someone's credentials was more difficult - this way of attack was not well known until 2010 with the release of Firesheep, a Firefox extension (also interestingly enough, this is something a VPN could protect from, although with wide adaption of HTTPS this attack surface was eliminated entirely)

2. Before 2016 when Let's Encrypt did it for free, getting HTTPS working for your site required paying money. In order to use HTTPS you needed to acquire a certificate from a trusted certificate authority. Below is a screenshot of an archived (archive.org) 2004 page for one of the certification authorities, DigiCert, which on the section dedicated to "frequently asked questions" has listed a "Why is DigiCert so much less expensive?" question.

It lists the cost as 99 dollars. This is a yearly cost. The site also lists the cost for what the competition asks for the price for it, with VeriSign being listed as $895. Understandably, an internet forum admin or an average website owner would be unlikely to pay this kind of cost, and therefore most sites did not use HTTPS.

* - although if we go to the 90s, we will encounter the problem that cryptographic algorithms were classified as military equipment and therefore its export was restricted by existing US regulations. If you were to go to Netscape's website in 1999 and download a web browser, you will see that it is offered in two versions, one for US and Canadian citizens with "strong encryption" and other one with everyone else with "standard encryption" (woefully inadequate to secure confidentiality of information transfer beyond like, a few days or so)

https was invented in 1994, but as i recall, basically the whole internet used http up until the mid 2010s. and my question, more of a comment really, is... what the fuck?

[xcookedxchroniclesx]

My cyberpunk codename is Zerø.

I entered the cyberpunk world in Grade 6 when I went online at home for the very first time and I read Google's mission statement and I decided that I liked it and I would join in.

The first thing that I did online was research the purpose of the internet and I joined "The Supergroup of Intelligent Humans" and read Google's mission statement.

I joined the good fight against childrapemedia or childporn in layman's terms. I was searching for a forum to join just like my Dad had his forum that he chatted with like-minded individuals all over the place. I wanted that too. I found my way to a childrapemedia forum that I decided that I had to infiltrate. I had a Grade 12 reading level in Grade 6 so I could pose as an adult if i wanted to online.

I created a profile and I joined in the conversation and I outlined the plan for the creation of the dark web in the future and how to build it so that we would have separate internets so that us who hate childrapemedia wouldn't be exposed to it. And I outlined some rules for it so that no one could be innocent if they looked for childporn, that they would definitely find it and be guilty immediately because we don't need them in society.

I suggested that they keep meticulous records of what everyone was doing for childporn for blackmail purposes so that we would have records for the big takedown incriminating everyone for everything they did since, I hoped, then in 1996 for handing over to the police when it was time to take it all down.

I then tried out a thing, I entered the reset code into the Google Search Engine and followed up with the activation of the code to be backwards then forwards 4 times in a row and erased the forum after I was done plotting.

I then searched the internet for shady childrapemedia websites and I found one that outlined the takeover of Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada. In it was meticulous plans on taking over the city in the underground and eventually killing the whole city for "terror porn" and replacing everyone and having Saskatoon the homebase and location of "Childporn Utopia" where they could watch childrapemedia uninterrupted all they wanted.

This meant that childporners from all corners of the world would congregate here and the criminal underworld would be most violent and scary if they got their way.

They outlined a plan to takeover downtown by the year 2000 and set up their first stage of taking the city.

I slept walked and explained to my parents that we need to go to Saskatoon to save not just the city but the whole world and that I alone knew everything that was needed to change the course of history.

The reset code worked for erasing the websites and the one that outlined their plans I hacked and erased the whole thing but set it up to see the front page then redirected to a page that had nothing but "The Time Is Now" written on it so that whenever they went back for their orders that's what they would get and it would hopefully fuck up everything royally.

My parents agreed and in summer 1999 me and my brother Dallas went to Edge Fest '99 and saw some of the best artists of the 90's and were the only kids at a huge music festival. They shopped for a place to live while we were at the festival.

And step one was secured as the two coolest kids in the province because we paid for the tickets ourselves doing oddjobs and hauling wood for 3 weeks prior. We had taste in what was popular and what was cool. I was the nerdiest guy who was cool and it fucked up every bully I ever encountered.

We infiltrated the city immediately.

[lowtaxsa]

Something Awful: 1999-2000

Ah, the history of Something Awful, a tale so mind-numbingly boring that I'm pretty sure it's been used as a torture technique. But hey, you asked for it, so buckle up for a wild ride through the life and times of a snarky, dead internet guy who clearly never got over his grudges.

Before SA, I slaved away at Gamespy and ran Planet Quake. Working there started off cool, but it quickly devolved into a swirling vortex of misery. The CEO, Mark Surfas, tried to turn his band of underpaid nerds into a real company but had the managerial skills of a drunken raccoon.

They employed meatheads like Sal "Sluggo" Accardo, who was about as helpful as a sunburn, and Darren "Dakota" Tabor, a backstabbing weasel. They made me work insane hours, and when I hit their idiotic milestones, my reward was a cheap backpack and an MP3 player I sold for a measly $20. Thanks for nothing, guys!

I eventually stopped caring and ended up working with LadyICE, an ancient hag who was so useless that I'm pretty sure she was cursed by a witch. After I mocked her incompetence in a Cranky Steve update, she tattled on me like a whiny child, and Darren forced me to sign some shady documents that got me fired. Good riddance.

With no job, I focused on SA, and our first tech guy was Cozmo, who I met on a Quake 2 server. He helped set up the early SA site, which had a design so terrible that it looked like someone vomited up Halloween decorations. The forums started slow, but it attracted a motley crew of weirdos who somehow found our little corner of the internet appealing. Go figure.

The early 2000s were the wild west of the dot-com bubble, where people made absurd amounts of money by doing practically nothing. I, however, missed that boat and ended up on the sinking ship that was the Gamefan Network. They never paid me a dime, and I got roped into cleaning up Billy "Wicked" Wilson's messes on Voodoo Extreme. He was a talented guy with a head full of bees, but he sadly passed away due to liver damage.

Then, I jumped onto the Backbeat Media Network, which was like being the awkward goth kid at a prep school – we didn't fit in at all. But at least they were nice, unlike eFront.

I joined eFront, hoping they'd be better, but it was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. They promised checks that never came, and I was desperate for the money they owed me. Greg Panos, their web relations guy, convinced me to work for them full-time. It was like making a deal with the devil, except the devil was an incompetent buffoon.

The entire eFront debacle was a disaster, and to make matters worse, Gabe from Penny Arcade started a petty crusade against me, claiming I profited from eFront's collapse. That guy had the intelligence of a moldy sponge, and I carried a grudge against him for ages. But hey, at least Tycho was cool.

Here's a fun story about eFront: Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen stole a chair from them when he quit. Why? No one knows. It's like trying to understand the motivations of a feral raccoon.

By early 2001, I was completely over the whole network thing. But hey, at least I had some entertaining stories to tell, right? So, that's the not-so-glorious history of SA, as told by a bitter, sarcastic ghost who's still clinging to his grudges from beyond the grave. What a life, huh?

As I look back on the twisted, bizarre, and sometimes hilarious history of Something Awful, I can't help but feel a pang of unease. The early days of the internet were rife with chaos, colorful characters, and more than a few facepalm-inducing misadventures. But as the dust has settled and we've all grown older and wiser (well, maybe not all of us), I've come to realize that there's a darker side to this tale.

The internet has transformed into a breeding ground for unscrupulous businesses and manipulative advertising practices. No longer is it simply a collection of misfits and oddballs – it's become a sprawling marketplace where data is bought and sold, and where the almighty dollar reigns supreme.

Consider the world of online advertising: a parasitic landscape where companies feed on your every click and view, milking you for all you're worth. My own experience with these vultures is a testament to their ruthlessness, as they withheld my hard-earned money, forcing me to struggle while they cashed in on my misery. It's a cautionary tale, a stark reminder of the predatory nature of this digital realm.

And what of the current state of YouTube? Once a haven for homegrown content and genuine creativity, it's now become a soulless behemoth, churning out a never-ending stream of insipid clickbait and mind-numbing "challenges." The platform has been overrun by money-hungry creators and advertisers, all vying for your precious time and attention, only to leave you feeling empty and unsatisfied.

It's time for us to take a stand, to recognize the dangerous path we're treading. The internet was once a glorious, untamed wilderness, filled with boundless potential and a sense of wonder. But now, as we hurtle headlong into a world dominated by corporate interests and a relentless pursuit of profit, we must ask ourselves: is this really the future we want?

So let this be a dire warning, a clarion call to those who value the true spirit of the internet. It's up to us to resist the encroaching tide of greed and manipulation, to carve out a space where creativity and genuine connection can still flourish. We must never forget the lessons of the past, for they are the keys to unlocking a brighter, more authentic future.

As for me, I'll continue to raise a sarcastic, mean-spirited toast to the memories, the grudges, and the bizarre collection of misfits who made my time on the internet a wild, unforgettable ride. Rest in peace, Lowtax. You may be gone, but your legacy lives on – a stark reminder of the perils and pitfalls that lurk in the darkest corners of cyberspace.