this carries a somewhat interesting premise and trips over its shoelaces before driving it into the ground. the idea of the foundation dealing with an extremely minor but very present threat to their infosec is cool — but the article kind of shoots its own comedic potential in the foot.
the screenshots take more from the article than they add; they disrupt the flow of storytelling for the discord logs, and if they're trying to be funny they're too self-referency for that. they're not jokes, because they don't have setups and punchlines; they're obtuse references to internet zeitgeist. it's like a dude standing next to you the whole time poking you in the ribs every time and saying "haha look thats supposed to riff on [X]". the gaw logs are… acceptable, if nondescript.
i generally don't mind stories where the foundation is amazingly incompetent but i take issue with this because it almost feels… campy? this group of internet teenagers manage to be sharper and smarter than this obviously gigantic paramilitary group capable of scraping some of the biggest sites on the internet. it feels like they're amazingly stupid — the reddit username, having their bot be so easily traceable — so that GAW gets the last laugh in the story, so that they 'win'. i have no problem with a goi getting one over on the foundation in a void — but this pulls back the curtain way too far to enjoy. when you make one character really smart and the other really dumb, it's harder than you'd think to make the smart one's victory actually feel victorious.
Tanhony,
Cyvstvi13,
Iszth,
PlaguePJP,
Tyumen,
redredred,
barredowl,
Deadly Bread, and
JaonHax for crit.
Calibri Bold and
TheeSherm for letting me turn them into clickbait thumbnails. Special thanks to
daviiid for being my fwiend. :]
