Regarding Lowtax:
11th November 2021
I guess I'm not really involved with discussing the wild life of Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka, but if there's one thing I do know about him, it's what he's left behind following his untimely demise. Lowtax was the man who around 22 years ago created somethingawful.com, which is a name you might not have heard of, especially if you're younger. However, if you've been on the internet long enough, or engaged in internet culture in any capacity, you've probably seen something that came from Something Awful without realising it. The Slender-Man mythos all stemmed from a Photoshop contest on the site. The phrase "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" was first spread around the site around the turn of the millennium. Chris Poole (better known as "moot") first got 4chan off the ground through a following on SA. Let's Plays as a genre of video first got their start on the forum. Even the practice of putting Impact font text over an image to make a meme comes from Something Awful. I partially created this site as a celebration of early internet culture, so in many ways I feel it necessary to appreciate the work achieved by the man who effectively created the "Ground Zero" for modern internet culture and discussion, something he apparently loathed, but his influence remains regardless.

Of course, I've come to learn that he was no saint, and was in many ways a divisive figure both on and off the internet. Whether it would be relatively menial issues such as his general neglect of the site following its heyday in the 2000s and requiring new users to pay a fee to register, to personal issues in his private life, such as a long history of domestic disputes with his many partners. These all made him the subject of ire in his later life, and he gave up ownership of the site to an admin about a year ago. Immediately prior to his death, he was settling a divorce with his third wife, who ruled his past behaviour as abusive. Shortly after the verdict, news broke of his suicide. He was 45, and left three daughters behind. The life Lowtax lived was, like many public figures, turbulent and controversial, and like many of those who lived this type of life, he was gone far too soon. But, in times like this, the most important things to consider here and now are both the privacy and wellbeing of his family, as well as the legacy his online work left behind. Whilst he may have not lived his best life, his work made many friendships, saw people gain fame and fortune, and changed the landscape of the internet forever. He wasn't a flawless man; nobody could suggest that, but he's a man who, whether we'd like to admit it or not, was key in creating the online landscape we know today.