Blogging: Fatgoons, Another Blog (tag: blog blogs, blogging, bLoG, BLOG)

Fat Goons Blog

What is this, you might ask? A link for my browser? Not on my Internet, good sir, you say. Or, if you were a goon, you might say "goon sire." But if you were a goon you would understand the purpose of the above-posted link implicitly. Confused?

Once upon a time there was a little angry man who worked in the video game journalism industry, a position somewhere between fluffer and Governor of Illinois on the great continuum of respectability. This little angry man thought that he was too good for VoodooExtreme.com, the site at which he worked (and which is currently owned by IGN, along with half of the rest of the internet), and he sought to branch out. Often, while immersed in the excitement of copyediting the reviews of video games made by the big-shot video game journalists at the site, this little angry man would consider the game in question and remark "this sure is something awful!" to no one in particular, for the little man had alienated the staff at VoodooExtreme.com with his less-than-pleasant demeanor. When he wasn't busy failing college classes or contemplating the uselessness of his existence, this angry man dreamed of opening his own website, where he could catalogue all kinds of very awful video games. From his wildest flight of fancy he returned with a name: SomethingAwful.com.

The little angry man? Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka. And he succeeded, beyond his most egregious hopes.

Indeed, what began as a website for the express purpose of mocking dreary video games soon blossomed into a hub of internet comedy. You see, the site also hosted a general-purpose webforum, and in a lot of respects this became more popular than the main site, to such an extent that for a time the catchphrase "there's a front page?!" had considerable currency among veteran posters. While the majority of the humour at Something Awful found its origin in video games, inevitably all kinds of discussions were undertaken on the boards: politics, automobiles, sex, life, money, business, etc. It's important to note that a very specific kind of person is going to be drawn to a site that concerns itself mainly with comedy derived from computer games. By and large, this sort of person is fat, bearded, lonely, socially awkward, and possibly smelly, and the members of the Something Awful forums are no exception to this stereotype. Indeed, their penchant for anti-social behaviour both on and off-line in time earned the posters of this forum the nickname goon (see Fig. 1). There is some history to this.

Figure 1: Typical Goons

One of the features of the main site was Mr. Kyanka's "Awful Link of the Day." Every day, without fail, Richard or one of the posters on the forum would dredge up an example of a terrible website, and would post it on Something Awful with a small capsule review, encouraging the world to visit the site to let its owner know just how terrible it was. The site might be poorly coded, or full of animated kittens and jangling background MIDIs, or even dedicated to the lurid business of pedophilia; whatever the case, as long as it offended the sensibilities of a certain little angry webmaster, it was fair game. People who were linked on Something Awful often found their servers overrun by a new flood of external traffic, mostly in the form of either fans of Something Awful or posters on its forums. These folk were liable to make something of a mess when visiting an Awful Link: they would ravage the website's guestbook, make obscene comments on its forums, harass the webmaster with offensive e-mails, and so forth. Those linked were rarely pleased with their misfortune, and often let Mr. Kyanka know by e-mail about their displeasure. Mr. Kyanka, in turn, would post their e-mails on the forums and make sarcastic comments for the amusement of his followers. One day, a particularly simple-minded webmaster, rather irate on account of the desecration at the hands of Something Awful fans of a website which served as a memorial for dozens of her departed cats, and well-versed in empty American radio talk-show rhetoric, accused Mr. Kyanka of having sent his "goons" after her. The term was adopted by the hateful and maladjusted members of this forum as a badge of pride: from then on, they were goons. Goons had secret code phrases so they could identify each other in real life. Goons expressed remorse for the misfortunes of fellow goons by uttering a solemn phrase: "goondolences." Goons also believed in the existence of a sworn Goon Brotherhood, which reflected their ideals and provided a centre for their way of life. Hence "goon sire" above: believing themselves to be lumpen kings among men, goons felt it necessary to create a new vocabulary suited to their elevated status. Their incestuous brand of pidgin-English only reinforced the native arrogance of the goons, since potential challengers, in the form of non-goons, could rarely make themselves understood.

As has already been mentioned, it's pretty clear what sort of person would put stock in this kind of thing: loners, fatties, autistics, or some combination thereof. To the rest of the internet, and indeed to the more discerning members of the forums themselves, "goon" became a term of derision. Extreme social awkwardness was termed "goony," as was an unhealthy obsession with artery-hardening food (and an utter inability to live like a civilized human being: see Fig. 2).

Figure 2: Typical Goon Habitation (aka "Gooncave")

Indeed, goons became infamous for their disturbing feats of gluttony, which they celebrated on the website with long writeups and with high-quality digital photography. Such feats include the construction entirely from meat of a five-pound model British galleon, the consuming in one go of a gallon of milk, the invention of the "hot-dog rollup," a baked half-pound German sausage covered in two pounds of regular ground beef and 10 oz of American cheddar, and so on.

Thus the fatgoon blog: created as a tribute to the acts of excess on the part of the members of Something Awful forums, it serves as a reminder to all of us how far it is possible to fall in life. When you and your four-hundred pound bulk are reclining in a fetid trailer in West Virgina consuming five pound tubs of Mike and Ikes while watching anime, you know it's time for a lifestyle change. But goons will be goons.

Good night, goon sire.

"Eat your heart out, Rodin."