Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It&#x27;s important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can&#x27;t be set aside.<p>At the same time, SA&#x27;s influence on the modern internet can&#x27;t be understated. The &#x27;image macro&#x27; of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today&#x27;s common meme image--impact font text over a silly image, easily accessible to anyone who wants to post it.<p>Many of today&#x27;s well-known internet comedians and writers grew up with the site. And it&#x27;s hard to estimate how big the impact (positive or negative) of things like ADTRW leading to 4chan have been, not to mention things like the rise of Let&#x27;s Play videos, or the creation and eventual shutdown of BitTorrent Barnyard (and its ensuing spinoffs).<p>The site itself still remains one of the last vestiges of the old internet--one of the few sites that both survived and managed not sell out and go headlong into monetization--and as a result, is one of the last sites on the modern internet that (maybe ironically) is not entirely awful.