My experience with ScrewAttack began with The Angry Video Game Nerd. But unlike most stories, it was gradual. It started with a Google Video series called “Stupid Mario” in 2006. I was a teenager into Nintendo games, and I needed an outlet. The show’s no longer accessible, but it followed Mario from Super Mario 64 DS reminiscing with Toad about his adventures in Super Mario 64. Around the halfway mark of Season 2, a commenter simply typed “AVGN” with a timestamp. So I looked that up on Google and discovered The Angry Video Game Nerd.
Watching James Rolfe’s content didn’t automatically lead me to ScrewAttack. It simply led me to James Rolfe’s content. It was a year later that I learned that he was being hosted on a site called GameTrailers. I was curious. From there, I was introduced to a slew of high-quality video game videos, including a recurring feature from “ScrewAttack”. They were posting content regularly, so I frequented their stuff on GameTrailers alongside The Angry Video Game Nerd.
It wasn’t until late-2008, when my alma mater went on strike, that I spotted an ad for ScrewAttack’s website on GameTrailers. Within hours, I’d written my first piece. Despite gaining some traction, I developed cold feet and deleted the post. I then asked for my account to be deleted too. Having my ScrewAttack profile wiped (supposedly) meant that I could focus on browsing anonymously.
Unfortunately, not accessing the site was anxiety-inducing, especially in light of a now close-friend rising up the ranks. After months of witnessing him gain traction with his “rants”, I decided to come back. My account, it turned out, had been locked, but a quick chat with an admin quickly fixed that. One blog entry later, in the Summer of 2009, I was officially a g1. And I started posting like wild, earning a place in the community.
My first year on ScrewAttack had its ups and downs. The non-invasive feedback I was receiving helped me improve my academic writing, and the site’s archaic tools forced me to learn XHTML. I also made friends with fellow g1s, read other work and had some of my best work featured on the main page. Yet my ventures onto the forums were a nightmare, as I kept getting locked out whenever I cleared my history. My anxiety and insecurity also made me compulsively promote my work to other people, gaining me a reputation as a content spammer.
It didn’t help that the mods and admins were volunteers who didn’t catch everything. Or when they did, I was at their mercy. Sure, there was the “Overlooked and Underrated” series a fellow g1 created, but it was always a game of chance. I frequently viewed the 5 slots for featured content as a reminder of my “inadequacy”, and the special achievements were daunting. Some of my concerns were silly in hindsight, but one of the achievements was logging in every day for a full year. How was I supposed to accomplish that with all the Jewish holidays?!
In late-2009, ScrewAttack had a huge overhaul. While the previous layout, V3, was small and intimate, it felt enclosed and unwelcoming. You had to fight for recognition, which bred jealousy and resentment. V4, in contrast, was poised to be “more democratic” and “user-friendly”. No longer would content have to be vetted.
Sadly, while V4 looked pretty, it was an absolute nightmare. The main layout was buggy beyond belief, and new content had a harder time getting noticed because of a lack of quality control. It didn’t help that “quality” was determined with user ratings, which, more than V3’s leaderboards, bred immense jealousy and pettiness. V4 was an unfinished mess, and it made navigating through it a nightmare. The only advantage was that the forums were more easily-accessible thanks to it using DHCP, something I was in the minority about liking. And even then, it was quickly abandoned in favour of PPPoE a few months in.
It didn’t help that the mods and admins were volunteers who didn’t catch everything. Or when they did, I was at their mercy. Sure, there was the “Overlooked and Underrated” series a fellow g1 created, but it was always a game of chance. I frequently viewed the 5 slots for featured content as a reminder of my “inadequacy”, and the special achievements were daunting. Some of my concerns were silly in hindsight, but one of the achievements was logging in every day for a full year. How was I supposed to accomplish that with all the Jewish holidays?!
In late-2009, ScrewAttack had a huge overhaul. While the previous layout, V3, was small and intimate, it felt enclosed and unwelcoming. You had to fight for recognition, which bred jealousy and resentment. V4, in contrast, was poised to be “more democratic” and “user-friendly”. No longer would content have to be vetted.
Sadly, while V4 looked pretty, it was an absolute nightmare. The main layout was buggy beyond belief, and new content had a harder time getting noticed because of a lack of quality control. It didn’t help that “quality” was determined with user ratings, which, more than V3’s leaderboards, bred immense jealousy and pettiness. V4 was an unfinished mess, and it made navigating through it a nightmare. The only advantage was that the forums were more easily-accessible thanks to it using DHCP, something I was in the minority about liking. And even then, it was quickly abandoned in favour of PPPoE a few months in.
Perhaps V4’s biggest Achilles’ Heel was its points system. V3’s points were awarded based on hard work and merit. Sure, it was subjective, but you usually felt like you’d earned then. V4’s points, however, were disaster. You not only received them for posting content, you received them for posting comments. This encouraged gaming the system, which I learned quickly when I was briefly the highest-scoring user on the site in 2010. It was like gambling, and I needed more. It also spiked my anxiety.
It didn’t help that I was getting into confrontations with other g1s. In hindsight, I should’ve seen the red flags of mental health issues, as I was struggling academically too, but I was so caught up that I didn’t care. And it backfired, as I ended up banned from the site for a month after a huge altercation with some g1s in the comments of a joke video. That was my “All Is Lost” moment, and it forced me to self-reflect. My sleep had been hampered up until then, so being offline forced me to recalibrate. It also allowed me to detox.
Of course, the ban was lifted in March of 2010, provided that I learned self-restraint. And I did…somewhat. I no longer became trigger-happy with my commenting and posting, which was good. But I still had to deal with harassment from various g1s, some of whom trashed me behind my back. The latter was also something I wouldn’t discover until much later.
In early-2011, I was invited to a closed-Beta of ScrewAttack’s then-new layout, V5. The site downscaled a lot, feeling truer to V3, but with that came a lack of direction. What was ScrewAttack planning to do about user content? Why did the layout look bland? Would the V4 content transfer over? And how would g1 interactions work? ScrewAttack had tripled in size by then, so scaling back, even superficially, seemed like a downgrade.
It didn’t help that I was getting into confrontations with other g1s. In hindsight, I should’ve seen the red flags of mental health issues, as I was struggling academically too, but I was so caught up that I didn’t care. And it backfired, as I ended up banned from the site for a month after a huge altercation with some g1s in the comments of a joke video. That was my “All Is Lost” moment, and it forced me to self-reflect. My sleep had been hampered up until then, so being offline forced me to recalibrate. It also allowed me to detox.
Of course, the ban was lifted in March of 2010, provided that I learned self-restraint. And I did…somewhat. I no longer became trigger-happy with my commenting and posting, which was good. But I still had to deal with harassment from various g1s, some of whom trashed me behind my back. The latter was also something I wouldn’t discover until much later.
In early-2011, I was invited to a closed-Beta of ScrewAttack’s then-new layout, V5. The site downscaled a lot, feeling truer to V3, but with that came a lack of direction. What was ScrewAttack planning to do about user content? Why did the layout look bland? Would the V4 content transfer over? And how would g1 interactions work? ScrewAttack had tripled in size by then, so scaling back, even superficially, seemed like a downgrade.
But I persisted. My writing style had drastically shifted by then, so I was writing more diverse content. I also was starting to acknowledge my mental health issues. It was starting to feel like ScrewAttack was no longer right for me. But I kept at it anyway.
This was also the peak of my forum woes. All of my issues on the main page were now in forum posts, compounded by finally having proper access to them. I was butting heads with everyone there, even good friends, and it finally culminated in a brief, one-week forum ban in early-2013. This time, however, I didn’t learn anything, instead coming back with baggage and frustrations over the community not being open and respectful. The forum g1s responded in kind.
My time with ScrewAttack finally ended in the Summer of 2014, when I took up a post on Infinite Rainy Day. I stayed with the forums for a little longer, but the site had outlived its purpose. ScrewAttack itself was also dying, being mismanaged to the point of a buyout by Rooster Teeth. Besides, GamerGate was at its peak, causing many long-time friends to part ways with me. In other words, I’d moved on.
Looking back, my ScrewAttack years were a mixed-bag. They helped me network and build my writing, which I’m grateful for, but they also gave me plenty of grief. Whether it was fighting for attention in V3, fighting with g1s in V4, or having forum headaches in V5, for every gain, there were two losses. I even wondered if my surface notoriety was a bad case of Imposter Syndrome, made worse by discovering nasty forum posts on a sister site. So while I made friends and improved my craft, I’m glad to have moved on.
This was also the peak of my forum woes. All of my issues on the main page were now in forum posts, compounded by finally having proper access to them. I was butting heads with everyone there, even good friends, and it finally culminated in a brief, one-week forum ban in early-2013. This time, however, I didn’t learn anything, instead coming back with baggage and frustrations over the community not being open and respectful. The forum g1s responded in kind.
My time with ScrewAttack finally ended in the Summer of 2014, when I took up a post on Infinite Rainy Day. I stayed with the forums for a little longer, but the site had outlived its purpose. ScrewAttack itself was also dying, being mismanaged to the point of a buyout by Rooster Teeth. Besides, GamerGate was at its peak, causing many long-time friends to part ways with me. In other words, I’d moved on.
Looking back, my ScrewAttack years were a mixed-bag. They helped me network and build my writing, which I’m grateful for, but they also gave me plenty of grief. Whether it was fighting for attention in V3, fighting with g1s in V4, or having forum headaches in V5, for every gain, there were two losses. I even wondered if my surface notoriety was a bad case of Imposter Syndrome, made worse by discovering nasty forum posts on a sister site. So while I made friends and improved my craft, I’m glad to have moved on.
At the same time, I’m sad the site no longer exists. ScrewAttack was a big part of my late-teens and early-adulthood, fraught with headaches and trauma. But it taught me valuable life skills and helped shape me. Those 6-7 years fulfilled a critical role, and for that I’m grateful. I simply wish they’d been less of an emotional rollercoaster…
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