Reclaiming Art for...oh--my--Gawwwwwwd!

I will not repeat the name of this forum here. However, it is 100%, definitively, and beyond a doubt the worst forum on...the Internet!

--Paul A. Williams

I'm so proud to be a member of this forum!

--Kortez

this is the best day evar. i love this site.

--Ken

Isn't it pr0n that keeps the net alive?

--Vince

I say that we all get in there, get EZBoard accounts, and post so many images of genitalia in so many posts that they have to abandon their dictatorial monument to totalitarian fundamentalism that uses God as an excuse for their stifling agenda (I mean, their forum).

--Farsight

Fuck, that's the scariest thing I've ever read.

--Benjamin

I feel sorry for that family..... wait til she finds out her dogs have been licking their balls.

--RoadMaster

But what about Socar's soul? Have any of you thought of that? It's being eaten by Satan.. or something....

--Seraphire

I love you all. Its time like these when I want to simultane-sodomize the entire community here while singing hymns to beelsebub, smeared in the menstrual blood of virgins, all under the waving banner of goatse-man.

--Gehin

As if a guy like God would need such a deputy sheriff....

--Cucaracha

You sure these aren't just a rude joke?

--Rob Likes Milk

There's too much effort put into it for it to be a joke.

--SlightlyTwisted

Whether it's a fake or not is irrelevant, well to me at least. It's creating a lot of buzz and entertainment...so who cares if it's a fake? Whether it's real or not a) it has no effect on me and b) it's entertaining

--Asurfael

Turns out... this is the real deal. *shudders*

--Xentar

lol wtf??

--Az

SINjun wtf hahah.

hahahhahahhahahahahhaahhahahahahhaa

--RedRook

lol rofl and in conclusion... lmao.

--dfacto

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

--LolitaBob

* * *

Dear Internet,

Shame on us! Shame on us for sinning; shame on us for spreading the word of the Deceiver--shame on us for our Satanic, pagan, and otherwise ungodly spewings. And, most of all, shame on us for forgetting, even for an instant, the power of the Internet grapevine!

Reclaiming Art was, of course, our April Fool's joke on EK. (Our, in this case, referring to Virgilanti, Socar MYLES, Enayla, Sica, and Katheryn.) The plan was to post contrived letters from people like Paul A. Williams and Andrew T. Foster on EK over the course of the weeks leading up to April Fool's day. The forum was to be discovered some time this week, laughed at, and allowed to fade back into obscurity.

Then, on the first of April, we were to detonate the joke like a bomb. We were going to have Andrew and Paul organize a fake protest march, to be held outside the apartment building of Socar MYLES (whose address she stupidly has posted on her online journal--way to go, Socar). That was to stir up the real frenzy, and then, in that golden moment of madness, we were to confess to the jest.

Of course, we had not reckoned on being discovered by Eatpoo and Concept Art, and, you know, the whole Internet art community, especially this soon! In our efforts to trump the truly heinous japes we have perpetrated in previous years, we went too far, and our joke exploded too soon!

For those few who were offended by our joke--and there were a few--we do apologize. No slight was meant to genuine Christians, or to members of any serious faith. We deliberately made our "Christians" so far over the top they bore no resemblance to most real religious folks. (And anyone who really IS that fanatical...well, they deserve to be laughed at, regardless of faith!)

Tremble, however, O Internet of gullibility. We shall still play an April Fool's joke...you've been warned.

Sincerely,

--A Bunch of Nits from EK

PS - For those of you who fell for the joke: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 0wN3D!

* * *

Right, so what on earth are all these people talking about? Well, therein lies a tale. It is an exciting tale, and an amusing tale, and an epic tale, so get yourself a cup of coffee and sit your arse down. No, seriously--do it.

Oy, you've not got the coffee yet! Quit reading and hit the kitchen, ya lazy sod!

That's better. Anyhow, as I was saying, it's an epic tale. It started just short of two years ago, now, on April 1, 2002, on a funny wee art forum by the name of EK (now sadly defunct). EK had a pleasant grey-blue colour scheme, easy on tired art-squinting eyes. We (the administrators, that is) settled on said lovely greys in the first days of operation, and didn't change them once...save for that one black day in 2002, when they turned a ghastly shade of Pepto-Bismol pink. "We felt the blues were--well, GIVING folks the blues," we gushed. "After some deliberation, and testing several combinations, we've settled on this new look. What do you think?"

The first dozen replies were hesitantly polite--even encouraging, in a forced sort of way. One or two colourblind forumgoers seemed genuinely enthusiastic. But we always could count on Navate to deliver the honesty. "I don't think I'll continue visiting EK if it looks like this," she complained. That opened the floodgates. Cries of "My eyes are burning!" and "THE PAAAAAIIN!" filled the air. A petition was launched, demanding the old colours back.

In those days, however, EZBoard allowed one to register an infinite number of handles per e-mail address, so we organized a backlash: we signed up for several accounts each, then started a poll about the new design. We all voted for "Love it!", leaving the angry masses in the dust.

"Well, the majority vote is positive," we huffed. "We understand that some of you are surprised, possibly by the sudden nature of the change, but we're sure you'll get used to it. Honestly, we weren't too sure at first, either, but it grew on us. Sort of like foot fungus."

Then, good ol' Frits (who's not got a proper website, so I can't link to him) ruined everything by noticing the date. "APRIL FOOL'S," he yelled, and our house of cards came crashing down. Everyone felt like a wally, and us administrators exulted quietly in our exclusive little private subforum, where we used to talk about everyone behind their backs.

* * *

The following year, we knew we had to stage a truly spectacular prank, in order to trump our virgin joke. We started in on it almost a month in advance, gradually introducing a series of annoying forum members into the mix. With disturbing verisimilitude, I played the role of a trendily-depressed teen with a small vocabulary and a penchant for goth poetry. Enayla became a copyright-infringing Photoshop junkie, and Katheryn brought the white-boy ebonics with the unforgettable xxXMAD_FLAVAXxx. Kegie put on his religious-fanatic suit, and Laura showed up as a spammer. (Hell, she was so annoying that even we were annoyed, and we were wise to the joke!)

Our characters had the desired effect: everyone hated them on sight. In the weeks leading up to April Fool's Day, we stirred the forum into a veritable furor. I posted horrible poetry, and insulted anyone who tried to critique it, protesting dyslexia in defense of every conceivable flaw.

"stop descrimen8ing my potry!", I howled, kicking up my Doc Martened heels. "im dyslectic an its curel 4 u 2 discrimen8 me on that rez0n."

"Go away!", screamed the forum (although their language was rather more colourful than that.)

xxxMAD_FLAVAxxx filled the forums with modem-killing-huge signature images, pictures of his girlfriend (a well-known porn actress), and the word "yo". "Repazentin' fo teh US of A, yo!" he informed us.

"YOU SUCK!" shrieked EK.

Enayla photomanipulated, Kegie preached, and Laura spammed. EK revolted. The administrative inboxes found themselves overflowing with complaints.

"Can't you just ban these idiots?", they pleaded.

"Well, they DO get three warnings before being banned outright," we futzed. "We have to be fair. We can't discrimen8...er, discriminate against them simply for being intolerable pains in the arse."

April 1 dawned. I posted a poem with a certain degree of literacy, and outraged accusations of plagiarism exploded. Enayla posted one of Katheryn's paintings, embellished with a bare arse. The outcry increased tenfold. Katheryn yo'd and nigga'd her way down the Internet toilet. Kegie and Laura spammed and preached and got banned. Binary cries of protest echoed down the spokes of the World Wide Web, blowing out nodes and frightening baby servers.

"Get these people gone!", roared EK.

"April Fool's," muttered that rascal Frits, and the forum took up the cry.

Once again, everyone groaned, and we retreated to our private forum to laugh at them.

* * *

And that brings me to the quotations at the start of this entry. See, we did merely spectacular last year. This year, we needed something--something gargantuan. Something cataclysmic. Something that would shake EK to its proverbial roots, without being too obviously a joke. After all, everyone'd be on the lookout for it this time around. Two years in a row, we'd fooled (very nearly) the lot of 'em. Taking the same pack for fools three years running is virtually impossible.

It was Virge, a dyed-in-the-wool scoundrel and ardent defender of the dirty packbawky, who tapped on my door with the germ of an idea. The germ germinated forthwith, and several months before the big day, we started a new art forum: Reclaiming Art for God.

"Our children are being led astray," lectured Virge (cleverly disguised as the zealot Andrew T. Foster). "The art that should bring glory to God and beauty to our lives is being perverted by Satan, the deceiver. He has even worked his evil through the lives of people like Tolkien who, through pride, thought they were serving God, but instead were providing children with a path to a dark godless fantasy. This darkness pervades our world. Macabre images fill our cinemas and televisions. Pain is promoted as beauty. Human flesh is warped and distorted. Ugly abominations are held up as the height of sophisticated fashion. Satan has confused our society to call darkness light and light darkness.

"But we are not powerless to fight this corruption. The Lord has promised us the victory if we trust Him and obey."

"We the founders of this forum have dedicated large portions of our lives to Christ," I chimed in, playing the stern ascetic Paul A. Williams, whose grasp of the rules of punctuation was tenuous at best. (His grammatical problems were intended to differentiate him from, say, me playing a joke.) "Andrew and I are both heavily involved in proselytization both online and in our daily lives. I am a youth minister in my parish. We are truly dedicated to promoting Godliness in all parts of life, but this forum is specifically directed at the disturbing and in many instances sacreligious art which has been found by Andrew to be influencing our children online and even offline. Since Andrew and I began discussing the groundwork for this forum, we have discovered that the problem runs much deeper than we had originally believed, with many, many friends and parishioners stepping forward with experiences similar to Andrew's nightmare with his daughter. This forum intends to breathe new, clean life into online art by reminding these so-called artists where their inspiration comes from, and exonerating them to use their divine talent to praise the Lord instead of mock Him."

--and thus, the stage was set. Over the next few weeks, we posted lists of artists and art sites to pray for, gradually narrowing our focus till all barrels were aimed squarely at EK. We took potshots at most of the bigger art forums, though--Eatpoo, Sijun, ConceptArt, Deviant Art, Epilogue, Elfwood, and GFXArtist all got their turns in front of the flamethrower.

We populated the forum with an array of dubious characters: Andrew T. Foster and Paul A. Williams, a pair of aging men of God; MalamuteLoverrr, a Christian housewife who imprisoned her husband and son in the attic without food for such crimes as sleeping with other women and masturbating; JRashleigh, a disgruntled former member of EK, and MichelleCB and CrystalSky, a pair of youthful malcontents. Each member of our motley crew had two things in common: a love of God bordering on the insane-stalker kind of love, and way too much time on their hands.

Gradually, these characters "noticed" that the same artists (namely, myself and Enayla) were suspiciously popular on nearly all the art forums tjeu were praying for, and a conspiracy theory sprang to life: clearly, Enayla and I were on a crusade to fill the Internet with the art of Satan!

Early this month, two letters were (purportedly) fired off to Enayla, and promptly posted on EK. These letters emanated from the august desk of Andrew T. Foster, and begged Enayla to consider accepting Jesus Christ as her lord and saviour, and using her God-given talent to flood the Internet with art glorifying the church. Said letters were duly laughed at, and we prepared to move on to the second phase of our plan (allowing the forum to be discovered, laughing at it, forgetting it, then bringing it back with a bang on April Fool's Day, with a fake protest outside my building, whose address is indeed posted in my journal--I must be out of my mind.)--anyhow, we were just about to move on to Phase II when all hell broke loose: Eatpoo discovered Reclaiming Art. From Eatpoo, the news spread like wildfire, breaking on EK, ConceptArt, Sijun, and Epilogue within a matter of hours. Forum threads related to our prank puffed up like popcorn bags in the microwave, receiving thousands of hits. Dozens of curious visitors inundated Reclaiming Art, returning to Eatpoo and ConceptArt and EK and Sijun to exclaim over what they'd seen. Outrage and hilarity and general bamboozlement reigned supreme. Our April Fool's joke had spread beyond our wildest dreams. We knew it couldn't get any bigger at that point (not without going, you know, beyond a joke--into the realm of bad taste, sort of thing), so we posted our shamefaced confession.

* * *

In conclusion, I'd like to post a comment that showed up on ConceptArt towards the end of the whole debacle:

I think it's great to see the online art community being tight enough to play pranks on each other like that. It feels great, don't you think ?

--Egerie

Amen to that, Egerie. Without the Internet art community, I wouldn't have got nearly as far as I have done in the illustration world. (But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop playing jokes on 'em any time soon!)

* * *

In-depth joke information, compiled by Virge:

The Making of "Reclaiming Art"

Beyond Expectations (Reclaiming Art Part 1)

Beyond Expectations (Reclaiming Art Part 2)

Beyond Expectations (Reclaiming Art Part 3)

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