A term referring to the members of the Something Awful forums. As of February 12, 2008, there are
over 112,000 goons. For some of them, the one-time $10 fee required to register on the forums acts as some kind of proxy,
filtering out the trolls, poor teenagers and just about everybody who doesn't like the idea of paying
to participate on a message board. This has lead to a somewhat close-minded mentality, the emergence
of self-identity and circle jerking. Goons are proud to be goons.
Origin of the term
Years ago1, one of the popular feature on the Something Awful front page was the Awful Link of the Day,
where people made fun of a particular website or message board (often related to furries or some other marginal online community.)
This would often generate a Goon Rush (see below) on that website, which would only stop once the guestbook got filled with goatse references and
other generally nasty internet memes.
At one point, the webmaster of an ALOD target became rather angry at the unrully mob of goons mutilating his website.
An email was sent to Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka (owner and admin of Something Awful) containing the following gem:
"You and your goons can't push me off of the internet!"
The term quickly caught on and stayed.
Variations
The SA community now had a name and started to use it ad nauseum, eventually spawning
variations and neologisms used internally on the forums - although some of these are now bannable because of overuse.
A few examples are:
- Gooncamp: A biannual or annual camping event.
- Gooncon: Annual convention where goons meet in Real Life.
- Goondolences: Condolences, usually said after a goon announces he has lost a friend or family member.
- Goonerocity: Generosity between goons, often following a plea for help.
- Goon Rush: Similar to the Slashdot effect. Occurs when a link is posted in a popular thread.
The Goon Mind
Since there are so many goons, it's hard to pinpoint specific particularities or traits of personality. Something Awful being
a humor website, one can assume that the average goon is there for a good laugh. They also like to make
fun of themselves and the recurring clichés defining a typical goons usually are:
- Is a male.
- Has a neckbeard.
- Is fat and a virgin.
- Either defecates or masturbates into socks.
This is despite the fact that a lot of goons are females or come from all walks of life.
Goons outside of SA
Goons have a strong presence in other online communities, such as Digg, Reddit and Facebook.
A lot of online games have guilds or clans created and populated by goons, like in World of Warcraft (Goon Squad and others),
Eve Online (the powerful Goonswarm alliance), Lunar Wars (GOONS alliance) and many more.
Because of the feeling of belonging mentioned previously, these groups tend to be tight-knit and well organized.
This means that the Goons are now pretty well-known outside of SA itself and are often synonym
with "These Something Awful retards who keep ruining my Internet".
1 Most likely before 2000. It seems impossible now to find the original email and one can only approximate.