🎨 Artcow Iconoclast / Jonathan Mack Sweet - The Chris-Chan of Arkansas

[Holdek]

Yes, Mark Berkey's message to Sweet (search for Berkey right here) closed as follows:

You know, I wonder if Berkey was scared away from ever again doing a favor for someone he felt bad for because they seemed "off."

 

[ActualKiwi]

Sounds like Chris' threatening and harassing letters that end with 'stay safe and have a good day!'

Or Stefonknee's rants and hate arguments that end in "(((hugs))) Steffie"

 

[ToroidalBoat]

You know, with the stink Sweet is still raising nearly 2 decades later, I wonder just how bad the rage was on that fateful day he was kicked off the Herald. From what I gather from what Sweet posted here, it sounds like he was too numb to say anything at first, and then the campaign of harassment began later once the initial shock wore off.

I will check around and see if anyone will give me the OK to post verbatim quotes from Sweet's criminal emails.

Good idea -- it's best not to subject people who want Sweet out of their lives to more harassment with ads for Belch Dimension attached.

Who does something like that?

"DIE DIE DIE! ... oh and please buy comics so I can go back to ASU" - Sweet thinking he still has a golden opportunity

 

[Dr. Merkwurdichliebe]

In a snippy response to @DrChristianTroy The Special Snowflake wrote right here:

There are no piss jars or bottles in my room, jackass. If I have to go and the bathroom is ocupado, I step out back and drain my lizard in the bushes.

But The Urine Hoarder wrote on the USA Patriot Board:

I've never once called for censorship; I'm just saying a crucifix in a jar of urine isn't art. If it were, then I've got a goldmine on my windowsill [Emphasis added.] (I use an empty soda bottle on occasion when the bathroom's full, or I'm watching a really good TV show and don't want to miss it).

Oops. Self-roasted.

Stumbled upon that while compiling some evidence to help determine just what type of mental illness causes Sweet to be Sweet.

Long post in the works on this fascinating topic. Assistance is being provided by someone with a Ph.D. in psychology.

 

[Chan the Wizard]

Spoiler alert:

Spoiler

It's :autism:.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Can Sweet ride a bike? If not, then I see an emerging common trait among lolcows. CWC (AFAIK) and ADF can't ride bikes either.

I've never once called for censorship

But what of Sweet demanding this thread be taken down?

 

[PacSol]

Can Sweet ride a bike? If not, then I see an emerging common trait among lolcows. CWC (AFAIK) and ADF can't ride bikes either.


But what of Sweet demanding this thread be taken down?

It's part of a larger thing among the more spergy conservatives where they'll oppose government intervention in all forms. They'll oppose the government censoring your views, but they'll also oppose the government intervening to protect you when they go to beat up up for disagreeing with them. It's not really censorship they disagree with, it's the government telling them what to do, even when "what to do" is "behave like a civilized person and don't beat people up for disagreeing with you".

...what the fuck am I saying, Sweet ain't that smart.

 

[gettar]

You know, with the stink Sweet is still raising nearly 2 decades later, I wonder just how bad the rage was on that fateful day he was kicked off the Herald. From what I gather from what Sweet posted here, it sounds like he was too numb to say anything at first, and then the campaign of harassment began later once the initial shock wore off.

I used to see Sweet post on Daria message boards around 98-99 (so pretty much the fabled "half-past '97"). He'd bring up the Herald and ASU very occasionally, maybe just once or twice. He was bitter but didn't seem to obsess over it like he does now. So yeah, I believe it's more that his feelings have festered over time.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

98-99

That must've been before he even started Belch Dimension, Sweet probably still powerleveled and talked about farting a lot.

 

[gettar]

That must've been before he even started Belch Dimension, Sweet probably still powerleveled and talked about farting a lot.

Oh yeah he did. Just enough that you could tell it was a fetish. He mostly went by Dr. Belch back then, but I remember him using Iconoclast sometimes, Haggis McCrablice, maybe his real name too. When people first started posting him as a lolcow on /cwc/, it took a while for me to catch on that it was that guy from the old Daria fandom.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Iconoclast

So those names go that far back? I know Sweet got "Iconoclast" from Pinky and the Brain because he "marches to the beat of a different drummer." The other names he made up sound like "random access humor."

 

[gettar]

So those names go that far back? I know Sweet got "Iconoclast" from that from Pinky and the Brain because he "marches to the beat of a different drummer." The other names he made up sound like "random access humor."

Yeah, I certainly remember him signing posts with those names. (Every fan website back then used the same free message board setup, I forget the name of the service, there were no user accounts and you could just sign posts with whatever. It was much closer to what an imageboard is now. I remember people actually flipping out and making protest banners for their Geocities homepages when Planet Daria, the biggest site, introduced registration.)

 

[ToroidalBoat]

[same names]

Sweet recently said he really hasn't changed in almost 2 decades. I guess that even shows in nicknames.

Speaking of change or lack thereof, in the few times that Sweet talked about ASU and The Herald, was the story of how it went down and how it ended pretty much the same as he tells it today? I wonder if he mentioned Ashleigh or phone dating back then?

 

[DrChristianTroy]

So those names go that far back? I know Sweet got "Iconoclast" from Pinky and the Brain because he "marches to the beat of a different drummer." The other names he made up sound like "random access humor."

But Pinky and the Brain was a popular cartoon that ran for several years. How the hell is taking from that special or unique in any way?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

How the hell is taking from that special or unique in any way?

His screen name comes from a Pinky and the Brain short, "Puppet Rulers", in which Brain, posing as a kiddie-show host, called himself, "The Iconoclast, an unconventional eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drummer".

Oh yeah, and like I said before, that userpage is a lot smaller now than it used to be. Older stuff can be viewed in history.

 

[gettar]

Speaking of change or lack thereof, in the few times that Sweet talked about ASU and The Herald, was the story of how it went down and how it ended pretty much the same as he tells it today? I wonder if he mentioned Ashleigh or phone dating back then?

Okay, I remember some censorship/politics discussion going on. And Sweet chipped in with "Maybe the right does a lot of censorship, but on college campuses, it's the left that does the censorship". And he outlined the story of how he was just too real for the Herald and he got fired for supposedly plagiarising an SNL sketch. It was the first time I encountered the ASU conspiracy story. Same basic details as the current version, just not as elaborate.
I think I remember him talking about how people loved his columns and sent him gifts, and girls calling him for phone sex. Not sure he talked about Ashleigh specifically. Sounds kinda, vaguely familiar when I think back. I didn't pay a lot of attention to him. He wasn't as obviously messed up as he is now, and at the time there were like two or three other guys in the Daria fandom who were way more obviously creepy.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Okay, I remember some censorship/politics discussion going on.

Sweet hinted in an interview with AJM forums that he used to be kicked out of forums for the same reason he claimed was kicked off the Herald -- being "too real" and "political views." Did you ever see Sweet get banned from the Daria forum?

Also, thanks for the firsthand insights into the early online years of Sweet.

 

[eatybonor]

Sweet hinted in an interview with AJM forums that he used to be kicked out of forums for the same reason he claimed was kicked off the Herald -- being "too real" and "political views." Did you ever see Sweet get banned from the Daria forum?

Also, thanks for the firsthand insights into the early online years of Sweet.

For what it's worth, I was also involved with Daria fandom way back when Dr. Belch first showed up. That was about 17 years ago so my memories of my interactions with him are a little fuzzy. I want to say he got banned from at least one messageboard, but he was by and large shunned for his gross and racist behavior pretty much from the start. I was also friends with Alzaetia around the time Dr. Belch was present in the fandom. She lived pretty close to me so we wound up chatting on the phone a few times. At one point I asked her if she was really "dating" Sweet, and she said she did briefly but he got super gross and creepy so she stopped talking to him.

I don't remember Sweet being as obsessed with getting some chinaphone or having his revenge on ASU as he is now.

 

[AnOminous]

He wasn't as obviously messed up as he is now, and at the time there were like two or three other guys in the Daria fandom who were way more obviously creepy.

Was Peter Guerin (Docforbin) one of them?

 

[gettar]

Sweet hinted in an interview with AJM forums that he used to be kicked out of forums for the same reason he claimed was kicked off the Herald -- being "too real" and "political views." Did you ever see Sweet get banned from the Daria forum?

I don't remember him ever getting banned from anywhere. A lot of the interaction I remember was on a "secret board" called Helpful Corn, which was like the inner circle Daria fandom. (Based on getting an invite myself, I think it was just anybody who'd posted on Planet Daria semi-regularly.) It had been adopted after the owner forgot the password, or just got a different board, something like that. So there was no ban option at all.

One thing that sticks in my mind is a private discussion where we were talking about this other guy, one of the more obvious creeps I mentioned. There was talk about shunning him from the community (banning not being an option). And I remember Dr. Belch's name coming up, and I know I said something like "Belch is pretty harmless, he's just a right-wing crank". That was my view of him at the time. He didn't stand out that much. In a community that had quite a few teenage girls, he somehow behaved himself. I feel like I'm forgetting something that might have forced that discussion, though.

I'd forgotten him dating Alzaetia, if I ever knew about it. Don't know if that would have affected my view of him.

Was Peter Guerin (Docforbin) one of them?

Nope. I don't think he posted on message boards at the time. Almost everybody I'm thinking of wrote creepy self-insert Daria fanfic, though.