We love irony. So it was only fitting that as soon as we began Tales of Radio Paranoia, aping Encyclopedia Dramatica's style of ironic subtext in embedded links, ED would fold its cards, its tents and find a new home. (Moar liek a nursing home, amirite?)Asked about the unexpected makeover from popshock ED to the Oprah-esque "OhInternet", founder Sherrod DeGrippo said, "Veni, vidi, Vichy."
At its best ED took aim at internet narcissism and hit it square in the nuts. In so doing it embraced those nuts like the FRN hugs Commander Bunny's generous QSL packages and celebrated everything ManBearPig promised but failed to deliver with Hyperwhatever over 100 years ago: metahumor, intertextuality and abusing the pipes like never before.
At its worst ED fed into the illness of sociopaths who couldn't tell the difference between the internet and real life (just kidding, there is no difference... for you). Fortunately, unlike ED founder Girlvinyl's 2006 experience with being physically threatened, shortwave pirate radio is free of such unpleasantness. Well, relatively free anyway. If you don't count the summer of 2008 "pirate war." And the 2009 WBNY "pirate feud" show. And the 2010 WBNY "pirate feud" show. And the early 2011 WBNY anti-NRS feud and Beansy's plaintive wails to stp hrrrngg poots. And... well, you get the drift.
But we digress.
At its most mediocre - which became the norm over the past couple of years - ED devolved from documenting chantard deviance with wicked wit to being an adolescent trophy room for increasingly unfunny /b/tard raids and whatever forced meme had caught the fancy of your 14 year old nephew and his imaginary friends. Sorta like the bunnyfolk and their imaginary friends. Genius and madness often go hand in hand, in the same way that a teenager's penis often goes hand-in-hand. Or CB's penis-in-sock.
At its most sublime, ED played a role in celebrating Boxxy, the purest example of "WTF? This is so annoy... hmm... she's mesmerizing... can't... stop... looking..." zeitgeist ever to clog the tubes.
And always, Encyclopedia Dramatica reminded us to not take the internet so seriously. That was a good thing.
Aww, fuckit. Like the Fabulous Rabbit Nuthuggers, ED was never good.
Video of the Now: This guy finally wins the internet.
Update 5/1/11: ED is back, sorta... a mirror site has archived some content. Encyclopedia Dramatica mirror site
Yay, our first "meh" rating for Zeitgeist. That proves Tales of Radio Paranoia is sockpuppet free!
ReplyDeleteDo be not certain so much my freind.
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