Fucked Company
Fucked Company is a web site that was created by Philip J. Kaplan (aka pud) around May 2000 for his friends, initially as a "dot-com dead pool" where players could compete to see who could most accurately predict which dot-com companies would be the next to fold, screw up, or otherwise embarrass themselves.
The site's name is a parody of FastCompany, a magazine that along with Upside, Red Herring, and Wired were tireless boosters of the Internet tulip mania of the mid to late 1990s.
The site became an underground hit, with users finding out about it via word of mouth. Eventually, Kaplan realized he had a potential money maker on his hands and added free and for-pay services like rumor listings and discussion boards. As of late 2000, Kaplan claimed site revenues of US $80,000 per month based on subscriptions to his rumor-alert service (presumably most of the subscribers were headhunters and companies keeping track of their competition).
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The Forums
The front page is updated on an irregular basis with occasional new postings, but most of the activity that goes on through FC is at the message board at http://bbs.fuckedcompany.com or through its corporate proxy friendly aliases at http://www.okaygood.com and http://www.newsdiscussion.com. The message board is commonly referred to as simply "FC" by its denizens, or sometimes "The Red Board", in reference to several spinoff boards which defaulted to different color schemes (forexample, Slackjawed is known as the Blue Board). Trolls are abundant as registration is not required to post and moderation is purposely lax.
The forum regulars hail from all around the world which makes for a very diverse atmosphere with some very active discussions politics, culture, and taboo sex .
The message board is rather infamous among the internet savvy for its members' frequent "attacks" on other message boards where the victim board is swarmed with objectionable links, pictures, and text. Over time as the FC community has become less cohesive and more apathetic, the number and quality of these has declined to being almost nonexistent today. The shutdown of goatse.cx has deprived FC trolls of their most popular tool.
Particularly famous invasions were stormfront.org and CChat.net.
Members
It is well known that 80% of these monikers are owned by 20% of the posters (which follows the Pareto principle) and that pud himself accounts for hundreds of these names. Many of the unregistered users use the forum for venting (or trolling) on politically incorrect subjects such as racism, pedophilia, sexual deviancy, etc, and anti-Semitic invective directed at pud himself. The most common unregistered moniker is a simple ".". Even so, you can still get a lot of useful advice from the board on a large variety of topics.
FC rumors and speculation
It is rumored that several comedians, including Jon Stewart and Howard Stern, have trolled FC for material.
It is rumored that there is a secret forum called "F3" that only certain people may access after being voted in. This was a fact until a few years ago when the board was changed due to spankygate and that forum was deleted. Everyone knows that there is a new F3, though.
Spankygate
Spankygate was a brief period of FC history when a person, known by the moniker Spanky, allegedly hacked into a secret forum known as F3 and copied available threads to a publicaly accessible website. Among the posted content were member nominations and associated voting and personal information of many of the past and current members. Naturally this caused quite an uproar. Due to the uncontrollable environment it ultimately caused many F3 members and the forum moderators (who were acknowledged in Phil Kaplan's book) to leave and never return – at least using their familiar monikers. Many noted the irreparable change to the FC community as the "time to move on", which caused many heartfelt farewells. From that point on moderation became less of priority for the site owners and this gave rise to the proliferation of racist trolls and the automated bots that dominate today.
Slang and Jargon
The board has given rise to a distinctive vocabulary and spawned numerous acronyms that can seem arcane indeed to the uninitiated. A few common examples for people who want to join this forum:
- WAYSA?: "Why are you still alive?"
- D/N/T: "Do never test", e.g., "Don't screw around with me."
- AYRTS? IA?: "Are you really this stupid? Is anyone?"
- S/F/O: "So fucking owned," e.g., "you've lost this argument."
- FC Hen: A female poster
- Sockfucker: A lonely, sexless poster. Typically a sexually frustrated virgin (also known as a "basement boi.") who supposedly masturbates with the aid of a sock.
- Cat herder: A bitter spinster who rejected the sincere interest of honest men when she had youth and beauty, and whose only companions are a herd of pet cats.
- DIGTBK!: "Damn it's good to be king!"
- 14th and Minna: a place to have your teeth knocked in, bring a baggie for them
- YAF,R? "You're a fag, right?"
- CIGAW?: "Can I get a witness?"
- TDCS: "Top down, Chrome Spinnin'"; I am so cool, U can't touch this !
- Alpha: An Alpha Male.
- Beta: A Beta Male.
- CUMB: Intentional misspelling of "cum"
- BRAW: Intentional misspelling of "bra" (ex: I CUMBBED in grandma's BRAW)
- This is the correct motorcycle: the right idea. (ex: Pud: I think american women are good for sport fucking but make terrible wives. Spanky: This is the correct motorcycle.) Often shortened to just "motorcycle." Rarely, "That is
the proper motorcycle."
- Anal?: Was anal sex involved? or Would you have anal sex with me?
Related Links
Cheopys – http://www.cheopys.com http://www.cheopys.org http://www.stellarparthenon.org/phpBB2/
Clownpenis – http://www.clownpenis.net/
Colts Insider – http://mb4.scout.com/bcoltsnews2313
Do Never Test – http://www.donevertest.com
Dots Matrix: http://www.aimoo.com/dotsmatrix – http://www.aimoo.com/forum/freeboard.cfm?id=628301
Escape Hatch – http://mb4.scout.com/bcoltsnews2313
Heekee http://www.heekee.com
Lakedwellers http://www.lakedwellers.com
Nice Taco (AKA MapleBacon) – http://www.nicetaco.com
Slackjawed – http://www.slackjawed.net
yikesahootie! http://www.yikesahootie.com/ – http://www.yikesahootie.com/forum/
YUOFAG http://yuofag.com
ripoffs:
www.eScrew.com, www.dotcomscoop.com, www.luckedcompany.com, www.netslaves.com
Inspired by FC; www.fuckedgoogle.com, www.fuckedrealestate.com, www.fcyearbook.com, www.fuckedpeople.com
External links
Categories: News websites | Internet forums