hey everybody. lol.
first of all, i want to say that i am going to try to make this thread as short as humanly possible, but there is a lot of material to cover, and i want to apologize for some stuff at the end.
i first created the account "angrypoolman" back in october 2007. i was mainly a lurker during this time, but i had an account. it wasnt until mid 2008 that i started posting and getting my opinion out there. those were fun times. back then, my arch nemeses were twesterm and montana hatchet since those were the mods who banned me and locked all my threads. montana hatchet was always particularly disgusted with my antics. i wasnt anything special, i was just your regular VGC peasant. if anything, i was viewed as a small pest at the time. not an overbearingly annoying one, more like a fly that will buzz around once every couple hours.
it wasn't until this thread (http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=88805) that i really made a name for myself. many users at the time knew i was a worker at GameStop, but what they probably didn't know is that i brought my bias into the work place which subtly influenced people's purchasing decisions. this was a giant point of contention that lasted almost the entire thread (which was initated by a very popular user at the time, leo j). basically what i did was this: when people brought a new ps3 or 360 game to the counter, i would ask them if they wanted a used copy for five dollars cheaper, and they would usually say yes. if somebody brought a used wii game to the counter, i would ask them if they wanted to buy a new one for only five dollars more, and they would usually say yes. i did this so nintendo would get the credit for the sale and sony/microsoft wouldnt. upon learning this information, many of the users went beserk, so this thread was a very entertaining piece of history if youre interested.
another interesting plot twist that took place requires just a bit of backstory. as angrypoolman, i basically played the character of an inexperienced user of VGC who needed the protection and guidance of VGC God RolStoppable. when i became a poster of this site, i quickly noticed that everybody loved this guy. no matter what he said, people would respond to him and laugh at his posts. sometimes, i would say the same points that he would, but it wouldnt elicit the same responses. i studied this phenomena and conducted a few experiments. my first idea was to outright copy his threads and act as if they were my own. here are three examples:
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=64008&page=1
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=64192&page=1
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=64619&page=1
as i suspected, the comments that i got were vastly different than the comments rol got. same exact content, but different posters. i knew it that this site was biased in his favor. now, this is where the plot twist comes in. rol comes up with a plan that is mutually beneficial to both of us. the plan helped me to become popular and be respected in the community because that is what my character at the time wanted so desperately. for rol, however, his joke threads were garnering fewer and fewer posts by this point, so he used me as a test to see if this was actually the case. youll get the idea of what was happening from this thread:
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=74138&page=1
these were some bigger events in my VGC career as angry poolman. long story short, my post quality deterriorated over time and my antics became too much for the community to handle. finally in 2010, i reached my limit, and my worst nightmare was realized: a permaban. i knew it was coming at some point, but when it finally happened, my heart sank. i would refuse to accept this, and i continued to make alt accounts to dodge the ban. i made angrypoolman 5, angrypoolman6, angrypoolman7 and so on.. all the way to angrypoolman 27 i believe. at this point, i finally accepted my fate and status as "VGC lurker"
well, that is how it lasted for about a year and a half when i messaged a mod, begging to come back. he unbanned my account and i was free at last. he did tell me that one slip up, and i will be banned for good. just one slip up. well.. needless to say, i slipped up. it honestly didnt even take that long either.
deflated, it was easy to accept being a VGC lurker.. that is until May 2014. i created a new persona. that persona was rubberwhistlehistle, and some of you reading this now will probably be familiar with this user and.. not have very good feelings about him. ill be the first to admit that rubberwhistlehistle was not a likeable character at all.
rubberwhistlehistle is a theme of a prank phone call series that i used to do with my friend on youtube. we pretended to be owners of a business that sells ridiculous items, and rubberwhistlehistle was one of the items. that is where the name came from (youtube.com/fresnohotpop if youre interested). at this point, i was completely undercover. many of the old people who might remember angrypoolman weren't even here anymore, so i thought i had a real chance at pulling this off. everything was going good for about a year, i was having fun, trolling the ps4, getting banned, all that good stuff. but it wasnt the same. it just wasnt the same. i felt like i was more aggressive, and i wasnt having simple fun like i used to have with angrypoolman.
when i realized this, i became very unsettled inside. as if i was living a lie. i didnt like not coming out as "angrypoolman" from the distant past. there were so many times that i wanted nothing more than to change my avatar to the beloved cat picture, but it would just give away my true identity. as the weeks passed, i became more aggressive, made enemies, and offended countless users. i take full responsibility for these actions and i want to apologize to anybody reading this who I have offended when i was under that alias. i truly am sorry. im not making excuses for my actions as this user, but i do believe it was because i couldnt be who i wanted to be. i got a lengthy two week ban, and created this alt account: perturbedkitty. it didnt take long for the mods to find it, ban it, and permaban my RWH account for ban dodging. my fear of losing it all was finally realized and it was all my fault. the ironic part about the whole thing was that the mods wrote "even though we knew you were angrypoolman, we decided to give you another chance."
they knew the whole time. i felt like a complete imbecile. for four months i was without an account. i pleaded with the mods and promised to become a better user. the four months have passed and i am back. and very happy to be back and not undercover about my past. in fact, i embrace the past.
so that is me. that is the story behind perturbedkitty. its not anything that is a huge deal, but that is my story and part of my experience with VGC. as i told the mods, i do intend on being a much better user. i read the forum rules for the first time just a couple days ago when i was finally allowed back on. i am making every effort to follow them. i dont want this to be another RWH experience. and i look forward to seeing you guys around in other threads.
i feel like there is much more to say, but i dont want this post to be any longer. hopefully we can discuss and get to know eachother a little bit better in this thread =]
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