iStockphoto / Lidiia Moor
In what can only be seen as a testament to how petty man can be when put to the test, a poster on the Something Awful forum who was banned for 11 long years back in 2013 emerged within hours of his banning being lifted to pick up an argument right where he left off at the time of his banning.
This is, without a doubt, one of the finest displays of pettiness I’ve ever seen on the Internet and to the Something Awful forum posters who witnessed the triumphant return of ‘Etherwind’ who came back to SA after 100,018 hours of being banned for 11.4 years or 100,000 hours.
This story was picked up by Joshua Wolens at PC Gamer and it immediately caught my attention for several reasons. Firstly, I had no idea the Something Awful forums even existed still so shoutout to the users that are keeping that alive. Secondly, as someone who has been terminally online for most of the past 15+ years this story has the feel of Internet 2.0 that we haven’t seen since the late oughts or early 2010s, complete s–tposting for the sake of s–tposting.
The initial comment that got him banned for 100,000 hours back in 2013 was as follows:
“I broadly consider nWoD’s politics and social commentary through the perspective of ‘Death of the Author’, and while I know that’s a figurative expression, your reply makes me wish it was at least partly literal commentary”
Well, after the 100,000 hours instead of moving on with life or paying $10 to get out of the ban which is apparently somewhat common on the Something Awful forums, he returned to comment.
On a 2013 post that claims “If they follow the pattern, Wraith 20 should be in 2014 and cancelled before they finish writing it” user Etherwind triumphantly returned in 2024 to say “While it’s funny to imagine it cancelled, in all seriousness I don’t think it’ll be out before 2016 tbh. Would be happy to be proven wrong. Guess we’ll wait and see.”
Naturally, users were blown away when they realized what had transpired. One person wrote “Must feel amazing to let that out.” Another chimed in with “I don’t think we’re going to top that” and someone else replied “so why don’t we just go ahead and ban him for another eleven years?”
Someone’s correct in that they will ever top this. The guy waited 11 long years to pick an argument back up due to pettiness. This is an immediate Internet Hall of Fame inductee for s–tposting. Well played.
But it didn’t stop there, the person also shared a Google Doc with an essay about how posting on the Something Awful forum was an important part of life to them and how much their life had changed over the 100,000 hour ban. The essay starts off with a mention of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment for anyone out there thinking it will be vanilla reading.