So Encyclopædia Dramatica is no more, replaced by the rather anodyne http://ohinternet.com/. At first glance I hated Oh Internet, it just seems so bland and corporate, but on a closer look some of the articles are fairly interesting. If it wasn’t for its predecessor I’d probably consider it a rather good site. I expect the creators will do fairly well out of it at least.
But there are plenty of blogs about internet culture, and we already have KnowYourMeme. ED was different. Sure, parts of its content were hateful and it had a nasty habit of harassing Wikipedia editors. Yet its “take no prisoners” style of humour and critique could be laugh-till-you-puke funny. And not just puke because someone stuck a Goatse pic in the middle of the article, but because its incisive style was just what some of the more self-important parts of the Internet needed.
I doubt we’ll see the like of ED again. Many might say that’s a good thing, but I’m not so sure.
Also: I wonder how long it will be until someone tries to delete ED’s Wikipedia article. Again.
Update: Here’s one of the mirrors that has sprung up http://encyclopediadramatica.ch (nsfw, obviously!) It looks to have a strong “campaignAnon” contingent. According to AnonNews the owners of Oh Internet have threatened to sue anyone who tries to replicate, mirror or redistribute the old ED. That should go down well. *grabs popcorn*
Update 2: I forgot to mention my favourite thing about ED. In amongst all the hate and bile was the article on b3ta (nsfw). It even said “the people on b3ta actually are pretty nice”. There was some discussion on the talk page (now lost) about making the article nastier, but no one ever did anything.
b3ta – so fluffy even ED can’t say anything bad about it