The Awful Forums

I have read every single one of those posts. At least half of them are about Morrowind.Almost three years ago I was a lost soul, wandering God's green Earth without a care in the world. I was a drinker, a boozer, a user. My life was going nowhere fast. That's when a man named Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka took me into his home, fed me, clothed me, and taught me the word of the good book. For weeks he would instill in me the knowledge of a generation of people. That book was Let's Roll: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage. I learned what life was all about. Then one day Lowtax told me about his internet forum. That was the day my life changed forever. Gone were the days where I shot up heroin from a turkey baster and snorted cocaine off a shemale's flacid penis. The forums turned me into a new man. It was a new beginning. That's why I'm dedicating this update to the Something Awful Forums.

I think one of the reasons that no one ever writes about the forums on the front page is because not everyone who reads the front page actually visits the forums. A long time ago I was exactly like that. I read Something Awful for over two years until I finally joined. Now I love the forums more than I love backgammon and you should too. The only way I can think of to get more people to join the forums is to make fun of said forums and piss a lot of people off! Hey, it makes sense to me.

But you can't just jump into the forums and expect everyone to love you. The shits and giggles you had over at Ebaum's World just isn't going to cut it here. Not reading the rules can leave you without an account faster than you can say "Total Fark". We ban people and we ban people a lot. In fact we ban so many morons that the tech guy Radium implemented an auto-banning system that automatically bans users who use the forbidden thread tags. Pretty soon he's going to install a feature that automatically bans people if they even think of posting anything bannable. The second you click on that Attention tag forty armed special forces soldiers will crash through your windows and destroy your neon green computer with all those stupid lights inside. I think it runs on Linux. You don't want this to happen to you.

That's why I wrote this handy dandy guide that doesn't give any good advice at all and just basically lists each subforum and what they are. Maybe there will be some cheap jokes about the internet or something. I don't know. It's not like I read what I'm writing. Without further delay, let's roll!

General Bullshit
Description: General discussion about anything except television, video games, politics and philosophy, computer hardware, sports, film reviews, anime, buying and selling products, forum get-togethers, cars, drugs, guns, pets, music production, Michael Moore, George Bush Jr., and creative writing; no flamewars or work-unfriendly crap allowed.
History: General Bullshit is obviously SA's "general" forum and where most budding forum members' posting careers start. Many young immigrants land on Something Awful Island with starry eyes and big hopes. Unfortunately more than half of new SA forum users don't make it past winter. This is where you post if you have a hillarious Flash game to show people or just want to say hi to everyone. You love Homestarrunner and rest assurred that everyone in GBS loves it as much. GBS's motto is, "If you are ever confused or not sure of what to do, just post a thread about it!"
Commonly Posted Threads: "CHECK OUT THIS FUNNY FLASH MOVIE", "Post your desktop that includes either a really shiny car or some chick no one recognizes complete with lame WindowsXP tweaks and custom GUIs for the millionth goddamn time!", "HEY I FUCKED UP. PAYPAL ME MONEY", "Fake story I made up to rile everyone up", "FUCK YOU RICHARD", "SOMETHING REALLY MUNDANE JUST HAPPENED TO ME! HOLY SHIT!"

Duck.FYAD Roleplaying Forum
Description: Roleplay FYAD posters in this forum
History: C. Cardigan says it best, "FYAD is the cool place to hang out. You can find most of the cool people there. In FYAD you can just chill and do whatever and totally relax. "Take it easy" is the FYAD motto, for example, that's how laid back it is there. Show up if you want to have a good time. Another good reason to show up is if you want to hang out with friends."
Commonly Posted Threads: "How Many People Believed We Entered Iraq With The Intention of Getting Out?", "In your opinion, what was the reason for Rome's success?", "O'Reilly vs. Krugman debate on CNBC", "New York Times: UN let Saddam get away with abusing Oil-For-Food program"

Games
Description: Talk about the games you hate and hate.
History: The Games forum was created as an experiment to see how seriously nerds can take video games. Since then it has become a forum solely for 843 page threads about big name game franchises.
Commonly Posted Threads: "DOOM 3 MEGAPOST!!!", "GTA: SAN ANDREAS MEGAPOST AND ANTICIPATION AND JERK OFF THREAD!", "WACKY RACERS MEGATHREAD!!!", "I have a girlfriend and she plays video games, who wants to touch me?"

Debate and Discussion
Description: All serious forms of debate and discussion are welcome, from personal attacks to trolling and flaming. Current events, such as news items, tell it to the hand.
History: My mom used to tell me that my fingers wouldn't smell like my butt if I would just keep them out of there.
Commonly Posted Threads: "REPUBLICANS!!!", "DEMOCRATS!!!", "EVERYONE ELSE!!!"

Serious Hardware / Software Crap
Description: Computer hardware, software, coding, and other technical issues. Come here if you can only save images as bitmaps in Internet Explorer or if you are having a problem unrar'ing Photoshop.
History: No other forum on the SA Forums have caused more casulties than Serious Hardware / Software Crap. The great war of ATI and Nvidia claimed many young lives. No one can forget the carnage and heartache caused by the Linux and Windows bloodbath. Neither side ever wins, families are destroyed, and homes are lost. It's just not worth it people. Oh, and you can also go here if your computer is ever acting up and growing penises and spitting semen at you.
Commonly Posted Threads: "Linux Vs. Windows", "ATI Vs. Nvidia", "ATI Vs. An Elephant", ATI and Nvidia Vs. A Cheetah", "Firefox Vs. Internet Explorer CAGE MATCH"

Sports Argument Stadium
Description: Try to convince others that poker is a real sport.
History: Do you remember that episode of the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa repeatedly ask Homer, "Can we have a pool dad? Can we have a pool dad? Can we have a pool dad? Can we have a pool dad? Can we have a pool dad?" Yeah, that's pretty much how Sports Argument Stadium got started. After getting sick of all the emails he got about it Lowtax finally said, "FUCK!!! HERE'S YOUR GODDAMN SPORTS FORUM!!!" and blew up into a million pieces. Luckily Lowtax is made of that crazy liquid shit from Terminator 2. His atoms rejoined and he was up and watching old episodes of Small Wonder in no time.
Commonly Posted Threads: "How do I get started in Poker?", "What is your favorite poker card?", "Have you ever stuck poker cards up your butt?", "My grandma was killed by an ace of spades", "Let's play poker online because we are pathetic!"

The Film Dump
Description: THIS FORUM IS FOR MOVIE REVIEWS ONLY. NO DISCUSSION ALLOWED. By the way, following this rule is purely optional!
History: I print out all the threads from this forum and read them in the bathroom.
Commonly Posted Threads: "when I am rich my house will have a lavatorium", "i just shoved 3 feet of headphone wire up my nose", "Sulzanti is a pretty girl"

Duck.Anime Death Tentacle Rape Whorehouse
Description: Your awful Anime forum.
History: Anime Death Tentacle Rape Whorehouse is the closest thing SA has to a concentration camp. ADRTW was the original "We don't want you in GBS so we've given you your own forum" subforum. You see, subforums are born only out of necessity. It's not until a certain group posts a lot of threads about the same stupid shit that we give them their own forum. Then we hope and pray that they all post there and stay the hell away from us normals.
Commonly Posted Threads: I wouldn't know since I am too scared to go in there.

SA-Mart
Description: Lowball desperate forum members in debt. We take NO RESPONSIBILITY for the actions of either buyer or seller, especially the seller.
History: This is where you can buy things for over 99% off the retail value because the person selling it is in desparete need of money because of the fact they bought the thing they are selling in the first place.
Commonly Posted Threads: "NEED MONEY FAST, BUY THIS SHIT I FOUND UNDER THE BED!", "Buy my whole closet, 50 cents shipped!", "Cheap webhosting for Goons!", "Goons come here for cheap webhosting!", "Webhosting by goons for goons!", "Webhosting for goons by goons!", "Just like everybody else who has ever lived in the Universe I am reselling bandwidth and webspace!"

SA Goon Meetings
Description: Plan and schedule your worldwide meetings here. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR SKIN CONDITIONS CAUSED BY GOING OUTSIDE INTO THE SUN. WARNING: TANNING MAY OCCUR.
History: Someone thought it was a good idea to meet other forum members in person. I don't know who that person is but legend says he was killed and eaten by another forum member.
Commonly Posted Threads: I don't know how to parody thread titles for threads about meeting people on the internet!

Automotive Insanity
Description: Come here if you want to learn how to install a spoiler onto your lime green '79 Oldsmobile.
History: Car people are by nature annoying as all fuck. Much like the anime folks, car fags were segregated into their own little corner so we wouldn't have to hear about their Toyota Super Edition Integra Type RS V8 V-Tec 4-Liter rocket car.
Commonly Posted Threads: "Look what my mom just bought me!"

The Crackhead Clubhouse
Description: Got drugs? Discuss them here. No illegal activity (ie, buying / selling) allowed even though you're going to try like hell anyway.
History: I'd tell you but I smoked too much weed!
Commonly Posted Threads: "Busted for smoking pot in church!", "Oh shit, mom found my stash!", "Why I am perfectly capable of driving high"

Duck.Pet Island
Description: Post here if you were previously unaware that living things eventually die.
History: The only people who post in Pet Island are clueless folks who don't know how to take care of a cat but seem to pick up every single stray that wanders into their general radius of 600 miles, and grieving forum members. It seems that the cure for every problem in life is pictures of cute animals doing cute things like getting blinded in the face by the flash of a camera.
Commonly Posted Threads: "Just got a kitten! What is a 'kitten' anyway?", "Just got a kitten! What the fuck do these things eat anyway?!", "My girlfriend just left me and my dad died and I'm ugly, show me pictures of kittens rolling around in their own feces :("

Creative Convention
Description: Writing, graphic design, art, poetry, and all other serious for- Ah to hell with it. Nobody ever visits this forum anyway.
History: Whenever someone mentions Creative Convention the next question is almost always, "What the hell is Creative Convention?"
Commonly Posted Threads: "Check out this poem I wrote! Uh, hello? Hello??? Anyone in here?"

It was over 5 years ago that an old webmaster started writing about nerd shit on a website out of his bathroom to finance his crippling shoe shopping addiction. The Something Awful Forums sure have come a long way. Who knew that the website would go on to spawn one of the largest forums on the internet, a clothing line, four feature-length motion pictures, bi-coastal theme parks, and a chain of fast food joints that to date have killed 85 people? 85 people. That must be some kind of record or something! So sacrifice dinner for two nights and sign up for the forums! Besides, some shyster is just going to swindle you out of your money with promises of free ipods if you sign up 400 people and a goat under your name anyway. It might as well be us. And maybe, just maybe, you could be number 86.

The Weekend Web: The Original Sunday Shitfest

Hello internet friends, Zachary "Really Lame White Sounding First Name With An Inexplicible Hispanic Last Name" Gutierrez here. This week we are restless restless over here at Weekend Web and boy howdy, have we got some Grade A home-cooked forums for you to lose faith in humanity over, just like the kind mom used to make. Gasp at the retarded forums posters and their hillariously lame sig files! Marvel at the incredibly vast conspiracy going on at 3DRealms! And thrill as you go on an incest adventure! It's all here in today's Weekend Web!

You know the drill. You click here, I steal your mail, and everyone is happy.

– Zachary "Spokker Jones" Gutierrez