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Milkshake ([info]milkshake) wrote in [info]fandom_wank,
@ 2008-04-18 13:21:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood:Spiffy

Taylor Hicks wank. No, really.
So... remember Taylor Hicks? Old-looking dude with gray hair that was on American Idol a couple of years back? Kinda sounded like Michael McDonald and danced like your drunk uncle at your wedding? Well, he still has a fandom. Yeah, I know -- I was shocked, too.

There has been a wank brewing for the past few months in the fandom. To keep this from getting too TL;DR (hard to do, since it has grown and mutated into a big blob of failure), I'm breaking this down into bullet points.

  • Taylor Hicks is photographed with some woman frolicking on the beach. This woman is later identified as Caroline Lyders, a news anchor from Milwaukee. ...OR IS IT?
  • Rumors start to swirl that the woman on the beach is NOT Caroline. This theory, popularized by the blog Making Fun of Your Ass (which will be shortened to MFOYA for the rest of this report), states that Taylor was actually with a high-priced hooker on the beach, but when he was caught, his publicists decided to hire Caroline to keep up appearances as a family-friendly performer.
  • Other Taylor Hicks fansites, such as TaylorMadeSoul (TMS), post rants in opposition of this theory. TMS is probably the most visible opposition of this theory in the fandom, despite some of the mods supposedly believing in this theory, as noted in this TL;DR post. Unfortunately, TMS is closed to outsiders due to AIDS trolls, so I can't link to these posts here. Other blogs are created to fight the rumors and MFOYA in general, such as Making Fun of Your Asses and The Caroline Lyders Fan Club.
  • The rumor makes it to Radar and the AOL front page. (Radar Online has a nice summary of the wank up to this point here.) Radar even went so far as to hire a forensics expert, Lois Gibson, to study the pictures. Her opinion? Beach Woman and Caroline are two different people. (See her response to the fandom here.)
  • Things finally die down -- for a little while, anyway.
But people can't leave well enough alone, and so this scab starts to get picked at once again...
  • Two new blogs pop up within three days of each other -- 15 Minutes of Fame and The View From the Inside. 15 Minutes of Fame is dedicated to "discussing those people who are searching in vain for their 15 minutes" in the Taylor Hicks fandom (What), while The View From The Inside (VFTI) claims to be a view of the fandom from those closest to Taylor (or, well, closer than you, anyway).
  • MFOYA picks up on this and is determined to expose those behind these blogs. After posting IP addresses here, they claim to have figured out who is behind VFTI -- TMS mods StrawGirl, Tappanga, and TayVAgal. The View From The Inside claims that the IP evidence is 'shopped, leading MFOYA to post this response.
  • MFOYA creates TMS Moles, a blog dedicated to exposing the TMS mods as the Cancer That Is Killing /b/ The Taylor Hicks Fandom.
  • Much breaking of [info]jurisimprudence  laws commences, including Snacky's Law repeatedly throughout the comments.
  • Now there's TMS MoleMole. ...They're just fucking with us now, aren't they?
Did I mention that most of these women on both sides of the wank are in their 30s or older, married, and have children? Most of these women are (as far as I can tell) also relatively new to internet fandom in general, so things like slash are foreign to them (witness the "eww, slash" entry on TMS Moles).

...Well. At least no one's been driven to commit suicide yet?

ETA:
TMS Moles do it for great justice.

ETA 2: From Princess Mole in the comments of the above link:

These posts are coming from Fandom Wank. They are actually professional fans (not of Taylor Hicks) with no extra time whatsoever except to post about fans. Back to topic!

Do I really have to point out why this comment is funny? (Guys, don't poke the wank.)

ETA 3: The TMS Moles edit Allie's comment to better reflect their stance. Here's the cleverly edited post, in case it suddenly disappears.

Perhaps the saddest reality, is that each and every person at TMS has wasted an inordinate amount of their life on this whole bullsh*t parade.

Herein lies the reality. 99.9% of TMS will never be able to call Taylor Hicks your friend. (Well you can claim it all you like, but being #23,452 on his myspace page ain’t gonna make it so! Or having Wes as a Mod) Hell, I’m going to go so far as to say that another 99% of you will never even have Billy-Boy or the Shirt-Shiller think of you at all. Thats the real deal folks.

Facts are facts and you can all (and I do mean ALL of you at TMS) cry a river of outrage if you want. Friends are made when you actually care to know a person for who they are, not because of what they can do for you.

Fact. Taylor is a great artist. Fact. He is actually kinda sweet and does some really great things for the underprivileged around him. Fact. He is a business person and appreciates you as fans who support his music and allow him to do what he loves to do. Fact. He has had girlfriends in the past. He will have them in the future. Not one of them is or will be named Bill. Sorry.

Grimmer reality: Even the Billy’s and the Thomas’ of the world need you for one purpose and one purpose alone. Buy the ticket - take the ride. That’s all folks! We all have a job to do. They sell stuff and make it so that you all have an escape to the lives that clearly aren’t what you’d hoped they’d be. That is all they owe you. They are not here to sleep with you or make out with you or put you on their top ten friends to make your life worth living. In fact, I am quite certain of this. If you happened to have a “lucky” (and I use that word loosely) encounter with any of Taylor’s extended posse, well good for you (I guess) but ask yourselves the real reason you tried so hard for that “precious connection.”

That goes for all of you who sit at TMS and bash one others in secret. You all struggle to find the thing that makes you special and to have others look upon you as worthy of praise or jealousy. Look inside yourself and realize what is really important. Its not the cyber-fame that will be with you when you’ve chased all your friends away. It’d be your dog because they are dumb and love your abuse!

Trust me on this, fame is fleeting - and by fame I mean real fame - not this crazy OMGZ Taylor posted at TMS hysteria. When real internet fame is gone, guess who is left? Nobody because karma will bite you in the ass in the end.

All of these TMS women being bashed are clearly pathetic and in need of some good ‘ol self esteem . Yes, its sad, yes, its more than sad. It’s devastating to those real people in their lives who have lost them to this nonsense. IT’S BEEN TWO YEARS PEOPLE! Get over the insanity, step away from the keyboard and go fuck your husband if he hasn’t already left your sorry ass!

Leave Taylor and his friends and employees alone to do the only thing that is relevant. Make the music.

I hope you all the bitches at TMS manage to get some perspective sometime soon. Sadly, by the time that happens, Taylor will announce the next tour. Then I can see the backbiting, eye-gouging and dart throwing shall begin again, just to grasp that 43rd meet and greet pass with Lil Bill in hand!!!! (You know who you are.)

Ok, I have now clearly wasted way too much of my time on those TMS hos all already, but I thought I’d remind them what reality looks like, as its been way too long a respite for most of them. I’m going off for a run and a nice dinner out with friends. They should try it sometime instead of guarding threads all day long.

Best of luck to all of you trying to grasp the golden ring of computer coolness. Try not to fall off the horse.

~~Allie~~

FIXED. TMSmoles


ETA 4:
The TMS webmaster says hello.

ETA 5:
Thanks to [info]dreamer_marie for pointing out this comment:

yea…saw that all the staff has been demoted at TMS. So does that just leave Adora in charge? Right! That won’t last long. I guess it means we can all go there, start threads, swear in the general boards, reek havoc and no one is going to moderate us? Bullshit!

Because swearing and "reeking" havoc is surely the way to rage against the machine.

ETA 6: Internet slapfight in the comments of the latest TMS Moles post between Princess Mole and Claena, a mod from TMS. Mmm -- more misogyny and fat jokes. Just what I always never wanted.


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[info]adora
2008-04-19 02:47 pm UTC (link)
In all my years of traipsing through such famous fandoms as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and so many others, I never once ended up on fandom_wank. I find it hilarious that it finally happened over something so ridiculous, that I thought only like five people knew about.

Hi, I'm the webmaster of TMS! I must say, after dealing with these dipshits all week, this entry and the comments gave me some much needed lolz. Thanks!

Basically, these are a bunch of disgruntled ex members and current members, who apparently feel horribly wronged. Most are people I have banned of course and judging from their psychotic/homophobic/childish behavior, you can probably see why.

Anyway, this post is awesome.

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