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Longstanding humor website, forebear of 4chan

Summary

Something Awful is one of the Internet's foremost comedy websites, with a huge following and thousands upon thousands of members in its forums community. SA (as it's often abbreviated) is the point of origin for a great number of what are now considered old memes, and was vital to the creation of photoshops and spreading of All your base, along with other sites such as Fark and the Overclocked forums.

Features

The front page of SA has numerous thematic and recurring features, some of which have been present almost as long as the site itself. The most prominent current features are the Photoshop Friday, in which forums contributors manipulate images to fit in with a humorous theme, the Comedy Goldmine, which is frequently taken from successful threads in the forums and often consists of humorous stories or MSPaint images, the Flash Tub, in which Shmorky showcases bizarre and often disturbing animation, and WTF D&D, wherein Zack Parsons and Steve Sumner critique and ridicule popular (and sometimes unpopular) pen & paper RPGs. Over the years, many other features have come and gone, and the site is well known for some of its original content, such as Lowtax's ICQ "pranks", where people have mistakenly messaged him and he led them along with humorous results.

Conflicts and Legal Threats

As a site that satirizes and parodies a great many subjects, especially with its Photoshop Friday features and critical articles, SA faces the occasional legal threat or conflicts with random internet users who believe the site has wronged them in some way. To this end, Lowtax has created a lawyer persona, Leonard J. Crabs, who is quite enthusiastic about his job but is rather incompetent. Crabs will communicate with actual lawyers who've contacted Kyanka, often ridiculing or confusing them with irrelevant commentary. To this date no one has followed through with actual legal proceedings.

The Something Awful Forums

One of the most prominent features of SA is its large and well-established forums community. The forums provide an area to discuss a wide variety of topics, including anime, computers, news, sports, health, music, and many other subjects. The forums began with free registration, but Kyanka began to charge a $9.95 one-time registration fee (:10bux:) in 2001 as they began to grow beyond the capacity of his hardware. Numerous other features of the forums are available for additional small payments ranging from five to thirty dollars each.

The forums create a great amount of content found in the features sections of the main site and are frequently thanked for this content, with the contributors being referred to as "goons."

Origins

The site was originally created as a side project of Kyanka's, while he was working for the Planet Quake website. His "Cranky Steve" persona was one of the original features of the site, deriding Quake maps and players and criticizing other Planet Quake administrators.

Current status

To this day, Something Awful has been largely successful, allowing Kyanka to make a living running the site and selling SA merchandise from time to time. The attitude of the forums has changed over time, and many feel that they're much less insensitive and humorous than they once were.

Facts

Images

Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka

The SA grenade

SA-tan

Related Pages

4chan

GET OUT

How do I shot web?

Lemon Demon

Lowtax

Neckbeard

O Rly

Shmorky

Slender Man

YTMND

Zalgo

External Links

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