sup, I found this while cruising for wayback machine stuff, so sorry for the necro
I figure this is low key enough to pop up since it sounds like there's probably mostly ogs in here. It's weird to have to register for this kinda thing, I guess I should try to prove I'm me so
dunno who else would have something like this backed up. unfortunately most of the site content is lost since, if anyone remembers a few months after the "goodbye" message, I started just replacing the goodbye messages with a bunch of japes because Mark was hell bent on convincing me to sell the old website data to him. when I took it all off the server, I kept it for 3-4 years on a set of DVDs, but eventually to get Mark off my back I microwaved it and showed him a picture of the destroyed discs.
I heard Mark really went off the deep end a few years back, I haven't had any contact with him in forever, but that's super on the grapevine
I have copies of the original mark vegas drunk vids [the ones out on the strip, the one in the hotel screaming about jews for $1 slots, and the one where he's locked himself in the bathroom listening to the soviet national anthem] if anyone cares lel
honestly the parts I remember the most fondly were when everything was in full swing, shit was ""on-topic"" and when I got to chill with the true and honest chris group, liquid chrises, clyde, etc. and I wonder where folks like dagon and homor ended up, I think homor modded on cow for a while but I'm foggy on that one - and I really remember largely enjoying everyone I got to chill with during this time and getting to largely be a fly on the wall for some funny shit.
[I still have the recordings from Chris' voicemails, I listen to those every few years cause that cobra commander impersonation still kills me - that voicemail code was still valid for a frightening number of years.]
I'll be real when /cwc/ was in full swing I was like 15-17 years old. I think I was 16 at the top of the rollercoaster. honestly I didn't even really mod that much, I mostly trusted others, and largely wouldn't step in a ton, except at the end when I was just tired and started being a hardass.
what killed it all for me was that near the end it really went from "haha look at these funny internet people" to legit harassing of trans people, having a trans mod who was a friend and largely feeling the slant of the userbase getting really far to one side was exhausting, on top of that personally I was 17-18 and pushed myself into a big investigation trying to help with forensics and take down a child-rapist pedo, so, for someone that young I was p pressured - and having to call in welfare checks on rika stiles didn't help lmao
amusingly what allowed the whole site to stay online for so long, despite all of the ddoses and complaints and letters to the ISP was that I worked for the ISP that hosted the site, it was my first job after I got out of school at 16, and I could largely scuttle or at least "work off" the trouble I would get into, and keep the site online on the money I had left. - there were a lot fewer options then for a sysadmin to stand up servers and keep them as secretive as there are now. - or cloud server providers that dont give a fuck lol
the whole lolcows thing has gone way way further than I ever thought it would have, or even had when I was there, but sometimes babbling about christory shit can be good when a normie friend gets scandalized by christine's antics on facebook. - I dunno if I would have gotten that deep in the matrix with how stuff is today but I also have a real job now that doesn't mostly pay rent and for websites. I feel like a significantly higher portion of lolcow watchers are 2 missed paychecks and a bad breakdown from getting a thread, and I'm frankly shocked Mark hasn't gotten a big one tbh, but that's just me lmao
I think I still have some threadscans of adf and rika threads, the one where adf might have come into the thread it looks like from the admin view,
but, yeah, it largely died as I wanted to cockblock mark from going deeper off the cliff with it and as the Chris dried up for a while I wasn't as cool with the direction it was in. hopefully you can understand
I kept up with a few people but they largely fell off my radar the last couple years. if anyone still has my steam or whatever, can always try to poke me
ALSO WHO ELSE WOULD HAVE THIS SHIT KEK
peace