Joey Anuff: Welcome, AOLheads.
Carl Stead: That was good, Joey.
Joey Anuff: You should've seen the first draft.
Joey Anuff: Budum-pum
Carl Stead: Peter Hannan has another panel about the "Internet." That thing really lengthened the life of tired political cartoonists.
Carl Stead: The Internet, that is.
Carl Stead: "When I expressed the desire to establish a presence on the Internet,"
Carl Stead: "I didn't have 'Al's Artsy-Fartsy Home Page of Hilarity' in mind."
Carl Stead: Ha ha.
Joey Anuff: Jeez. That's "not so good."
WIRED MAG: So Carl and Joey started SUCK in their "free time" and have since turned it into one of the most popular sites on the Web. Any questions for them?
Question: Do you have any "free time" now?
Carl Stead: Well, we're on AOL. Though they may have been part of our TOS...
Joey Anuff: We commit Suck at our leisure...
Carl Stead: There will always be Suckage.
Joey Anuff: I'm not sure I really believe in "free time."
Carl Stead: ...since leisure time is a product of modern industrialized production, anyway.
Joey Anuff: That's when you're supposed to "have a life," right?
Joey Anuff: Before Suck, I just hung around HotWired 'til 2am anyways. After Suck, 8am. Not much of a difference
Carl Stead: Just 6 hours or so.
WIRED MAG: So you don't sleep then?
Carl Stead: A WIREDone would equate "sleep" to "leisure."
WIRED MAG: I hate that term, btw.
Joey Anuff: Leisure? Why, because of Scenarios?
Carl Stead: Put me to sleep.
Joey Anuff: Wired must have been smoking the dummy pipe when they said that.
Joey Anuff: We'll have quite a bit of free time if we're all unemployed. But we all knew that.
WIRED MAG: So how did you guys get your Web page underway? Difficult to get the hardware/software?
Carl Stead: A gold card.
Carl Stead: We imagined the possibilities.
Joey Anuff: Of a gold card.
Carl Stead: Well, the other option on the gold card was a trip to Las Vegas.
Carl Stead: Sometimes, I think that may have been the better choice.
WIRED MAG: So you're planning on putting ads on your site then?
Joey Anuff: We sure hope so. The way I see it,
Carl Stead: How do you see it, Joey?
Joey Anuff: unless we have steady revenue, we're like a cute anomaly. With sponsors, we're closer to legit publishers.
Carl Stead: ...and a force to be reckoned with.
Joey Anuff: 'course, it's tough to find sponsors you can live with and who're able to live with you.
Carl Stead: Just like members of the appropriate sex.
Remiles1: (1)what does SUCK stand for Single Unemployed College Kid?
WIRED MAG: So are any advertisers courting you? Can any live with the content you put out?
Carl Stead: Have you seen television lately?
Remiles1: (1)Not my turn to watch it
IceSziber: (1)good one Rem!
Carl Stead: The question is, can we live with the content they put out.
Question: Sometimes there's this attitude in Suck, like "The Web was so cool before all you morons got onto it" Do you think Suck is elitist?
Carl Stead: The Web had more possibilities at one point.
Carl Stead: As it progresses, some of those possibilites are made real. But not all the choices along the way are good ones.
Joey Anuff: I don't find the common nethead to be a moron. It's the folks who just got a $10 mil contract...
Carl Stead: Too many common netheads eat what they're dished out, tho.
ImWebBoy: (1)They're blowing off the elitist question ...
ImWebBoy: (1)Suck is just like ... We're so cool, and you all are so lame.
Joey Anuff: Judging from our mail, most Suck readers are fairly bright and not prone to swallow every steaming
Archanel64: (1)CRAP!!
Joey Anuff: load that comes their way.
Carl Stead: True.
ImWebBoy: (1)I read it 3 or 4 times a week
IceSziber: (1)ha ha
Remiles1: (1)Its not funny
ImWebBoy: (1)But they're snobs.
ImWebBoy: (1)You don't find it funny, Remiles?
Remiles1: (1)NO
Archanel64: (1)it SUCKS!!
Question: Are sucksters "common netheads" too? Do you have _them_ eating out of the palm of your hand?
Carl Stead: I love all the Sucksters, each and every one.
Joey Anuff: We're only uncommon in our obsessive natures.
Carl Stead: Now, the AOL honchos told us AOLers weren't all that interested in the Web...
Carl Stead: Which may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, given the state of the (current) AOL browser.
Carl Stead: Of course, if they really believed that there wouldn't be the talks with Netscape.
Joey Anuff: Does anybody have a site they'd like us to look at?
WIRED MAG: Why don't you explain your basic gig to them first, Joey? What is Suck?
Carl Stead: Yeah, just what is this Suck thing, anyway?
WIRED MAG: In 25 words or less.
Joey Anuff: I'm hoping everybody's got their web browsers popped. Tuned to http://www.suck.com
Carl Stead: www.suck.com
Joey Anuff: We like to think of the web as a virtual Gong Show.
Remiles1: (1)GGGGGOOOOONNNNNGGGGG
Joey Anuff: And ourselves as more erudite variants on Beavis and Butthead.
Carl Stead: And we're...oh, damn, those Gong Show characters were so forgettable.
Carl Stead: But maybe that's the point.
Remiles1: (1)Get real you don't compare with B&B
IceSziber: (1)question #1......how do you guys get your own show?
Carl Stead: No, more like the Unknown Comic.
Carl Stead: B&B *are* very erudite.
Joey Anuff: At least we were for awhile.
Carl Stead: Unknown? Or erudite?
Carl Stead: I don't think we were ever erudite for more than a few seconds in between jokes.
Joey Anuff: Until someone tore the bags of our heads and scared away all the children.
WIRED MAG: Here's the question we've all been waiting for...
Question: So what is the hottest www site?
WIRED MAG: And why?
Joey Anuff: http://pages.prodigy.com/Hell/walter/
Joey Anuff: (The work of an idiot savant - even if it's a hoax.)
Carl Stead: Erm, WIRED online? Doesn't it have something to do with "Hot"?
WIRED MAG: Easy.....
Carl Stead: Heh, heh.
WIRED MAG: We're not quite sure of the difference there yet.
Carl Stead: Neither are we.
WIRED MAG: But.....
WIRED MAG: You will.
Joey Anuff: Walter sure has a way with words.
Joey Anuff: His Yuletide poem is something else.
Carl Stead: Is anyone following along? Ya got Walter's page up?
Carl Stead: Walter? You here?
Joey Anuff: He's like a retarded Douglas Copeland.
Joey Anuff: Typos, aside, though - i prefer his work to Doug's.
Carl Stead: Sort of a "Flowers for Algernon" modern-day Doug.
Joey Anuff: Feed aspires to be the New Yorker of the web - often successfully - they're at www.feedmag.com
Carl Stead: Wait, I wasn't done reading Walter's pages yet. Y'all taking notes?
Joey Anuff: I knew you never followed my links, Carl!
Carl Stead: I *make* all your links, Joe.
Joey Anuff: Make?
Carl Stead: Had to find a damn CU-SeeMe transcript this morning.
Carl Stead: Well, rediscover.
Joey Anuff: It's good for you, Carl - keeps you up on our subjects.
Carl Stead: I could just be lying when I say I don't read Wired.
Remiles1: (1)Joey we have had e nuff not anuff
WIRED MAG: Remiles1 asks:....
Question: Who the heck are you poor excuses for talent?
Joey Anuff: Good question. We answer it daily.
Carl Stead: At http://www.suck.com/
Carl Stead: What a glorious URL that is.
Carl Stead: Fit for kings.
Carl Stead: And fools alike.
Joey Anuff: Besides, who said anything about "talent," anyways. It's overrated, in my book.
Joey Anuff: Thanks for the encouragement, tho!
Carl Stead: Yeah, what is 'talent'? An outmoded notion if there ever was one.
Question: What exactly _is_ your take on D. Coupland? Voice of a generation or passive receptor of air-born media viruses?
Carl Stead: See my last remark.
Joey Anuff: Coupland set the standard for opportunistic self-promotion a few years back. We're trying to reinvent it.
Carl Stead: We see Douglas as a good vehicle to start out pieces
Joey Anuff: Or, as the gentleman said, "Who are you poor excuses..."
Carl Stead: that don't have an obvious beginning. A deus ex machina for beginnings, if you will.
IceSziber: (1)oh please
SSchae4619: (1)No, I liked it. The deus thing.
Carl Stead: Now, make sure to call all your AOL pals and tell them about this hot & happenin' chat with the Sucksters...
Joey Anuff: What are you prattling on about, Carl!?!
WIRED MAG: Carl doesn't prattle.
Remiles1: (1)dudes or dunces?
Carl Stead: live, now!
IceSziber: (1)dudes
Remiles1: (1)DIE NOW
Question: It appears to me that your site SUCK describes your personalities and talent. Is that where you got the name?
Remiles1: (1)Finally
IceSziber: (1)tuff one
Joey Anuff: Well, our foremost talent _is_ honesty.
Carl Stead: Yeah, we Suck. (Butthead laugh.) We wanted *uck, but the Internic wouldn't give it to us.
Remiles1: (1)Interneck?
CKelley998: (1)no, more like pencilneck
Joey Anuff: Suck describes our daily routine. Plop down at desk; bust browser; suck content.
Carl Stead: And that would have forestalled the possibility of an AOL chat.
Carl Stead: We were thinking ahead.
Carl Stead: Everything, to be here, with you, today.
Joey Anuff: We would've never made it here with a name like *uck.
Carl Stead: Yeah, that asterisk is too hard to type.
Question: You all talk alot about what's OVERrated about the web...what's _underrated_ about it?
Carl Stead: AOL member home pages are vastly underrated.
Joey Anuff: Too true. Got any good ones for us, Carl?
Carl Stead: http://home.aol.com/PictureMe/ will give you a taste of what you're missing.
Question: iz suck like a by-product of wired or what?.
Joey Anuff: Ever heard the term "bottom-feeder?"
Joey Anuff: That's us.
Joey Anuff: Wired strays towards Fruitopianism at times.
Joey Anuff: We're dispeptic.
Joey Anuff: They gave us 4 months to live.
Joey Anuff: Which we'd like to believe is dead-on accurate.
Carl Stead: When you look at the evidence, it might appear as if they don't really appreciate us.
WIRED MAG: Wired doesn't appreciate anybody.
Joey Anuff: They think we're hURLers.
Carl Stead: Well, Nicholas seems to be in the in-crowd.
Joey Anuff: St. Nick
Carl Stead: Talk about prattling on.
Question: Is your goal to be "appreciated" by wired?
Carl Stead: No, just to be "understood."
Joey Anuff: We dare not even dream.
Carl Stead: Isn't that what everyone wants? To be understood?
Joey Anuff: We want a cover feature.
WIRED MAG: Well, sure. Everybody wants that.
Carl Stead: So how much does a cover story cost? There's still room on the card.
Joey Anuff: I want a cover story in DogFancy.
Carl Stead: Not CatFancy? They post on Usenet.
Carl Stead: You are. Don't worry, I just typed "Usenet," which certainly left a bad taste in some mouths.
WIRED MAG: OK. Here's a darn fine question...
Question: You all _have_ taken down (figuratively) many corporate sites, but your stance is hardly anti-consumerist...do you think your readers sometimes assume you all are more "radical" or "anti-establishment" than you really are?
Joey Anuff: We're not so much anti-corporate as anti-inept.
Carl Stead: In the same way Barthes was accused of consuming culture in order to critique it.
WIRED MAG: Oh God. When Carl starts bringing out the Barthes, we're all in trouble.
Joey Anuff: It just so happens that most of the sites worth torching have deep wallets.
Carl Stead: Oh. I just got a private message. "Don't reference anybody. This is AOL."
WIRED MAG: A question from one of your biggest fans in the audience, Remiles1....
Question: Do you think everybody visits your site because they think it is PORN?
Joey Anuff: We _are_ porn. Geekporn.
Carl Stead: I try to convince myself of that (of the site being PORN) every day. It would keep me interested in my work, certainly.
Carl Stead: Yeah, that crazy URL - http://www.suck.com/, for those that don't recall - sure does get us in trouble.
Question: why do some web search programs do a better job then others?
WIRED MAG: That was kind of a geeky question for y'all.
Joey Anuff: They pay more Netscape for placement on the search page?
Carl Stead: I love the PR for the search engines.
Carl Stead: "We index xxx pages, and the other engines' xxx pages aren't really xxx pages..."
Carl Stead: As long as I can find appropriate links for Joey's brilliant prose.
Joey Anuff: Infoseek even has a query line on Netscape's search page. Wonder how they're doin'
Carl Stead: Well, in a way, they lost, when Netscape determines who wins.
Joey Anuff: Speed doesn't hurt a search engine, either.
WIRED MAG: And here's a little postmodern snack for the folks at home....
Question: were all wondering if this is for real or are you guys some kinda prerecored message?
Joey Anuff: The latter.
Carl Stead: It's real time, but it's scripted.
Carl Stead: Even *your* question.
Joey Anuff: We haven't come very far since 'Eliza', have we?
Carl Stead: Eliza was my friend.
Joey Anuff: Eliza's still your only friend.
WIRED MAG: Ok. I know who Eliza is, but many out there havn't reached the geek peaks that you have... so explain.
Joey Anuff: Eliza was our therapist when we were 12.
Carl Stead: A primitive AI program. And my only friend.
Question: There have been alot of Suck rip-offs (Netly News, Blow...), and there are sure to be more. How will you keep from becoming indistinguishable?
Joey Anuff: The jokers do an adequate job of distinguishing themselves.
Carl Stead: Well, we're a franchise, like McDonald's or Burger King so, you see, we keep raking in the bucks, regardless.
Joey Anuff: Mmmm. Burger King. My favorite enlightened despot!
Mayf 1: (1)im the only one talkin'!!!
Carl Stead: It's all a big pyramid scheme, after all. We aim to be TOPs.
Joey Anuff: Tautology-Oriented professionals?
Carl Stead: Something like that.
Joey Anuff: Technology-Obsessed Peons?
Carl Stead: Ba da dum.
Question: so when are the big wigs going to shut the web down
Joey Anuff: The day after tomorrow, I think.
Carl Stead: They already did, didn't you hear? Why do you think we're on AOL?
Joey Anuff: Like Wally World. The Web will be closed for the weekend.
WIRED MAG: Ok. Well, if I could remember how to run the copyright file, I would. But let this suffice....
WIRED MAG: Don't even think of copying this text and selling it for millions and not letting us in on our cut.
Carl Stead: Our words are worth that, too.
WIRED MAG: If you do, we'll come over to your house and stay on your sofa for a couplea weeks, or more.
WIRED MAG: Your words are worth gold, Carl.
Carl Stead: And bring our Web servers with us.
WIRED MAG: Yeah. So don't do it.
Joey Anuff: Remember kids - if you're getting run out of town, make it look like a parade!
WIRED MAG: You think that one up yourself, Joey?
Joey Anuff: No comment.
Joey Anuff: Sayonara!
Carl Stead: See more glass.
suck.