Boards
So I come back after almost two months to find this festering in my inbox
Hello, chris_is_cool,
I am ghoul. I have this message for you to share with the community. Please do so immediately.
Thank you.
Ghoul x
"Hi, it's me. ghoul. A lot of shit's been chucked at my legacy lately, and I feel now is the time to give you the real story. The man behind the ghoul. The poster who changed the way people thought about trolling.
I was born in Grays in 1990. Times were hard. I only had one brother. He was a dick. But I struggled on, buying sweets, getting schooled and eventually learning the ways of the world. But these ways upset me. How could it be right that I lived in abject poverty?
And that's when ghoul was born. I first broke ghoul out of his piss-ridden shell in the muggy summer of 2004. I was but 14. ghoul was younger in age, but older in tongue. At first I nurtured his presence inside me, then feared it as he grew and finally realised he was as much a part of me as anything else. I taught him all I knew until he was teaching me. Teaching me how to provoke, to share my artistic tendencies in a messageboard environment.
The first take-down I ever implemented was on the BBC Have Your Say forums. It was a baptism of fire. The moderators in that place are like fucking SS guards. Within two posts I was complained about and barred, but one woman had called me 'despicable' and I can't even explain the buzz it gave me. It was the knowledge that could have been my mother, my teacher, myself... and I had offended her simply by using provocative language and being a bit of a tit. I'd found my calling.
After a few months, I became a master of my trade. I fucked up iSketch for everyone, I told moderators the world over that they were gay. I was becoming one of the most recognised trolls on the World Of Warcraft forums. And it was fucking brilliant.
Then one day, I was linked to drownedinsound.com. It was troll valhalla. No limit on posting threads, no moderators at the time (they were all at some festival) and pages upon pages of my threads filling the board in no time. For the first time in my life, I'd brought a messageboard to an absolute standstill, to the point where nobody was posting but to tell me I was a cunt. Discussion had shut down. I was the centre of all attention. And only after almost 20 pages of threads was I barred. The damage had been done. And I'd found my home.
Over the past year and a half, I've created some of the most powerful characters ever created in the name of messageboard art. Chris Sardine, angered_coon, John_The_Poet; classic creations that amused and infuriated in equal measure.
As angered_coon made Rose-Kitten and vikram look like complete tools and AlanSheeeeerer took down Yesiamaduck, I felt like I was creating history.
My creations became a study of the human condition. I was part of dozens of power struggles for no reward, desperate attempts to be the first to suspect me, I saw people make judgements about my life without ever stopping to think that in arguing with a prick on a messageboard, their lives were equally lacking something. I was beginning to understand all things.
But it became too much. My head became full of understanding and one day it just... popped. And all understanding went out the window. My understanding of humanity had gone into overdrive and blown itself up. I was desolate, broken and absolutely useless. So I had to start again. I selected the username 'Mandy_Moore_For_Sure' and started a thread calling all women slags. Immediately there was outrage, and it was this outrage I used to piece back together my belief system, to regain my understanding of humankind. Soon, I was ready. Flashbacks to what I had discovered before, relapses into great understanding. And within weeks, I was back to my old self, and I knew all.
But what could I do from there? In the holy trinity mentioned above, I had created the three greatest messageboard characters ever created. I was Dylan post-crash. I was Yorke post-OK Computer. I was a mess of achievement and ambition constantly at war with each other.
So I made a choice. I would have to get even cleverer than before. And that meant getting deep inside the hearts and minds of the group and then destroy it that way. In September of this year, I set up an account. It was an ingenious plan. And as this account slowly gains the respect and trust of the rest of the board, so the stakes are raised, and my concentration must stay on the job at hand.
So far I have done brilliantly. I would bet my life nobody has guessed which user I am, and nobody will either, until it's too late and I'm spamming their secrets all about the walls of DiS, like angry streams of shit and piss staining the moral fabric of the internet. The day is coming, I promise you. And it will be my finest hour yet.
Until then, I would like to thank everyone involved with my journey thus far. I've learnt a lot about myself and others, honed my comic abilities and pissed off an unfeasably large number of people.
I am ghoul, and this is my story. Thanks for reading."