Posted by Sanam the one and only at mke-65-31-131-216.wi.rr.com on December 02, 2001 at 23:13:12:
In Reply to: My VA board fond remembrances... posted by Darth Dobbin on December 02, 2001 at 23:09:27:
: I posted ONCE a long while before I started posting in earnest. I was met with SUCH bitter vitriol and vile hatred from SO many strangers, all for a seemingly innoculous post, that I was soured, and never came back for months. I rented MALLRATS, I think, a few months after this, and remembered there was this board, and figured I'd give it a second try. Like Stuart Smalley before me, I thought, "Hey! I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and gosh darn it blah blah blah...."
: When I first started posting in earnest, I wanted a "hook" and a "gimmick," so I used my photoshop skills and willingness to goof off at work to craft an endless series of VA-flavored image-posts. At first, this was kinda keen, and I thought, at least, that it added an element of something to the mix. But there's too much of a good thing. Soon, this guy in red named Brian Lynch starts ragging my every step, and painting me out to be this shut in who never sees the light of day, continually plotting my next "Kevin Smith in a famous photo appropos (sp?) of nothing" move. We have a li'l board feud.
: People start emailing me that Lynch is talking bad about me on the FILM-411 board, saying that I'm obviously very talented, but wasting my time with so many dorky things. I was actually flattered that this "bad talking" was prefaced by a declaration of merit, and that I was the topic of discussion on a board I didn't know about. And since I did all the crazy photoshoppery while being paid outlandishly by a now floundering, but then Venure capitalist-rich dot com with start-up money, I figured that the teeth were taken out of that remark, since, hey, I *knew* I wasn't wasting my abilities; I was being employed for them... But this Lynch fellow thought me a basement-bound nerd with a hacked copy of photoshop, misdirecting my energies all over the place.
: Long story short, our animosity somehow became friendship, and I ended up designing the Angry Naked Pat site with him directing the content from afar and with AIM "meetings" (http://www.angrynakedpat.com), and six months after THAT (read:now) said site is featured in Entertainment Weekly. And I count Lynch as an actual friend, if somewhat oddly so, as it is all pretty much a "virtual friendship," and, as is pointed out in the very strips themselves, there will always be an underlying creepiness in any friendship which found it's origin online.
: Ah, the internet. It brings people together.
: And it provides the 13 year olds of the world with unfettered access to hardcore porn. It really is the marvel of our age.
: -dobbin
: http://www.itsthecatsass.com