A few years back, I wrote a post on this site about bad experiences I had on Something Awful back when I was active on the site, mostly concerning ableism. I also shared this on other places, and people were generally supportive, but some of them defended SA.
“It’s a lot better nowadays!” People told me. “C-SPAM is good!” They said.
It is not.
While searching C-SPAM for keywords that interest me (something I still occasionally do even though I almost never use the site anymore), I discovered that one of them dug up my post FOUR YEARS LATER in one of their megathreads for the others to attack. I told them I wrote it because as far as I’m concerned, if they made fun of me for it, that only further justified my decision to soft-quit the site.
And boy did they give justification to spare. It turns out they really like using the r-slur. They use it repeatedly. Including site staff. If you think this is a bad thing, they will accuse you of “using [ableism] as a cudgel.” One of the site staff scraped my Hexbear post history so that he could (non-ableistly!) make fun of my emotional dysregulation issues.
They show just how in touch they are with the left by saying things like “god im so glad everyone realized this type of person wasnt helpful to marginalized people or the left and are slowly being sidelined” when every org I’ve ever worked with has had a zero-tolerance policy for the r-slur, and my comrades in my current org have been nothing but sympathetic when I told them about my struggles as an autistic person.
Hours after I’d gone to bed, one of them actually Googled my username and found my account on an image board and accused me of using the site for fetish material (even though I have only ever interacted SFW images on that site, but you know, they already decided I was guilty.)
Bonus: They also think Hexbear is a bad forum because we tell people not to valorize a guy who rails against DEI and worships Elon Musk.
Never been more glad I’ve left that forum. It’s toxic and abusive in a way I’ve rarely seen anyplace achieve, and looking at it from the outside, I’m astonished I ever put up with it.
Oh wow, I completely forgot about that site. I used to lurk there back in the very early 00’s. Was never going to pay to use a fucking forum lol.
That place was basically a proto-r*ddit with all the same lib snark culture. Didn’t one of the users that got banned from there go on to create 4chan, or am i misrembering?
You are remembering correctly. He got banned and made the worst place on the internet.
jesus christ, those people are something awful
“You aren’t supposed to be the awful something” was once a sort of catchphrase on the site. Too bad they didn’t take it to heart.
Even 4chan once said “only a fool would take anything posted here as fact”, and lo and behold it’s one of the internet’s most trusted sources for information.
they’re just such cynical bigots who intellectually know they’re fuckheads.
One lesson to take away here is use different usernames for different sites and rotate them regularly when applicable. If only to stop some chud from doing the laziest form of OSINT gathering in you.
I haven’t looked at SA in a long time. Glad I fell off that site.
I don’t think that “you should cover your tracks better on the pony sexual abuse material website” is the correct takeaway.
Huh I didnt click through the link to read the context.
In hindsight, I absolutely should’ve vetted the site better, and that much is on me.
deleted by creator
Hours after I’d gone to bed, one of them actually Googled my username and found my account on an image board and accused me of using the site for fetish material (even though I have only ever interacted SFW images on that site, but you know, they already decided I was guilty.)
I gotta be real with you, maybe I’m misunderstanding things because I’ve never been into MLP, but those horses are children right?
I don’t think anyone here should be interacting with illustrated CSAM forums, even if they’re “only” interacting with SFW parts of them.
Many of the characters are adults, but I don’t really look at the NSFW parts of the site, so I’m not privy to the, uh, composition of images there.
That said, I just checked the site’s terms of service and didn’t see any rules against the underage characters, so yeah, I think I’ll stop doing things there on the grounds of “you have 11 Nazis.”
deleted by creator
The only reason it seems different here is because it’s a “weird” community and I guess the “dirty queer = pedo” correlation hasn’t been entirely dug out of our collective brains yet
Nah, it’s because it’s a show for and about children.
It’s weirder to sexualize than something where most of the character are adults.
The protagonists live independently and have jobs, as do most of the side characters. There are a handful of child ponies in the show who are noticeably smaller than any of those characters and who live with parents/guardians.
deleted by creator
I’ve long felt I dodged a bullet by not having access to a credit card at the time SA was culturally relevant in order to sign up.
People say a lot of good things about Something Awful these days, but I think there was a real shift towards 4chan-style slur usage and shitposting that occurred a few years back. One of the last things Lowtax did, strangely enough, was close the subforums where a lot of that originated, and one of the first things the new owner did was reopen them and give them free reign of the forums. There was also a minor purge of trans users around that time, as I remember it. I really liked those forums once, but they’re completely unacceptable now safe for a few of the better-moderated megathreads.
Stinky Wizzleteats and the like of such users who use the site of “Something Awful” can all go to hell
Actually many western-oriented sites such as the likes of “Something Awful” and “4chan” should all be
If you’re reading this, SA, yob tvoyu mat.
You can tell their the good guys and not mad by them doxxing you. Jokes aside I had an SA account way back in like 08 or so I used to lurk with because posting anything could get you banned. Glad to see they fell off hard.
…why would you post this?
Because I’ve seen people defend that site and I want to make sure they know it’s not worth defending.
Speaking of old reactionary forums, does anyone else remember Portal of Evil/POE-News?
Portal of Evil
Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
I’m taking my old POE username to the grave. I was a much different person then.
Clarification: I was not Nocturnal Walker.
Okay hang on, do people actually hold positive views on Something Awful? I’ve always known it as literally the 4chan Gold Pass version of 4chan. Same kind of shithole. Is it considered like, dirtbag left? This is news to me. I mean… SA…
Also they’re a bunch of fuckin losers, still posting about you like that.
Really showing my age but I had an acct there from before it cost to join. I remember it being full of problematic but ironic humor (proto Cum Town) back then, so it’s interesting to read about it changing… wasn’t it always like that?
I had fun lurking there but I was a dumbass kid. I grew out of that phase and checked in less and less. Eventually there was a subforum dedicated to roasting and bodyshaming other users and that turned me off the place forever. I think that was like 15 years ago, jfc. Guess it hasn’t changed since then. Gross.
Removed by mod
You should be a bit more embarrassed about paying $10 to post there.
More than you’ll ever know
