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The landscape of the internet has changed dramatically over the lifetime of the forums and even the forums have had their own ebb and flow that reach out to other parts. Back when I signed up, I was just a high schooler who was a geek, loved video games, and wanted to pirate music. Was told about the file forums from an IRL friend but was daunted by the stringent rules compared to other forums like GameSpy, NeoGaf, LivingWithStyle, etc. The $10 fee was suspect too to someone who didn't have a job and had access to dozens of other free forums. Regardless I took the plunge and was enamored with just how much more digestible everything was comparatively. Tons of hilarious personal stories, photoshop threads, interesting discussions that weren't just name dropping your favorite bands, etc. I feel like SA was (and still is) a mature community rather than just a public chatroom. poo poo posting still happened all the time, but usually the threads in their specific subforums actually had long discussions or arguments. SA taught me to want more than surface level humor and intrigue from the internet, while still having potty funnies. With the rise of sites like Digg and Reddit and social media among us, the internet changed and suddenly everyone had access to it. But yet, SA has never felt like the terrible echo chambers that many places have become. I still vastly prefer the forum format over the hierarchy system Reddit has, and a lot of subforums are still going strong. But I'm curious with so many options on the internet, what made SA worth the $10 for you? How did you even discover it?
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Jun 25, 2020 17:59
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:51 |
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I found out about SA through LP archive. Eventually joined after lurking for a few years because of Hired Goons.
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Jun 25, 2020 19:53
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I was on another, smaller forum for my general forums needs and the community developed some issues that bugged me, and after complaining about it to my friend for the nth time he bought me an account to shut me up. At the time my impression of SA was way out of date and I basically thought it was in the same category as 4chan and I was completely taken by surprise in that it was actually good.
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Jun 27, 2020 05:51
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Goon server was the only good ss13 server
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Jun 27, 2020 07:02
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I married a lurker-turned-goon. He bought me an account after he started reading a thread that I also found funny, and I kept messing up his bookmark for it so I could read it too. I've honestly not become as invested as a lot of folks on here, I just like having stuff to read while I wait for my son to fall asleep.
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Jun 28, 2020 04:44
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A particular XKCD comic -> TVTropes -> Boatmurdered -> Hey the photoshop phriday people still exist
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Jun 28, 2020 12:49
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I genuinely don't remember the specific chain of events - could've been a link from livejournal, tumblr, somewhere where fandom was hanging out back in 2010-2012. I only came for the LPs as I was very intimidated by the rest of the site, as I was convinced it would make fun of me if they ever found out that I wrote fanfic. But the paywall kept coming up when I was trying to read LPs  and I finally made a purchase.... This is significant because this was back when I was still learning how to make purchases online without my parents and I never intended to post, so it was going to be a "pay 10$ to read more LPs" purchase, which.... it took a while to decide to do it. Looking back on it now, it's the best dollar for dollar bargain I've ever gotten. I chose a username that wasn't connected to my fanfic stuff, and then over the years built up the courage to post. Like, it was actually nervewracking to post and have it be responded to, to the point that I told my therapist about it. I was coming out of high school with ptsd and other problems so like, I wasn't in the best space... but hey. I'm comfortable now posting, and I no longer fear being made fun of by goons. I mean I won't like it, but As for which LP pushed me over the edge, I genuinely do not remember. I was reading all of them back then, from Drakengard to Nakar's Ultima series, to Dangan Ronpa. I also bought archives specifically to read more LPs. Nowadays I only read a handful, as I tend to post more in games or the book barn or e/n. SA good, lowtax loving sucks, hope y'all are having a nice day.
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Jun 29, 2020 03:55
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Regging on SA was probably the second or third purchase I made with my first debit card. I think if you were online in the mid-00s or read the various tech-themed magazines, it would have been hard not to hear of SA. I was definitely drawn to the shenanigans that forum members got up to. After I joined, I had fun participating in some goofy poo poo (trolling teapartycommunity was a real winner) and gaming with goons. The GBS free-for-all in 2013(?) was the kick I needed to check out the various subforums, which really cemented how much I enjoy the community.
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Jul 1, 2020 01:26
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I had frequented Bungie.net for years as regular forum goer. At some point they redid the forums and gave it a partial threaded view but you could still bump posts. I hated it and needed my forum fix so I googled comedy forum and here I am. I had also heard of some of the crazy stories from here that got linked from the AmbrosiaSW forums (rip). It's been a fun ride, even if I've missed more than 10 years of chaos
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Jul 15, 2020 05:08
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I was aware of sa from front page stuff back in the early 2000s but laughed at the idea of paying to post on the internet When I got out of the military in 2012 I had gently caress all to do and decided to finally check it out. Given how much entertainment I've gotten out of it it's probably the best  I've ever spent
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Jul 16, 2020 15:15
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I was a regular on another forum that was fairly popular in the 90s/early 00s. I got banned mostly for talking poo poo about cops (the politics of that forum were ostensibly progressive, but ended up being largely liberal, and I moved quite a bit left over the years); migrated over here because I need my forum fix, there were several people who were posters on both (decent number of EVE players, allied guilds, etc.). Really wish I would've gotten banned sooner.
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Jul 16, 2020 22:05
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my first girlfriend was a goon and i liked the LPs
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Jul 17, 2020 02:54
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I vaguely knew about SA and used to check the front page occasionally -- I don't think I was aware of the forums, though. Last year I came across a link to the floor-joist saga on Reddit. The paywall was down, so I read through that, poked around some other forums, and decided I liked it here. When the paywall returned, I figured the wealth of knowledge was worth $10. Not a very interesting reason, but that's it.
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Jul 19, 2020 03:34
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Not sure if you would count mid 2010 as being acceptable for this but, I came for the Let's Play. Eventually explored out from there
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Jul 19, 2020 05:08
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I lurked here very sporadically after hanging out with some goons I met on another forum back in the very early days of the web (I am oldschool enough that I made out with the guy who did the All Your Base song at a party) but never joined until I got obsessed with zuarg or one of the other personal finance shitshow threads.
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Jul 19, 2020 08:00
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I first learned of SA when I was in 8th or 9th grade in the mid 2000s, when I was making stupid accounts/groups on Xanga. Somebody who saw these messaged me on AIM to ask if I had stairs in my house and I had no idea what they were talking about, then they painfully described what they meant to me. Later, I remember asking some HS seniors when I was a junior if they had accounts on the boards, or they just liked reading the homepage. The answer that I got was the latter, but I'm skeptical. That was, in 2007, probably the last time I heard people talk about SA in real life. Then some years later I signed up mainly to get access to a bunch of the forums that you had to log in at the time (maybe now too?) to see: YLYS, GWS, SAS, etc. The discussions and introductions to new hobbies/interests/life topics have kept me around since. This really seems like a unique place on the internet in that you can wander into some random subforum and find a megathread on a topic that is new to you, informative, and not completely monetized.
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Jul 19, 2020 11:46
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Despite only being a member since 2012 I've known about SA since like 2002. I eventually joined because I had started playing EVE online and SA has a very solid EVE community. Also the landscape of the internet changed drastically between 2002 and 2012. In 2002 there were forums for everything and small tight knit forum communities were a regular thing, at the time paying $10 to be part of a forum seemed idiotic, also I was much younger so $10 was relatively more money. In 2012 many forums have become vacant, replaced by things like reddit which were/are complete shitshows. No longer did $10 seem expensive, but instead like a nice filter for some of the trolls.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:55
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I cannot remember how I found it, but I somehow came across the Terra Malatora thread and it was all golden enough to make me want to join.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:58
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Playing cybernations with goons around 2009-2010 prompted me to get my first account in 2011 lmao can't believe I used to play that. Wait I can and it was good
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Jul 30, 2020 22:43
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I've been lurking this site off and on since Portal of Evil existed, someone bought me this account sometime when all the forums got put behind a paywall. I think I was supposed to be posting in the making comics thread since I'm a comics maker but ehhhh
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Aug 9, 2020 05:07
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Skratte posted:I've been lurking this site off and on since Portal of Evil existed Glad to find somebody else here who likes noodels.
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Aug 9, 2020 06:59
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I don't remember how I found out about SA, but for years (I think going back to when Obama was in office) I used to lurk in the US politics, political cartoons and comic strips threads. Then I'd lose access when the paywall came up, and getting the "Boogie man" kid popping up was obnoxious. I enjoyed following those threads but resisted buying an account because I couldn't shake the feeling that spending $10 to post on an online forum made me a sucker. Finally, in February of 2017, I relented and bought an account. I'm glad I did because SA is one of the last good places to post online. It has its problems but not the same ones as bigger, more well known spots like social media, Reddit, etc. which are full of Nazis and 'ironic' racism. F_Shit_Fitzgerald fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Aug 10, 2020 |
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Aug 9, 2020 21:01
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Deathrat kept sending me screencaps from the forums so I finally signed up
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Aug 12, 2020 01:18
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refugee from tvtropes lol
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Aug 12, 2020 01:35
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I first heard of SA via a grenade logo sticker in someone's back window in c. 2002. I started lurking after some other forum somewhere linked Stories from Rent-to-Own from the front page. I almost joined up during the Atlanta Snowmageddon, but am a cheapskate and waited two more years.
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Aug 12, 2020 03:37
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i had very little access to internet as a child, and when i did manage to get online i wasn't really interested in social media communities. the first time i heard about sa, and i swear this is true, was back in 2008 when i was on fictionpress.com, reading some guy's sci-fi story where the world was ending and the mainstream media was covering it up and the protagonist found out the truth by reading internet forums. cause of apocalypse, a global pandemic
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Aug 12, 2020 05:50
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A magic frog told me to get in. Oh, and I wanted acces to the LP Archive and to play Dominions 3 with goons.
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Aug 13, 2020 10:27
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Lurker for many years --> Goon. Photoshop Phridays where why I first lurked, Lets Plays where what drew me in, but now aside from LP I hang around A/T, The Book Barn, and a few other threads besides that.
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Aug 13, 2020 23:16
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My friend showed me the homemade flamethrower thread and I followed that as a free lurker for a while, then lost SA and finally bought an account when I was on college in like 2007 or 08 whatever.
MF_James fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 02:01
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grumplestiltzkin posted:I was aware of sa from front page stuff back in the early 2000s but laughed at the idea of paying to post on the internet This exactly. I have a manilla folder full of printouts of front page articles that are old enough to vote but what kind of loving dumbass pays money to post on internet forums it me
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Aug 17, 2020 17:36
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I've been reading SA since like 2000 and I just suck at follow-through. I post on a couple other much quieter forums for more specific interests, but the idea of wanting to post here, as opposed to just read, took a good couple decades.
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Aug 18, 2020 22:24
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Honestly I lurked for a long while and wanted archives, and I'm just too shy/too much of a social dumdum to post often.
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Aug 20, 2020 03:44
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knew about it beforehand, since 04 or so? i just took a long time to sign up because i told myself the heyday is over, i missed the fun, why bother? finally signed up because i want to stop procrastinating and want to avoid social media but still waste time on the internet.
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Aug 28, 2020 05:29
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Came to the front page from 4chan in maybe 2010? Read That Insidious Beast, loved it. Started reading the forums when the paywall was down and found random GBS and TFR threads to be better than 90% of the dreck out there. Why not see where $10 would get me? Haven't regretted it.
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Aug 29, 2020 08:19
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I was a long time lurker in college. I think I started out on the awful reviews but became hooked at the old mspaint threads but my cheap rear end would never spring for an account. My husband gifted me the account as an anniversary present one year. He's not a goon or anything but he would hear me talk about posts and I would show him the ms paints and Photoshops.
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Aug 30, 2020 05:08
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It took me forever to register, but I got hooked in from Photoshop Phriday back in high school when I relied on friends with internet to guide me on the web, since I had no computer. SA was the only thing I knew, so it was where I spent my digital time in college. Got hooked on goon ghost stories, LF, the early screenshot Let's Plays like Oregon Trail. Finally decided to register largely because the Goon Christmas Album became such a huge part of my holiday tradition I decided to start participating.
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Oct 21, 2020 16:55
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Lurked the site and forums for years (since high school probably, so well over a decade) but never got around to joining until now, mostly due to Lowtax getting the boot. Wish I joined sooner but I'm aware of a ton of older events because of former/current Goon pals.
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Oct 22, 2020 17:00
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I discovered SA circa 2005 in a newspaper article about humourous websites. Looking for new ways to procrastinate, I checked it out. Fashion SWATs got me hooked, though it took me a while to discover the forums. I dropped $10 to get rid of the ads.
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Nov 1, 2020 06:05
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I originally joined in 2010, does that count? So, during my first uni degree I hung out with this christian chinese girl and she introduced me to this weird-rear end christian furry webcomic called Jack. And it was actually a decent webcomic which hinted at Gnosticism a couple of times (if you could get past the furry porn), anyway on one page it said somethingawful.com = tehfunny. So I went here, immediately tried to join EVE Goonswarm, got kicked out as a J4G, stayed in, bought a couple of books from front page authors. Got drunk, got banned, etc. Anyway, best loving time of my life was playing Minecraft with Goons. No argument.
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Nov 6, 2020 14:27
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I read the front page often when I was a kid around 2003-2010. It was pretty hard for a kid to get money online then so I never had a forums account plus I probably would have been a (more) terrible poster then so it’s for the best. The only forum I was ever active on long term was TerminalLance. I played eve online for a time in 2016-2017. Goons were the only alliance not full of MRA weirds. I realized SA was still large and active and had an actually cool left leaning veteran and gun community and bought an account a little while later.
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Nov 23, 2020 07:48
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