A Chronicle of YCM

[Frunk]

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II
The Story of Johanderson

Almost unbelievably, it has been more than a year since this, “A Chronicle of YCM,” was first written and posted. The almost-sad irony that such a long-lived website only had had its “dull years” covered is one that did indeed annoy me in the aforementioned lengthy gap, but was not one that I was prepared or willing to rectify until, obviously, recently, due to the amazing amount of members and post that now grace my former “Internet home,” it would seem that the thirst – and need – for my knowledge, which is of course perhaps sometimes biased as I acknowledge, has become to great to be palmed-off further.

As a matter of fact, the need seems so great that I will not take the time to complete the chronicle “chronologically,” as one might expect. Rather, I’ll try and solve a bit of the problem while at the same time hopefully wetting your appetites for the much larger and much more innuendo-provoking chapters to come, namely, those of the Grammar War and Sartorism, which shall act, when the time, hopefully very soon, comes, as the second and third chapters of this work, respectively (for the record, work on the latter began exactly a week after the first chapter was last revised, and has never been far from completion), which will make this, perhaps the fourth, until Card Trade and Danilus each get their chapters.

This chapter, however, covers an issue arguably as interesting in the eyes of some members, the fascinating case of “Johanderson” and his aliases. His various antics spread far and wide, including involvement in both the aforementioned war, and a large “contribution” to the ill-fated YCM Card Trade program. I must state, before I start, that I have no ill will for the man I am about to discuss, nor should he be seen as anything negative, as he was, I believe, instrumental in the forming of the YCM of today.

The first known account utilized by “Johan,” as the man behind the Johanderson and related accounts is called, was called “The Apollo,” which was registered to YCM on May 16, 2007. Due to having a lacklustre popularity as caused by his vulgarness, as I remember, he requested that I let him make a new account so that he could start anew and become a “better member.” I allowed him to do so, and this new account was known as “Koloth,” created on July 6, 2007, and it was on this account that he began to emerge as what he would become.

His time with this account was rather untainted until late in that particular account’s career when his enterprises in the Card Trade program were becoming undermined due to his tendency to make promises he simply couldn’t keep (whether to do so was his intention or not is not clear). An example of such was when he engaged in “card for card” trading. He would claim, often using reasons along the lines of “my parents won’t let me,” that he was unable to his cards to the person he was trading with, often after that unlucky person had sent theirs, resulting in Koloth conveniently receiving free cards, keeping the ones he owed (that result being the classic example of a Card Trade scam, which resulted in many highly dissatisfied members, which will be discussed in a later chapter).

Irrespective of the true nature of his antics, Koloth would find himself among the hypothetical list of YCM scammers before Card Trade was finally shut down by Danilus in the extended aftermath of Sartorism, aside names such as “silverboy0213” and “chaoserver.” Koloth eventually disappeared on September 5, 2007, leaving his disputes with other Card Trade participants unresolved, and donating all his points to “Poc” in a contest.

The very next day on September 6, 2007, the account “Johanderson” was created. As the nature of this chapter suggests, this was undoubtedly his most famous account. He was, at first (long before he had been identified as a double account of "The Apollo" and "Koloth"), a highly liked member. He, for seemingly no reason, engrossed himself in the doing of “good deeds,” most notably that of giving 100 Points to random new members as they posted their introductions, gaining him respect and appreciation from many, me included. He became the first member to achieve a “Reputation Count” of greater than 100, and reached Elite Status (1000 posts) in 9 days, snatching that record from myself, who had held it since early January, 2007 (with 10 days).

Soon, Johan made the initial suggestion for the YCM awards; however, he had pictured it running in a very different manner to what the final product was. A key example of which would be the fact that he had originally wanted the ceremony to only be held annually. Since many members mightn’t be lucky enough to be around this long, Deity Mitsu and I put our ideas forward for a monthly ceremony, and together the three of us became the founders of the awards. Seeing as it was his concept, it was decided that Johan was to host the first ceremony (September '07), but he simply could not control them. The awards for that month were taken over halfway through by Deity Mitsu, who ultimately saved them.

From there, one would've expected Johan to go on to become one of YCM's true greats, but this soon changed. It was on September 17, 2007 that I discovered, after “cyberdude,” himself now denounced as a Rep scammer (and double account of “silverboy0213”), sent me a private message containing his suspicions, that Johanderson was a double account of Koloth and The Apollo, as well as another account, “Deviant.” I posted a screenshot of the matches in a thread in which a number of members were demanding refunds of Points and the like in the aftermath of Koloth’s scams. Upon seeing it, Johan denied this evidence, which was admittedly inconclusive (which is why I didn’t act upon it). Little became of this anyway, though...

On October 4, 2007, Johanderson became the first person to join the club started by “nukyasu” known as the “Say ‘NO!’ to Animal Cruelty club”. After a few posts of discussion between Johan and Nukyasu, Johan set up another double account that would act as the “club bank:” an account that members could donate to “to help stop animal cruelty.” At this time the Points system was for the most part useless on YCM, thus the idea that they would some kind of real world value was nothing short of ridiculous. Apart from having no chance of helping to “stop animal cruelty”, the account was, above all, a double account, of course, made without staff permission, thus I banned it as soon as I saw it, making it the first known ban of a “Johan account.”

Johanderson was increasingly becoming a figure of prominence around the forum, an idea that he seemed to love. It can be presumed that a desire to either keep or expand upon this status was what ultimately led him to self-destruct. The Rep System also appeared to be a major influence on him, as he went to extremes to ensure that his enormous number went unchallenged. He did achieve that desire, legitimately, for a while, but soon enough he grew impatient, and this was his undoing. He tried to achieve more Reps in any way he could.

Soon enough, also on October 4, 2007, Johan made a thread in General called “Point Back,” the home of a system of the same name. The idea of this system was to allow members to “withdraw” points from Johanderson at a maximum of 500 points a week. This act was not a violation of the rules, but after a few replies, Johan indicated his true desires from the exercise, saying; “a rep or 2 would be appreciated.” Whether the members who were withdrawing points were indeed giving Johan reps as charity is irrelevant. In practice, it was still considering “Rep buying,” which is classed as a type of “Rep scam.” As soon as I saw it, I shut down the enterprise; locking the thread and deleting the reps achieved through it.

This could've been the end of the issue, and it could have forever gone unmentioned, but the next day on October 5, 2007, Johan created a thread entitled “I’m leaving” in General, in which he stated the fact that he was, indeed, leaving. Apart from not utilising the “Leaving/Return thread,” at the time still in “pinned” in General, he included some slurs (coarse language included) that he directed towards me and later Tkill93 (who had posted in my defence). The combination of the double accounts, the trouble that said double accounts caused, the Rep scam, and the swearing was what got Johan banned, permanently, after just 30 days precisely on the forum. Such a promising member (forgetting for a moment the antics of his previous accounts) corrupted by the most ridiculous part of YCM: the Rep System.

The next few days were peaceful, until Johan reappeared under a new double account called “randonname” on October 11, 2007. He posted a thread entitled “I GOT FRAMED !” in General, in which he made up a far-fetched story about his “friend” living “down the street,” accessing his account and proceeding to frame him. He said that they had been talking one day and somehow got on to the subject of YCM, which is when this friend stated he was Koloth and, apparently, began to gloat to him about hacking an account called “Johanderson.” He also stated that this “friend” had “scammed [him] in real life before…” and that “last week” before he was banned, he was “logged on as Koloth for some weird reason,” (hinting that "this kid from “down the street” had somehow accessed his computer), despite Koloth having not been recorded as online for over two weeks at the time of that post.

As replies were made to the thread, his story changed to say that he had only been friends with this person for a few weeks, and was now stating that their IP addresses were “the same” because they lived next door to each other (which is not, in fact, possible). A few replies later, after posting what he remember from the conversation with Koloth, the fight seemed to go right out of him and his posts gradually got shorter and more pathetic until he stopped altogether, having made 11 posts. Soon afterwards, I found the thread and raised a few questions that had not already been raised, in the hope of a reply from Johan that I could use to prove he was lying once and for all. However, he did not respond, and the randonname account was banned later that same day.

The by-then infamous Johan was not seen again until January 19, 2008, when a new double account called appropriately called “Redemption” made a thread entitled “Public Apology” in General. He stated that he was Johanderson and that he wanted to make amends with the forum and its members and return. I would not allow this, though, and stated my reasons at the time, which were derived from the antics of the three main Johan accounts (to recap: The Apollo; Koloth, and; Johanderson), and the fact that, in my eyes, members should not be allowed to return if they are permanently banned.

However, I contradicted the above when Johan returned again on April 20, 2008, with a thread titled “Don’t Even Bother Getting Mad, This is My Last Visit.” The reason I allowed it to continue, I suppose, was the nature of the thread. Unlike last time, Koloth was not attempting to re-establish himself, but rather just “wanted to say a few things.” In his 6 points he; at various times apologised both to those he scammed in Card Trade, and to me, for the trouble he caused; stated that his intentions in the “Rep buying scam” were in fact pure, but admitted to abusing the Rep system; stated that he had moved from all the events of the past, and hoped that others were moving on too, and; mentioned he frequented a different site and that “this [would be] his absolute last visit.”

I was first to respond to the thread and received it well, for reasons stated, but after others appeared to be missing the point, and I questioned “Azuh” as to the legacy of Johan. His response was not as accurate as this chapter proves it could be, and it led me to write a work that did indeed eventually become this, roughly two months before the first chapter was written. To this date, Koloth appears to have stayed true to his word, having not even logged in since the day of that post, let alone posted again. His other still-unbanned account, the Apollo, has not been active since July 6, 2007, the very day Koloth was created. That, I believe, is that.

This chapter was first published on May 25, 2009, and was last edited on May 25, 2009.
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