more internet idiocy

[egypturnash]

Oh no, oh no, that Something Awful site did another attack on furries.

It's the most painfully unfunny thing I've ever read. You know, I've seen people apologize for lame attack humor articles on SA because they weren't written by Lowtax,, and it seems he's the core of the site, but, geeze, this is the most long-winded unfunny thing that's supposed to be funny that I've read in a long time.

I usually only read Something Awful when someone points to an article. I don't follow it. I don't look at it regularly. I'm not sure I've ever actually read anything written by the Comedy God of Something Awful, Lowtax, until today.

I wondered if he was just having a lame day. This beating-a-dead-horse didn't seem at all like the kind of sparkling wit that people always kinda implied Lowtax was capable of when apologizing for other people's writing on the site, or for the behavior of the "tl;dr lollersk8ts <img src=goatse.cx> what" crowd. So I poked in the archives and read the previous article by him. And it was the same exact thing. A long litany of the imbecelity of some people whose bodies are less than perfect who dared to do something creative, silly, and shamelessly dorky, and didn't have the skills yet to do it perfectly. And it went on way too long.

I began to wonder if this guy has a secret desire for cosplay he's denying, given that the furry article was obsessed with fursuit sex.

Then I used SA's search feature and asked for all articles by Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka. I poked at random through them, looking for funny. I smirked a few times. I didn't giggle or laugh. Mostly I felt like I was reading a lame clone of Dave Barry, with an obsession with mocking anything that's done with far more heart than skill. Who is occasionally mildly bemusing but ruins it by just running his point into the ground - every single article seemed like it was at least half again as long as it should have been. This guy needs to edit his stuff, badly.

Was this guy ever funny? SA is his site, right, I'm told it owes its popularity to his skill at humor. I don't see this. He's not even very good at mocking fish in a barrel.

Is he funnier if I browse with images on? He sure isn't funny without his props. Kinda like Gallagher without the vicarous glee of the Sledge-O-Matic.

The first person who points me to an article by Lowtax that actually makes me laugh is going to get some kind of reward. Probably art.

Comments

[goforthbyday.livejournal.com]

i wish he was like most of the world...just pretending fursuiting doesn't exist.

[kriscrash.livejournal.com]

I think "beating on a dead horse" is the exact and perfect way to describe somethingAweful *sigh*

(And your layout only works in IE for me XD)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that impression.

Argh, I hate cross-browser issues. It's beautiful for me in Mozilla, honest. (And the fact that it's never been adequately tested is part of why I don't use custom-skinned comments pages - that and the fact that I dislike them.)

*rantrantrant!*

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I *hate* custom-skinned comment pages! Half the time they're these baffling cluttered messes where I have to try to figure out which fiddly little *thing* is the "post comment" button, and then the post-comment page takes forever to load 'cause it's weighed down with *crap*, and once it even displayed my "picture to use" dropdown menu in black on black so I couldn't tell what icon I was selecting!

Most of the time, this isn't a problem, because my friends page links automatically add "?style=mine", but if I follow a link from somewhere else and want to post something, usually I'll go up and *manually* add "?style=mine" to the URL just because it's the *easiest* thing to do!

Re: *rantrantrant!*

[kriscrash.livejournal.com]

I edited my lj's colour scheme, and simply left the rest. But secretly, it's cause I hardly know anything about custom styles, yet schhh!

[kriscrash.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* I get it. Now EVERYBODY'S telling me to get Mozilla. I ought to, really :o
Opera's told to be picky, and unlike Moz and IE it doesn't ignore script errors by guessing... but nevermind *finds somewhere to leech broadband*

[kriscrash.livejournal.com]

Wait! Why don't we just... describe something aweful as something aweful? I'm so smart :o

[neillparatzo.livejournal.com]

Must be a slow news day if SA is doing furries again.

[martes.livejournal.com]

The whole article screams of this forced: "Look at me, I am being so funny!!" I didn't bother to download the clips because I've seen the exact same thing at numerous furry cons. As I said in someone else's LJ-- *yawn*

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

I think the humor value from the furry articles on SA at this point are supposed to come entirely from the audience, specifically the furries who are expected to read the article and read with amusing indignation. But you know, when even I'm not moved to respond with anything more than "Meh, not his best work," you know the joke's getting stale. I think that's exactly Lowtax's problem, he's letting these things become a crutch, giving his audience the mischief that they expect from him instead of being funny on his own terms. You know, kind of like Gallagher, now that I think of it. :) I also notice he's getting really self-conscious -- there have been a lot of odd little bits of self-deprecation creeping into his jokes. His air of superior swagger was so vital to his style of humor -- I really wonder if he's not starting to crack.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

And at least Gallagher comes up with his own ideas for props. Lowtax just goes looking for a random bit of amateurishness to go on and on and on and on and on about. Boy needs an editor, boy needs some new schtick. If he ever had schtick to begin with. Nobody's responded with a "here's Lowtax actually being funny" link yet.

[justabox.livejournal.com]

I don't think Lowtax has ever been funny and I'd say it's in large part because OH HO HO HO THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IS FUNNY ABOUT PEOPLE X and it's pretty much insulting. If I really think whatever is funny I can figure it out myself, thanks.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I thought he was supposed to be some kind of Internet Comedy Star or something. I guess I was misinformed.

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

I was saying to Peggy the other day, I think Something Awful has been mortally wounded and it just doesn't realize it yet. It was already barely sliding by, having gone downhill for years, and this last culture war has pretty much finished it. All those sites are finished, even if they don't know it. Comedy styles have a shelf life, just like comedy subject matter. Like nobody does pie fights anymore, and nobody does the Three's Company are-they-or-aren't-they innuendo sitcom. Even Jackass is old now. The net bastard routine is played out.

If Something Awful, LJDrama, etc., don't dry up this year, they will the next. Once the users get bored with the content, all they'll have is community, and these people don't have much love for each other. They'll graduate, or they'll gravitate towards various forms of geekery, maybe go to a political website and bitch about things that matter, but SA will soon be a forgotten net curiosity, like Total Entertainment Network, or that old webcam page of the Amiga user's cat.

[lediva.livejournal.com]

nobody does pie fights anymore

And it's a damn shame.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

<------

also found during the images search

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

You're better than that.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

I want to see more of SeanBaby. THAT guy is funny.

[cobaltie.livejournal.com]

Amen to that!
*grin*
SeanBaby, after all, has educated me to the fact that Turkish knockoffs of popular movies are utterly, utterly more bizarre than anyone should be allowed to come up with.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

"Hello... what's with no hello?"

...

Oh wait, you said SeanBaby, not SockBaby.
Never mind!

[radd.livejournal.com]

Those wacky furries. Will they never end their socially delinquent ways?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Will they never grow up and supress all whimsey like the rest of us well-adjusted adults? OMG WTF.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

... BBQ LOL.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

The genuinely funny stuff by Lowtax was his ICQ pranks. This is the material that made people recommend SA to me, years ago, before it just became about injokes and paid forums and bagging on furries. Those were honest-to-god laugh-out-loud gasp-for-breath funny. Or at least I thought so. :) Everything else was kinda whatever, but those ICQ pranks killed me. They're not articles, they're just hapless real peoplwe who happen to ICQ lowtax to sell him something, and he Phil Hendries the hell out of them. Unfortuantely, it seems that that sort of thing has gone by the wayside, and more of the cult-of-personality screed crap is winning the day over there.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

And where on SA would I find these things?

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Consider yourself Hooked Up. ^_^ (Note these are like four years old! The JeffK dialect kinda dates poorly, but they're still funny.)

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=287

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=299

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=290

There's a bunch more but I remember these the best.

[trikotomy.livejournal.com]

The others are located in the "Pranks" section under "Content". Those, Photoshop Phriday, some Comedy Goldmine, and the occasional game or movie review are the only truly great things around anymore, I think. I have enjoyed some of their news articles (I shamelessly ripped off their style of image insertion in my journal, after all), but they really do seem to be growing more and more lackluster and tedious nowadays.

Considering their sponsorship by all manner of unwholesome sites and the glaringly obvious and rarely denied fact that they're all dorks of one stripe of another, you'd think they'd be less astonished by other forms of geekery... but then they'd be out of a job, I suppose. But look at it this way; if it weren't for their ALoDs, some of us wouldn't have quite the selection of awesome bookmarks that we do.

[cobaltie.livejournal.com]

Only one I read of that was the ICQ prank that spawned the whole 'Terrible Secret of Space' memeage. It was pretty funny, though. :-P

[minimalismo.livejournal.com]

Oh dear...

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

SomethingAwful is a haven for people with nothing better to do, so just exactly who CAN they look down on? Exactly. No one.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

My fevered brain is in overdrive this morning. I want you to picture this!

Two the Ranting Griffon and Something Awful Lowtax STEEL CAGE DEATHMATCH!

They're the same sort of dullish humour but dyametrically opposed! It'd be glorious although I think Lowtax would probably lose. Doesn't appear to have as much lung capacity. Two is skinnier and can probably keep it up longer unless Lowtax gave up and hit him with a chair.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*shudder* That's a lot more attention than I want to give *either*.