Kanye West is a loser, according to a Web site whose sole purpose is to name and shame people. As of the past few days, when you type “loser.com” into your browser, it automatically redirects to West’s Wikipedia page. (This, on top of the whole Beck feud? Woe is Kanye.)
But before you feel too bad for Kanye, consider that Loser.com has also lambasted President Obama, Reddit. and Al Gore. In fact, according to The Washington Post, Loser.com has been calling people schoolyard insults, in quiet, pointless obscurity, for the past 15 years.
Loser.com may just be the best troll you’ve never heard of, according to The Washington Post.
“The conceit of the gag is pretty basic. Someone, somewhere in the world registered the domain “loser.com” in 1997. (Early evidence suggests this person was a guy named Steven Armato, who liked “yo mama” jokes and Apple computers.),” states the Post.
Since then, Loser.com appears to have changed hands several times and been made into several purposes along the way (a chat forum, a retail store, an ad platform for PUAs.)
“But since its early days, when Loser.com was just a list of ‘cool Web pages’ and favorite stock picks, typing “Loser.com” into your URL bar wouldn’t always take you to that page. Sometimes, the site’s mischievous owner(s) would set up a technique called URL redirection, which basically means that, when you type in ‘loser.com,’ it sends you to another page.”
In 2000, for instance, Loser.com took you to the Web site of Al Gore, the person who “lost” that year’s election.
The Washington Post: “The funny thing about the gag, besides the fact that it’s gone on so long, is that it’s so overwhelmingly pointless. Loser.com sees so little traffic, most analytics sites don’t even track it — it’s like making a bad dad joke to an empty room.”
(Updated post)
OK, Fine. 