Gygax69 - Boards Moderator

A number of violent episodes followed in the wake of the boards.ie hack last week. Intrepid forum moderators had no choice but to manifest their Hitler complexes in the so-called ‘physical’ world.

“I moderate my forum on boards with an iron fist. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, fucks with me and gets away it.”

The words of After Hours and Motors mod Gygax69.

In real life, Gygax69 is known as Seamus Brady, an unassuming 28 year old World of Warcraft enthusiast from Leitrim. Living with his mother in the sleepy hollow of Drumshambo, Seamus chose to shun the trappings of a regular young Leitrim man such as dowdy women, poorly modified cars, 10 shpots, 3rd level education and minimal standards of hygiene.

“I knew that was never the life for me. I knew, somehow, that I was different,  that my life was supposed to *mean* something. Sure, it was tempting. I mean, who doesn’t want to nick Micras and burn them out across the border, or finger fat birds in the alleyway beside Macaris chipper?”

Seamus shut himself off from the topsy-turvy world of Drumshambo when he discovered the internet. It was like a whole new world had opened up for him.

“Suddenly, I didn’t have to be a fat 28 year old virgin living with my Ma, working part-time in my uncle’s bakery, with really shit skin and terrible teeth. Online, I was like some kind of RamboJesus made out of ones and zeros. I could be whatever I wanted to be.”

With his snappy new online identity in place, Seamus trawled the net looking for an outlet where he could flex his newly found cyber-muscles.

“I used to get battered in school because I was smarter that everyone else. Not academically smart, or street smart, or sports smart, but you know… smart. People couldn’t handle the intellectual hand grenades I used to lob at them. Online though, I was the tough guy. I didn’t have to hide in the jacks at eleven o’clock break. Why? Because there are no eleven o’clock breaks on the internet, dumbass! Hahaha, pwnd you good. Anway, where was I? Oh yeah, I became an internet tough guy. Then I found boards in 2001 and joined the After Hours and Motors forum. At first, I was like ‘Hey, nice to talk to you etc’. This went on for two years or so. Eventually, they made me a moderator. From that day on, my place in history as the biggest cunt that ever ruled over an internet forum in Ireland has been firmly cemented in history. Don’t agree with me? Banned. Replied in a old thread? Banned. Cursing? Banned. Slagging off WoW? Banned, banned, banned.”

This continued for years. Gygax69 and his band of merry moderators were so good at their jobs, many new users would join boards, post once, get berated (“FFS. Did you even READ the forum rules, noob?”), then never come back.

However, on the 21st of January 2010, the world of Gygax69, online Superman, came crashing down. A hacker from one of the murkiest regions of cyberspace (Turkey) penetrated the Gibson servers of the boards mainframe. They uploaded the dreaded DaVinci virus, resulting in a mass outage of the boards.ie forum software

Suddenly, Seamus had nowhere to go.

“It was awful. I literally had nothing to do. I’d usually spend my days striking down new users with my staff of digital justice, but now I was just another fucking Leitrim douchebag. I felt like Clark Kent, except less educated.”

“My Ma asked me to take her Clio down to the mechanics. Her polio was playing up or something. Since I was a mod on the Motors forum, I thought myself more than capable of the job so off I went. When I got there, I decided to wow the mechanics with my knowledge of Nurburgring lap times. It all went wrong when one of the mechanics disagreed with me on the lap time of a Honda NSX. I whispered a private message into his ear saying ‘Don’t you DARE pull me up on anything like that again or I will ban you’. He’s all like ‘What the fuck are you on about man?’. That’s when I lose it. ‘Right, that’s it! You’re banned. Banned. Banned. Banned. For two weeks, no less!’. I began to escort him from his garage by the scruff of his (somewhat rouged) neck. That’s when I felt the sledgehammer in my back, followed by a balpeen to the temple. It was lights out at that point.”

Seamus Brady spent the next 2 days in intensive care and was only well enough to talk to the Irish Sentinel today. Had he learned anything from this experience?

“Yeah. Those mechanics in the garage that almost beat me to death? Fucking noobs. Tell them to try that shit on boards and I’ll wipe the floor with them. Now please leave. The site’s back up and I smell the blood of new users.”

And with that, Seamus sat back in bed and logged into his favourite forum. Cracking his neck muscles he mutters to himself: “Time to go to work, Gygax69. No fear. No fear.”

One of many stories of violence againsts boards.ie forum moderators across the country. Some call them lowest form of life in Ireland. Others call them badgers.

We call them people.