Today as I start my most relaxing vacation in reflection of the work of the esteemed Martin Luther King Jr. I have received a most amusing submission into the Evil Commentary Bureau along with no less than eight individual private messages commenting on it as soon as I got online. Amazing how news like this travels. Kaiphantom now has attained the status of most submitted writer ever on the Evil Commentary Bureau records. Both in amount of people who've submitted him, now having recently passed over a hundred individual requests, and in the amount of fics or public postings of his that have been submitted.
Before I begin,
allow me to go over a few of the highlights of Kaiphantom's
long fanfiction career thus far. Beginning as a writer on the fanfiction mailing list, he was an infamous ranting fanfic author who specialized in both hounding authors with
dozens of emails until they eventually shook their heads and blocked him to
make him go away and writing rather pathetic responses to their works (circa
"The Better End"). On the ffml he remained a relatively benign presence. Annoying to be sure, but, as far as we know,
not yet having really started his career of
trolling. He started his site, and a few
people who agreed with him on his views occasionally went there. Life was good for Kaiphantom. Later he discovered the vast fanfiction archive known as Fanfiction.net (Http://www.fanfiction.net). Here he discovered,
he could attack people for not going along with his views under aliases that
took only a half second to create. This
began his real career in trolling as he'd post with two to four names sometimes
on authors he didn't like, running a rising rant all in the exact same typing
style and writing format. Around this
time he also discovered Fanfics delphi (http://forums.delphiforums.com/ranma_fanfics)
and has forever since been an object of amusement for many of the Evil Commentary
Bureau staff. Later, unveiled by the
combined efforts of several enraged fanfic authors,
the Evil Commentary Bureau, and the crew of the honorable chatroom
of #void, Kaiphantom's trolling through
pseudo-anonymous nicks was revealed for all to see complete with the evidence
he himself provided to seal in his guilt for the crime(http://www.rakhal.com/durandall/mystery/). Since having his 'good name' dirtied by his
actions on Delphi and several areas of fanfiction.net, he proceeded to try and
'defend' himself...using both his real and troll nicks to the point that even
those who were leery of the IP tracked evidence logs couldn't deny the sheer
insanity of his position(http://forums.delphiforums.com/ranma_fanfics/messages/?msg=8249.1). After lying low for a month or so, Kaiphantom attempted to have a clean break, disappearing
from
The rant could, perhaps, be found here: http://www.geocities.com/kaiphantom2000/review.html
Assuming that you are one lucky bastard. As Kaiphantom stole the pictures in *.bmp format they eat his bandwidth like it is going out of style, putting his page down for the count in mere moments every hour. While the rant in txt format is preserved within the ECB for people to read, we apologize on his behalf for him being too incompetent to build his own site and steal his own pictures.
As always the Evil Commentary Bureau will be archiving this for public amusement on our site: http://dracos.anifics.com. We allow a single response to be used however the ECB'ed author chooses if sent to the Evil Commentary Bureau account at: Dracos12@hotmail.com. We reserve the right to publish any and all material that is received for public amusement.
Now that we have that lengthy introduction to the Evil Commentary Bureau's biggest trollboy, I'm happy to present:
"The Evil Commentary Bureau versus Look mommy, the bad men beat on me!"
*Begin ECB*
Constructive Criticism?
ECB: Amusing subject from one famous for his negative/unconstructive Criticism. In fact, if I recall correctly, you raged over the horrendous and terrible C&C you got from... The best C&C'er of the year on the FFML as voted on in the Ranma Fanfic awards. Now, we can certainly take your word for what is good and constructive over what is harmful and wasted.
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Before I say anything, I'm going to post the following e-mail I recieved.
ECB: Well, yes, I see this was also distributed in email format but...did it ever occur to you to cite the source of it that is very clearly labeled on your pictures? To acknowledge the original writer you just copied? No, let's just forget the civility and go with Angry Ranting! And what makes this even better, is you neglected to proofread your work for errors. Did spellcheck take too long to run or was the verdict not ‘received’ by your brain?
This is just one of those e-mails that gets passed around, and chances are you may have seen this already. While one part of me is amused at it, there is something I'd like to mention, but let's take a look at the e-mail first.
ECB: It's actually rather pathetic in style and form, lacking a proper degree of wit or humor or satire in its response. But then, looking over his site, it's actually his style to be abrupt and blunt to an extreme degree. Some people find this funny, I find it more funny in that as you are doing it, you are comparing yourself to the kids and the 'evil flamers' to the detractor. I find it so funny, I am going to add a few as I go along. Complete with pictures!
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Email starts here:
I am better than your kids.
ECB: Good formatting. Glad to see you can at least accent the uncited e-mail. Here. You get a happy faced sticker! [= )]
If you work in an office with lots of people, chances are that you work with a person who hangs pictures up that their kids have drawn. The pictures are always of some stupid flower or a tree with wheels. These pictures suck; I could draw pictures much better. In fact, I can spell, do math and run faster than your kids. So being that my skills are obviously superior to those of children, I've taken the liberty to judge art work done by other kids on the internet. I'll be assigning a grade A through F for each piece:
ECB: And, to enjoy this game, I shall do the same for some pictures and authors. Along with a disclaimer/warning:
Megan, age 4
{Little kid drawing of a dog}
Review:
First of all, I don't even know what this is. If it's supposed to be a dog, then it's the shittiest dog I've ever seen. F
ECB:
Fox, age 29
Review:
First of all, under-aged vampire lesbian god chicks do not make a good story. Neither does you SI'ing as a female Usagi with powers beyond the ken of all existence and capable of idly matching the creator in a straight fight. Your fics don't make any sense whatsoever. I give you an F for failing to make sense and an F on your breeding license. Never Breed!
Kyle, age 8
{Little kid drawing of American flag}
Review:
You spelled
ECB:
Kapito, age 17
Review:
Did you forget the fact that no means no? That taking entire fics and tossing them into yours, verbatim, without changing the text and calling it a fic is plagiarism? F is for Fuckhead.
Lisa, age 6
Review:
Holy shit, I almost had a seizure when I saw this one. Three words: too many colors. Also, eggs aren't supposed to have
ears, dipshit.F
ECB:
Angelknight02, Age unknown, at least through high school
Review:
Holy shit, if you are going to claim genius level IQ, the least you can do is not get totally owned six ways from Sunday. Sky is not spelled skye twenty-seven times even after getting corrected by three people, F.
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Cameron, age 4
Review:
Terrible. F
ECB: For this one I'm not going to put up a comment. I'm just going to let it stand that you are comparing criticizing a fanfic author who has publically published their works and generally asked for criticism ("R&R", "C&C WELCOME", or "In my continuing movement to post my stuff here and hopefully get honest and objective C&C"(Kaiphantom, The Better End, 2001) to picking on a four year old kid's artwork kept by the parents of the kid. You must have felt it made a very strong argument to do so.
Bryce, age 10
Review:
This one wouldn't be too bad if the color was kept inside the lines, you picked a new perspective, used non-abrasive colors and asked someone with talent to paint it for you. On one hand I want to give an A for effort but... F
ECB:
K'thardin, Age 30+, Current US naval officer
Review:
Most people try to read what they critique before they make blanket statements. Ranma != Ryu Kumon. F for being a crappy public reviewer.
Rachel, age 7
Review:
That's interesting, everyone in this picture is white. Even the rainbow is white. Perhaps in an ideal world, everyone would be white isn't that right, Rachel? Or should I call you RACIST? Nice try, Hitler. F
ECB:
Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead, age 25+, Aspiring Professional Writer
Review: Excuse me, you aren't God. And if you are going to give lectures on the evils of evolution, or any other science you rant on in your fics, you could at least have the decency to know the material and not be pulling out a strawman and using it to view everything with derision. Your college professor gladly gives you an F for not even looking up what a college campus looks like before deciding it looks like your high school.
Kelly, age 9
Review:
This was a Christmas gift from Kelly to her parents. Good job Kelly, now pack up your shit and find a foster home. If my kids tried to pass this off as a gift, they'd come home from school and find all their shit outside in a box. What a lousy gift, seriously. You give them video games and toys, and they give you some half-assed drawing with a crooked tree. I wonder how much a gift like this would set someone back. Five, maybe ten minutes to find a napkin and some markers? F
ECB:
Kaiphantom, age 20+, professional worker at Matsushita.
Review: Write fanfiction. Don't rant. And can't you even count? 10 + 16 != 20. And don't steal other people's articles without citing, it's bad form. I give you an F for math. An F for effort. And an F just because I like giving Kaiphantom an F. It gets his dander way up in the air and he ignores the criticism anyway.
I can't believe how much I rule.
E-mail Ends.
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Okay, now you probably got a chuckle or two out of that,
ECB: I know I did. What a brilliant guy you are. Making the analogy that you are a little kid who is getting beaten on by evil C&C'ers. That is almost as good as the Skysaber tree analogy: "Too much C&C will stifle me and then I'll never write again!"
but I want you to set that aside for the moment and ask the following questions: What if you presented such reviews to the actual kids involved in drawing these pictures?
ECB: Well, besides those pictures all being fake, I'd personally not have a problem with it other than thinking that the language was inappropriate to the audience. Regardless though, Fanfic authors != 4 year olds. And if they are, I don't want to see them publishing their writing anyways.
How would they react? How would they feel? What would be your perception of the person who would do these type of reviews? And what would you think if this person did actually tell these kids the above review?
ECB: Your analogy again is cute. Translation: Please don't criticize me. I'm fragile.
Chances are, the kid would be extremely upset, and may give up drawing altogether.
ECB: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA. Any kid that is that fragile wouldn't get far anyhow. You think that's bad? Ever see the criticism their own peers level on a crappy artwork or writing? They build a backbone by surviving it or die there and go onto other things they are more competent in. Either way, that's life.
Would that be a good thing? After all, they won't give us any more poor pictures, would they? So why wouldn't we say such things?
ECB: *Laughs* Good point. I think we should all take it to heart. Flame an author today. Find the worst you can. I'd suggest Kaiphantom as he always said he loves to find "Honest Criticism" (FFML post, The Better End, Original posting).
Because the kid doesn't know any better.
ECB: So how does that explain you? Anyhow, being fair to your retarded comment, who gets better faster: The kid who is told "You got talent, but right now you suck. Get to practicing." or the one who is told "GO YOU! YOU RULZE! DAMMIT KAI, YOU ARE THE GRATESTX!"
They're just starting to draw, and only by continuing to draw, will they get any better. For those that like art, reviews such as the ones above could very well deprive the world of the next Picasso or Rembrandt.
ECB: *Roars in laughter* Thats the most absurd analogy I've ever seen! It's golden! I'm tempted to frame it and put it right next to Alzrius' "You are wrong. People are basically kind." You don't think those two got criticism? They were viewed with absolute contempt in their lifetimes. Told they were talentless hacks. Tossed out of art schools sometimes for their art styles. They became famous by persevering and improving. Imagine that?!
This is not all that different from fanfiction.
ECB: Except you are not a four year old. Feel free to go “Goo goo, don’t hurt me!” though!
If you're like most people into fanfiction, you've been to fanfiction.net and read numerous fanfiction that, quality-wise, is similar to the above pictures.
ECB: Or like clever people, I avoid that realm of fanfiction like the plague most the time because it is the least useful place around. It has actually been responsible for the stagnation and degradation of more good authors than new stars that have erupted from it. Most of the authors on it don't give a shit because it takes less effort to spit on a piece of paper than it does to get registered and put "RAxma sPTIX on at PAler! LOLZ! R&R PLZ!" online. Another prominent author gave a rather moving speech regarding the importance of acknowledging that, indeed, such was crap. It compares well to pruning weeds from a garden so that the flowers can bloom. Yes, you are a weed. I happen to be a weed killer. Ohayo!
You've also probably seen reviews similar to the ones above, whether on ff.net or elsewhere.
ECB: *giggles* You know, it's good to be remembered. It's also good to note that our group that does those so called flaming reviews receives more positive mail from the authors themselves then we do negative mail. Most negative mail we receive tends to be of the: "Haw Darez YOu! idot giez a shit about proofreading. Im a girl! YOU BASSTARDS!" Wow. I think I stifled the next Mark Twain on that one. Even though it didn't stop them at all!
Some of these authors are young people who don't know much better, while others may be older yet are "kids" to writing.
ECB: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah, the teenagers are picking on me Mommy!" -Kaiphantom, mature adult.
Practically all of them have the same thing in common with the kids above:
ECB: Honto?
They're just trying to have fun and enjoy themselves, and hopefully spread some of them fun around to others.
ECB: That's very good. Your performance is excellent. Just keep..huh? Oh wait, sorry, got distracted by the Dance Dance Revolution machine. Were you trying to make a point somewhere here?
Now how much do reviews like the ones above help? Would you label them "constructive"? Then there are the reviews which are styled in the same attitude as above, but actually do have suggestions buried in them.
ECB: Hiya! Thanks for advertising us. Feel free to include the website with your next evolution of the rant: http://dracos.anifics.com. We'd love to hear you tell us how unwelcome we are. We'd throw a party for you having the guts to come over there. Unlike you, I still have my balls attached, bitch. I don't fear walking into a hostile room and still putting on a performance that gets people laughing. Now, this is very different from you who needs to just whine softly.
Are they constructive?
ECB: Hell no. They are performance artwork. Live a little and learn to laugh at yourself and others.
Worth reading?
ECB: Well, several hundred readers and a significant number of actually ECB’ed authors think they are.
Or should they be ignored, since the intent behind them is not to help improve, but to mock fun? Such people
rarely have the idea of helping the author to improve, but are merely trying to reinforce their own superiority by making
others feel inferior, ie, the "Bully" syndrome.
ECB: "Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your
rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this
room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."-Adam Sandler Movie
ECB: Just in case you think you still have it:
ECB: You missed the point.
Granted, such reviews can be amusing for those not involved, but for the person on the receiving end, it's anything but
nice. Some of us can ignore such things, but they still hurt on some level.
Now, I know what you're going to say: "The world is not a nice place, and if you can't take the heat, get out of the
kitchen" and I would tend to agree.
ECB: Except you don't. And you don't yourself. When the heat heads your way, you flee screaming, tail between your legs as you run for the hills. A coward such as you is preaching about taking it? This is almost funny enough to earn being copy-pasted as its own response.
But, does that mean we need to add to the problem?
ECB: You are right. When the problem ceases existing, I'll stop trying to cut it back. Sounds good to me!
The attitude of, "The world's gonna screw you sooner or later, so I may as well be first"?
ECB: I see. This is the Kaiphantom philosophy of life. Piss people off and wait to be screwed over. Now I understand your writing! Your life is so clear now!
As long as such attitudes exist, such problems will continue, enough people stand up and say, "Enough is enough.”
So, stop for a moment and think, the next time you read a similar review, or go to write a review. Even if you love getting flamed, consider the fact that most people don't.
And if you need to feel proud of yourself, instead of thinking up witty flames, try learning a new hobby.
ECB: Good idea. I think I will follow your example and troll authors, making vague insinuations about their work and hounding them until they are so sick of you they beg for the admins to ban you from making reviews on their ff.net accounts. After all, that's not flaming.
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*End ECB*
First off, this rant was taken down approximately two days after being up due to plagiarism. After interviewing the kaipito though, it was evident he intends to try and figure a way to put it back up without plagiarizing Mr. Maddox. The ECB heartily appreciates such dedication to keeping this crap online. In fact we wholeheartedly expect Kaiphantom to take this as encouragement for his works as a whole. While on face this rant may appear to make sense, arguing that negative criticism is an entirely detracting artform, when pulled out of Kaiphantom's ass and put in front of the real world is falls apart like so many still 'four years old at heart' adults. I am forced to, on that facet, give this rant a D for making sense. Internally it holds together save for a few glaring weaknesses (Fanfic authors != 4 year old kids). Externally though, where it is intended to be applied, it is the rantings of the insanely hopeful in a world where others have learned to thrive off honest criticism before requiring the boot to the face to get their head out of their ass. This ECB shall have a dedication, just to increase the annoyance of Kaiphantom if he even reads this. Quite simply I'd like to thank all of those authors who wrote in, submitted their own works, took the time out of their day to thank the Evil Commentary Bureau for our criticism. Certainly, the ECB's were not intended for your improvement, but the fact that you benefited from them anyway should be a shining beacon to the likes of Kaiphantom to pull his face out of the gutter and learn how to write.
Additional citations:
The included artworks are not the property of the Evil Commentary Bureau. The first and second to last pictures are the
property of http://www.somethingawful.com
(An excellent satire site, highly recommended).
The rest are the property of Brian Randall who was generous enough to
lend us a few of his collection of Photoshop creations for this ECB.