In more ways than one.
I would like to preface the following with the fact that I am an alt. I am not acting against NG policy, however, because my main account has not been banned.
Some of you may have known me as "Petroleum" for the past several months. If you knew me before that, I was "jellofan7". I have two main points to make in this post, which may indeed be among the last posts that I make on NG. They address both who I am and my main intentions.
Before I start, I have to explain how I "made a terrible mistake". I was attempting to change my alias in my profile, when I accidentally, unknowingly, clicked in the e-mail address field and hit the keyboard, changing the suffix of the address to something. Unfortunately, I hit the return key after typing in my password, and now my account is unreachable, as they validation e-mail did not go to the right address. In the words of some unknown geek "It has been lost forever among the sands of time, and only Chuck Norris has the power to retrieve it" Why don't I e-mail Tom to get this sorted out? Because I have decided that it's not worth the trouble it will cause both me and him to retrieve it. Instead, I am typing this post to explain why.
First I would like to clear up the issue of who I am. This is the account of someone formerly known as Petroleum. She signed up on 11/29/05 and began posting on the NGBBS regularly in mid March. (That person being me) In the profile, I stated that I am a twenty year old woman from detroit. If you are especially good at remembering details, you will remember that in the beginning of m stint here, I was listed as "male" in my profile.
Some of you had already begun to suspect that my statement of gender was false by early this month, and my alias quickly became a heated topic of conversation amongst both regulars and "n00bs" alike. Despite slyly staying out of sight for the past two weeks in an attempt to circumvent the controversy, I believe that the time of silence is over.
What I am about to say to you guys may come as a shock to some, a validation to others, and will probably be met with apathy from most. Here it is, my friends. The truth, plain and simple.
I am not a twenty year old woman from Detroit. I am a twenty-five year old man who currently resides in southern California. I am not a graphical designer. I just happen to be particularly handy with photoshop. I am, however, a researcher at the University of Southern California
Now that I have revealed my identity, I feel compelled (and obligated) to tell you my true purpose for coming to this website. I am currently studying the internet, how teens utilize this resource, and how they react to it. So I did some research and came to the conclusion that there are two sites that teens frequent most, and that these teens can be divided into two distinct categories. First, the "Myspace crowd" which most of you would refer to as the Preppy Friends, and then there is, of course, the more underground group of websites, Like NG and *gasp* eBaums.
I decided that the underground group of sites would be more interesting to explore, as opposed to the widely publicized myspace-esque sites. I signed up for NG and eBaums with the intent to gather an idea about how teens minds work and react across the internet. Despite how you degrade yourselves constantly, you're really not as stupid as you think. Believe me. Spend more than four hours browsing thru myspace profile after myspace profile laced with over-animation and lame backgrounds and you'll understand what I mean. I'd pick you guys over them ANY day.
Anyways, I am working on a paper right now about how Newgrounds and eBaums and Myspace attract people and the various clientele, as well as how people's personalities are distorted over the internet (case-in-point: ME).
It amused me, by the way that I received over 530 Private messages from users for no other reason than that I appeared to be a female. Scary, eh? A message to you kids out there: be careful with the internet. You don't know the havoc it can wreak.
So I'm hoping that if my paper is good enough, I can get it published in a scientific journal or something. Many thanks to all those who interacted with me over the past six months, each piece of data helped my undercover research.
I'd like to extend a few personal goodbyes to some people who closely interacted with me.
Truthiness -- thanks for being so damned intelligent. You informed me more about politics than I have learned in the past 25 years of my life. Plus you were really awesome
Tarantino -- Thanks for shootin' the breeze with me in your free time. I'm pretty sure you were my longest regular correspondent through PMs.
modernizenerd -- Thanks for being cool and all that. Our epic PM replies never grew tiresome.
Grubby -- Yes, even you Grubby. Despite the fact that you claimed to hate me for three months, I have a sneaking suspicion that you didn't hate me as much as you think. After all, only a truly devoted follower would make 3, count 'em: 1 , 2, 3 threads about me.
sonicmega -- Always bearing the brunt of my in-character "harassment".
Makaio -- for bringing to light the so-called "cospiracy".
On a final note, I would like to bid the mods a fond farewell--keep on a brandishin' those ban sticks.
And to the rest of the user base:
Fuck you
In a good way.
