Something Awful Launches

1999

Date: 1999 · Place: somethingawful.com, Richard Kyanka's apartment · Figures: Richard Kyanka (Lowtax), founder · Bruce Bowtied, early contributor · the Goons, forum membership · Tags: Forum, Goons, Genesis 01. Lowtax Opens the Door Richard Kyanka registers somethingawful.com in 1999 as a comedy site for bad-video-game screenshots and snarky reviews. He goes by Lowtax. In March 2000 he installs phpBB forums, and the forums immediately become the point. Membership costs ten dollars, payable by PayPal. The fee is a filter. It produces the Goons: a paying, self-conscious, in-jokey readership that treats the forum as a craft workshop rather than a public square. 02. The Workshop Model Photoshop Phriday and Comedy Goldmine turn forum threads into curated front-page galleries. Goons collaborate on image macros, fake screenshots, and reality-distorting raids years before /b/ exists. Many of the early 2000s viral artefacts (the All Your Base photoshop wave, the original Slender Man, early Let's Plays) originate in Goon threads. Something Awful is the proving ground for the entire image-board grammar that follows. 4chan inherits its tone, its hostility to outsiders, and its production model. /b/ is the Goons stripped of the ten-dollar fee. Sources • KnowYourMeme, Something Awful • The Verge, 'A history of Something Awful' (2017) • Wayback Machine, somethingawful.com captures 2000-2001