User:Vermin/Wilkins

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Moar info: Wilkins Coffee.

The Changing of the Times

ED has had its history of lore, themes, and trends, and has matured in style since its original inception under its former leadership. It's come a long way since the days of reading like a chan clone, hosting dox, and being recognized as a Wikipedia parody, which was headed in the direction of becoming a parody of itself with all the "last Thursday"s, "over 9000"s, and "HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCK"s injected into every article. And let's not forget about the goatses.

It's even begun crafting a "beacon of truth" image as of late with the GamerGate coverage. Basically, it's becoming more serious and factual on top of satirical and fun. Some argue this is the death of ED, accusing the site of taking place in a SJW battle by documenting GamerGate, but others point to an impressive increase in page views as proof that it's simply a new beginning.

To this day, you can still spot a few veteran users who refused to evolve along with the rest of the site and attempt to keep the dated "lelele meme" image of ED intact. The site is moving further and further away from its original roots, and some of its original user base has drifted away with it. On the other hand, ED isn't welcoming any "truthers" or GamerGate shills to coincide with its budding new image, and still churns out new articles covering classic topics such as deviantART and furries.

ED has always preferably had a small, centralized user base which kept it alive through contributions and funding. Right, and hardcore porn ads. But this new image, coupled with conflicting issues such as the "ED is not a chan" policy, is driving the original channer user base away. In turn, running off those types of writers and contributors who have been credited for helping to restore ED to its glory after Girlvinyl closed it down.

Channers are still involved with the internet aside from ED, and proof of this can be provided with the fact that 4chan had donated thousands of dollars to a feminist charity just to earn a character in a video game, yet they couldn't donate the same amount to ED, who's hosting the Vivian James article. But all that actually matters in the end is that the bills get paid and the lulz are still had, and it's true that popularity kills, and that ED will never die, no matter how many domains it has to move to. Ultimately, the greater catalog for drama was decided when 4chan fell victim to SJW takeover and was in turn sold out by its owner m00t, who in turn retired from 4chan. 8chan went up in its place, and together channers and ED are still going strong, whether they're on the same website or not.

Community

The EDForum, an offshoot of ED's community, is where all the new themes and trends originate from these days. From "rap is for criminals," to "this is a safe place for sharing," and "draw Waldorf from the Muppets pls," the community is able to stay fresh and reduce the amount of tryhard trolling or moronic doxing of each other out of sheer boredom. One theme, however, has managed to stand out above the rest.

Wilkins Coffee is a defunct beverage company which was prominent during the glorious days of black and white television. The best thing linked to its name today are the commercials that survived those golden days of advertising. Before there was Kermit the Frog and the Muppets, there was a "proto-Kermit" puppet named Wilkins who basically encouraged viewers to drink Wilkins brand coffee or die. To back this up, he would literally kill Wontkins, the other featured puppet who refused to drink the coffee, in every way imaginable, and include cheesy puns related to each individual murder.

What began as an in-joke on the forum and an article on the wiki quickly turned into a symbolism for EDF's one, true userbase. That is, the group of individuals who represent it best, progress it and contribute to it in the most productive way possible, and are members of it for all the right reasons. This doesn't mean those who donate the most money, but those who protect its content, its reputation, and its user base from any misguided attackers.

Being an open community with an infamous history and reputation, ED attracts all types of visitors and new users on a regular basis. As with any other community, there are some who will sign onto ED with selfish intentions, seeking an outlet for their own individual interests or to fuel their own personal vendettas. These types, however, are drowned out by the voices of ED's true patriots. The Wilkins-thirsty dramacrat always prevails!

Oh, You Kids...

A popular crowd that ED draws in is a congregation of edgy teenagers. Young, male-dominated, and driven by impulse and teen angst, these kids have put in a lot of work for the "coolest, funniest, most offensive site" on the internet. Their spelling and grammar errors are part of what makes ED funny, so long as there's no Uncyclopedian "humor" tacked onto them.

While parents may freak out about catching their child scrolling through the Offended page, what they need to understand is that being exposed to ED is far more beneficial to their offspring than popular websites such as deviantART. This generation of adolescents is the first to be raised on the internet, and nowadays most every kid owns a cellphone or portable tablet with high speed internet on it, and it's very common to see kids with their faces buried in these handheld devices on a regular basis. Their exposure to the world wide web is inevitable.

At this point you may be thinking "no, this is the second generation to be raised on the internet, stupid!" While it may be true that the age of AOL dial-up and MSN Messenger predates the birth of today's youngsters, there are some major points which exclude those days as being pertinent to this opinion. MySpace didn't teach you it was okay to surrender all your personal information to a data-mining Jew, and Newgrounds didn't tell you to "honk if you're a furry." On the contrary, MySpace taught you it was okay to share photos of your naked body with complete strangers you perceived to be attractive, which is a crucial step toward sexual relations and understanding individual sexual identity, and MSN Messenger taught you that it was foolish to trust strangers and date online because the "hot chick" on the other end of the connection actually turned out to be a fat, hairy, old man.

Adolescent brains are in that crucial developmental phase of human life, and are very susceptible to shit they read on the internet as a result. This, coupled with the fact that all teenagers seek to find something in life to self-identify or "fit in" with, makes the internet a very dangerous place for them, on account of the fact that any ignorant moron or sexual deviant can publicly flaunt their idiotic beliefs or sick fuck fetishes on popular social networking websites.

Would you rather have your offspring learn the cold, hard facts about the stupid, dramatic shit happening both online and in the real world, and in turn develop a healthy, thick-skinned sense of humor along with it, or would you rather see them drawing humanized animals with penises on them, masturbating to cartoon ponies, and killing themselves over being rightfully bullied for embracing the aforementioned influential trends?

Forget the old wives tale about not allowing children to drink coffee. Raise your kid on Wilkins.

Civil War

The cancer that is killing ED is not the quality of its new articles. It isn't the coverage of GamerGate, either.

ED's most disgraceful flaw is its in-house fighting, particularly between its staff. Circle jerks, IRC vs EDF, and other civil wars are the stupidest shit one can experience on a satirical wiki dedicated to documenting internet drama. There's nothing funny about serious fighting oti, and any lulz gained from running donors and contributors off the site by various means of bullying are cheap laughs and counterproductive bullshit.

Just as the goal of ED is to add content, not remove it, ED is all about gaining new editors and admins, not losing them. There aren't many who are willing to dedicate their time in life to contributing/maintaining/funding an internet encyclopedia for free, and each user who does so should be respected as such. There are no "teams" on ED. ED is a team as a whole, with its own necessary rules and policies, and should function as such if it wants to stay online and progress as the greatest wiki website there ever was, and will be until the end of time.