The Inksandwich, the Orange Belt, and their impact on the internet.

edited October 2011 in General
I was doing some digging today, looking for traces of the IS board, OB, and their associated sites. I searched for memes originating from both communities. I figured "Walter is on fire" and similar phrases wouldn't bring up anything relevant, they didn't. However, I assumed "Shawn is old" probably survived, given that his site "halolz.com" has had success. It didn't either. I kept searching.

True fact: though inksandwich.com redirects to halolz.com there is no mention of it on the site anywhere, even in obscure, hardly ever visited pages such as the "about" page.

True fact: Inksandwich is mentioned on Sean's wiki stub.

True fact: Zelda Comic and Spelling the Vacuum both have tvtropes pages. ZC's mentions neither the IS or OB. StV's does mention the IS but not any other board or community stemming from that besides ZC.

True fact: it's difficult to find the Orange Belt through Google.

CONCLUSION: We don't exist. (EDIT: Not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, probably a good thing.)

My only experience finding traces of IS is finding a two year old comment on a youtube video portraying a cat riding a vacuum. It read, (slightly paraphrased) "Bono riding Dictionary? Spelling would be pissed!" And let me tell you it was a weird find.

I'd find it interesting to know if you guys have ever seen traces of Inksandwich and the surrounding communities without having to search for it.

Comments

  • edited October 2011
    NoLonger wrote: »
    True fact: it's difficult to find the Orange Belt through Google.

    WRONG! Try putting a "the" at the beginning of the search string.
    NoLonger wrote: »
    CONCLUSION: We don't exist.

    Therefore there is no Orange Belt rule 34. Let's keep not existing.
  • edited October 2011
    It's worth noting that the sites were/are called "Inksandwich" and "The Orange Belt". No "the" or space in Inksandwich, requisite "the" for us. And Shawn is old, not Sean.

    As far as being unable to find anything, Inksandwich was completely stripped of its forums before he redirected it to Halolz, and beyond The Orange Belt we never really took our conversations beyond the Inksandwich forums. Halolz, as far as I know, didn't have any Inksandwich community member involvement at any point in its development, and Shawn didn't like being called old, so it's unsurprising that the meme didn't develop therein.

    Matt showed me the Zelda Comic TV Tropes page a little while ago. I laughed aloud.
  • edited October 2011
    Fix'd.

    I just find it interesting that almost nothing survived. Inksandwich wasn't exactly a small community, I just assumed there would be more remnants of it.
  • edited October 2011
    That's the internet for you. It changes rapidly and many things, even moderately large things disappear. I miss inksandwich a bit, but I've moved on.

    Also I've made StV references other places. It amuses me that I can make references that I know nobody else is likely to understand but it also depresses me that nobody else would understand it.

    I have a distinct memory of sitting in a college class and reading an StV page on my laptop and having the guy next to me look over and literally burst out laughing from reading one panel totally out of context. The teacher gave him a withering look.

    When you looked at that comic like that it was a really absurd comic. I liked that.
  • edited October 2011
    I listened to the podcasts a few weeks ago and remembered that originally it was intended to become a large community of numerous comic artists /fans/general cool dudes but instead turned out to be a site where a dozen or so people from the latter category discuss wanky taps and video games.

    I'm rather glad of how it turned out, though I guess Mario resents his plan of becoming the pimp of the webcomic world failing.

    Also, Mario is old.
  • edited October 2011
    Oh shit. Mario IS old isn't he???

    Inksandwich was fun while it lasted. I miss Khan and the flame wars, but I've expressed my opinions about the old days before on here. You know who I miss? Sammy Jo. I believe that her, FangedFaerie, and Steph were the only other girls at IS.....
  • edited October 2011
    There was Flint, too. And Olga, but she wasn't around too long.
  • edited October 2011
    Night Lord wrote:
    Mario is old.
    Mish42 wrote:
    Oh shit. Mario IS old isn't he???

    Goddammit.

    Also: never really had any aspirations about being a webcomic overlord. My goal with The Orange Belt has always been to be a good home for the projects of awesome friends. As many of said friends' projects stopped existing, that's been less of an emphasis, but this is still my favorite Internet community. It's been my browser homepage since '06!
  • edited October 2011
    mario wrote: »
    Dangnabbit, get off my lawn!

    Fixed.
  • edited October 2011
    Consarnit.