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Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

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Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#311

Post by smt88 »

HamburgerEmoji wrote: post #37
TomVDB wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a memorial thread. And the fact that he shot himself a day after being judged a domestic abuser adds a lot of relevant context that readers on this forum deserve to know.

Do you suppose anyone ever committed suicide after wrongly being adjudged an abuser?

So you think it's possible this guy married three different women who all said he abused them, and at least one of them also tricked a judge into agreeing?

Which scenario do you think is more likely:

A) A man whose entire career and public persona was dedicated to being an asshole happened to be an actual asshole

B) At least three women loved this guy enough to marry him and then decided to make up stories about how he abused them, convincingly enough that a court of law agreed

Keep in mind that in both scenarios, we know that he did spend all of his most recent wife's money and had a substance abuse problem.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#312

Post by stonogo »

ryaniscool wrote: post #235
extortionist wrote: post #12

He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It's important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can't be set aside. At the same time, SA's influence on the modern internet can't be understated. The 'image macro' of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today's common meme image--…

Never heard of this guy or SA until this post but I think it's depressing that we feel guilty celebrating this guy's accomplishments without being like "oh but it has to be mentioned he treated people in his life terribly and might have been an objectively awful person". Maybe there is a subconscious belief that only "good" people deserve success and praise? I just find this so naive because if you've lived long enou…

"Complicated and flawed" sure is a different thing than "serial wifebeater." We're supposed to let that get overshadowed by the fact that he happened to start a web forum where funny people posted? I don't think that there's anything subconscious about the desire to frankly evaluate someone's life. Even before his passing, for decades he was known as someone who would reliably make bad decisions at every opportunity. The web forum he started eventually banned him.

As others have said, SA was successful despite him, not because of him.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#313

Post by overgard »

I feel devastated hearing this. Whatever was happening in his personal life, its none of my business, but he was a true innovator.

Also reading the message from his ex really angers me. A man was so broken he took his own life, and she's concerned about the 350 dollars a month hes not giving her. It's gross.

Like seriously a man she once loved killed himself and her reaction is like "he should've payed up"

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#314

Post by selimthegrim »

overgard wrote: post #313

I feel devastated hearing this. Whatever was happening in his personal life, its none of my business, but he was a true innovator. Also reading the message from his ex really angers me. A man was so broken he took his own life, and she's concerned about the 350 dollars a month hes not giving her. It's gross. Like seriously a man she once loved killed himself and her reaction is like "he should've payed up"

I think her point is she was being shafted relatively speaking

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#315

Post by IanCal »

parineum wrote: post #178
IanCal wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd take. > I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a cred…

> If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a credible allegation. This is a pretty good scenario for explaining why accounts like this can be not credible. A is at the table…

I think you're mixing up credible and correct.

Five matching witness testimonies can be both incorrect and credible. To say that they are not believable is, frankly, bizarre to me. The example is bereft of detail so you can obviously make up a situation which matches it and it is not believable but that would ignore the point here.

A simple rephrasing is that you can make credible false allegations.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#316

Post by pseudalopex »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #233
onion2k wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are people innocent or guilty by default? When it comes to investigating a crime, it's neither. It's not up to the police (or the public) to determine guilt; that's a job for the court. The job of the police is to investigate what happened. When a crime is reported to the police they must believe what the victim is saying until they have a damn good reason not to. If they started with a presumption of the victim maki…

> When a crime is reported to the police they must believe what the victim is saying until they have a damn good reason not to. > If they started with a presumption of the victim making a false allegation very few domestic abuse crimes would ever get investigated, let alone prosecuted. I agree that these crimes must be investigated thoroughly. Is it really okay that men can be arrested based on allegations though? I…

Proof of guilt is judged in court. You think no one should be arrested before trial?

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#317

Post by boppo1 »

missinfo wrote: post #306
extortionist wrote: post #12

He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It's important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can't be set aside. At the same time, SA's influence on the modern internet can't be understated. The 'image macro' of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today's common meme image--…

From his Patreon last year: As you know my patreon has declined from like $9k to under $1k because of the fucking idiots who embrace the ideology of, "If You Read It On the Internet, It Must Be True!" Ironically, this was the original slogan for the site, before I changed it to "The Internet Makes You Stupid." Both apply equally in this case. Nobody seems aware that anybody can allege anything. Nobody seems to give a…

Were his Exes convicted of anything, as he alleges?

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#318

Post by Lammy »

curuinor wrote: post #2

Someone on twitter was talking about the Franz Ferdinand insane ripples of the man's decision to ban anime pornography on his site: 1. He bans it 2. One "moot" was then currently showing around his futaba channel clone "4chan" and not getting many bites 3. The pornography-obsessed people decide to abscond to 4chan en masse, determining the culture of /b/ and all that 4. This leads to the proliferation of fascism and…

> the man's decision to ban anime pornography on his site

For posterity, here's that thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=42...

> One "moot" was then currently showing around his futaba channel clone "4chan"

And this one: https://forums.somethingawful.com//showthread.php?threadid=7...

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#319

Post by pseudalopex »

prvc wrote: post #227
happytoexplain wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>one would have known before the ruling whether or not the allegations described an instance of DV I'm not defending/attacking any person here, since I haven't read further details, but if one goes to court to have something "obvious" decided upon, and then one writes for strangers about it, many (I think even most) people would absolutely use the same wording she used. "The judge confirmed X." I think you're looking…

That would be another possible interpretation of the phrase, but I think it is the less plausible one due to other contextual cues in the above text. In fact, the following quote appears on p. 128 of the same thread, posted by the same account: >with me, Rich did not get physical. Which, in my view, definitively settles the issue in the favor of my previous comments. The imputed "suggestion" was, in fact, the case. I…

Did you read more than the 1st sentence?

"There was one instance where he rushed me and I put my arms out to stop him, another where he pinned me down on the bed, but from what I can recall right now the rest was emotional, financial, verbal and lots of intimidation like punching holes in the wall, throwing and breaking things, screaming in my face."

Rushing, pinning, punching, and throwing are physical and violent. And I don't know how you ruled out threats.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#320

Post by Apocryphon »

selimthegrim wrote: post #314
overgard wrote: post #313

I feel devastated hearing this. Whatever was happening in his personal life, its none of my business, but he was a true innovator. Also reading the message from his ex really angers me. A man was so broken he took his own life, and she's concerned about the 350 dollars a month hes not giving her. It's gross. Like seriously a man she once loved killed himself and her reaction is like "he should've payed up"

I think her point is she was being shafted relatively speaking

Not to mention their children he left behind.
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