"Eat Shit Oppo": A repost from Kinja (At the Request of the People)
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Below is a reconstruction of the final roasting of the Kinja Oppositelock by the moderating team. I restored it as much as possible to original state based off my quick html archive last night. Many of the photos didn't save properly but the YouTube links have been saved and re inserted. Somehow the photo of the almighty Doug DeMuro survived intact. Disclaimer: I do not condone profanity but, for the purposes of history, the following is uncensored and original
Goddamnit, this is it.
This is the end of Oppo on Kinja, and the absolute worst part of this? Us mods got beaten to the punch to banning all of you little shits. I mean, come on, our one dream as moderators, banning everyone and shutting off the lights, got taken by an Herb. Yes folks, oppositelock.kinja.com is now becoming Jimmy Spanfeller’s Used Dildo and Vibrator Emporium.
This is what we deserve.
I’ve been here since the beginning of Kinja and a mod for like 7 years or some shit. Somehow I posted enough and commented enough on the posts, including the nudie posts (remember those? Pepperidge Farms remembers the nudie posts), the other mods decided that I seemed like a reasonable dude with a level head and they brought me into the fold.
WELL JOKE’S ON THEM.
As you all know, I’ve ruled with an absolute iron fist, banning, ninja editing, banning, de-embiggening, more banning, and telling you all to to knock it off with the fucking theme days. You fuckers and your theme days. God how I loathe the theme days. Every single time one pops up I have to nip that shit in the bud. These theme days are why the Herb is taking us down. I warned you fucks, but noooooooo, you didn’t listen.
I don’t get paid for this shit, yet I keep coming back for more. Everyday you people find something new and interesting and that’s what makes this place awesome. This place is my second job and definitely takes up way too much of my days, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You lovable bunch of the dorkiest of dorks. From the ashes of Kinja we shall rise again on Opposite-lock.com
Eat shit Oppo… And you can buy my stuff here.
Patrick George:
Oh, Oppo.
For the longest time, you were like the ne’er-do-well son I never had, and never wanted. The one I’d tell my friends was finally going to make something of himself very soon—He’s thinking of getting certified as an EMT this year, you see—before I had to bail him out of jail for selling bootleg Top Gear DVDs out of a rusted Toyota T100. Again.
You see, despite obvious lies from a certain Herb about new copyright laws or whatever, Oppo did in fact give me my share of headaches in the 53 human years I ran Jalopnik. Countless stolen image claims. Irate automaker PR folks furious about some post that I hadn’t even read. Endless criticism about “the FP” and my writers, much of it just completely uninformed bullshit. (“Jalopnik was better before Gawker bought it.” That sort of thing.)
But here’s the thing: that was the whole point. Oppo was a unique place full of unique people—a community of car enthusiasts that sprang up in Jalopnik’s shadow, then grew and thrived independently of it. Hour rule, memes, wrenching advice, great photography, road trips, crazy stories—by readers and for other readers. It was the inmates running the asylum, and it was beautiful.
I also can’t deny Oppo’s value to this industry as a talent farm. Tons of writers and editors, including people I still work with today, came into the professional fold through Oppo posts. Even when Oppo drove me nuts, by God, it always had my respect. (And by the way, some of those digs on the FP writers were justified more often than I wanted to admit. Good readers keep you honest, and in that way, Oppo was full of good readers.)
In a more perfect world, this potential would’ve been cultivated and nurtured by whatever group of ghouls owned Jalopnik that week. They would’ve sorted out the legal issues, worked with the mods more directly, and turned it into something big and awesome and open to all. But the fact is, somebody was always trying to kill Oppo, and I guess its luck finally ran out.
On Kinja, at least. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that car enthusiasts find a way. It’s who we are. It’d be dumb to count you jokers out. I look forward to wherever you land next, and I hope it’s a place your community can grow beyond your wildest expectations.
Good luck, Opponauts. And eat shit, all of you!
-Patrick George, retired weekend blogger
Ernie Deeb:
I’m not sure how I became entwined with Oppositelock, but one thing I know is that my life has been worse ever since. I appreciate the thought the collective consciousness gave in considering me Kinja’s Neo, but I don’t recall Trinity or Morpheus ever telling Neo to “fix it” when the Matrix failed to render their keystrokes in order on Windows Phone 7. The number of hoops I jumped through to keep Oppo happy satisfied from complaining minute-by-minute about its existence was done really only for my own sanity. But sadly, the intersection of obscure cars, photography, the 70s or maybe 80s, anime, bad music, and whatever the hell else happened on Oppo afterhours was and still is relevant to my interests.
I wake up every day cursing this dumb bond I have with a “blog” that should have been nuked half a decade ago. I suppose something as stubborn and indestructible as Oppo demands respect. Cantankerous Oppo, offered an honorable, merciful death on a platform that has gone to absolute shit since I left but decides instead to take the dying hoopty to an abandoned parking lot to do 20mph loops until the wheels fall off.
Farewell Oppo. You were a perpetual thorn in Ernie @ Kinja’s side, but you were a thorn I never wanted or never made the attempt to remove. Fuck Jim Spanfeller.
Stef Schrader @Stef-Schrader
I was half-joking when I asked if I could be an OppositeLock moderator, but against all better judgement, @Arch-Duke-Maxyenko added me to the moderator list earlier this year (Let the record reflect that this was a group decision -Arch Duke Maxyenko). Yet at a time when no one else in cars seemed to want me around, Oppo still did.
I’ve been on OppositeLock since 2013, when the idea of a Jalopnik-reader group blog lured me in to post about Puffalumps, track days and cheese. I met some of my best friends here, going on ridiculous road trips, touring the southwest while towing a leaky aircooled, Gamblin’ and even spending a weekend at Mort’s. Eventually, writing about cars became my full-time job, but I kept posting on Oppo and reading what everybody else had to say, which included everything from weird cars they’ve discovered to updates on their lives. Oppo is home.
Oppo’s biggest strength as a community is its open, welcoming attitude, which I’m sure will continue wherever we go from here. Some of the most active Oppos are folks who don’t typically feel at home in other car groups, and the group is better for it. We actively defend each other whenever some loser doesn’t follow Oppo’s number-one rule. It doesn’t matter who you are as long as you’re excellent to each other. Oppo has grown into one of the most diverse and interesting car groups I can think of, and I don’t call it the Internet’s only good website for nothing.
It meant a lot to be picked as one of OppositeLock’s moderators at a time when I was feeling like a soon-to-be-forgotten failure. This razor-sharp, clever bunch of posters made room for me, a washed-up automotive writer who doesn’t lift a finger for under three figures. I didn’t deserve this kindness.
I do deserve to get paid, however. Please see the attached invoice. Payment is due upon receipt, net 30. Pitter patter, I have a Porsche engine to rebuild.
Dusty Ventures @Dusty-Ventures
I know this is supposed to be a roast, but fuck it I just can’t. Oppo has been my home for over a decade, dating back to when to post in Oppo you had to end your post with the hashtag #oppositelock for it to show up. Over the years I’ve had the honor of meeting dozens of Oppos across the country. Oppos looked at cars for me when I was car shopping, Oppos crewed my rally teams, Oppos kept me sane during the pandemic by indulging in my silly scavenger hunt. When I look back over the last ten years it’s amazing how much of my achievements over the last ten years are tied to Oppo. From my rally stories that got front paged and led to new co-drives, to road trip suggestions, to my shenanigans with writers like Raph and Mike and my friendship/nemesisship with Stef. Oppo got me featured on TV, on a Jalopnik made show, on a channel that I didn’t even get (let’s be honest, it’s a channel no one gets, but still). Going back through my archive saving things has been such a nostalgia bomb.
But I think the biggest tribute to Oppo has been its response to the news of the site being shut down. No one accepted this as the end, everyone immediately snapped into action creating a new home. The work done on DriveTribe (is it one word or two, someone help me) has been impressive, but what Jminer has done on hyphen in just a couple weeks with @RallyDarkstrike and @Jb-boin has been absolutely amazing. They built an independent home out of nothing, that’s the spirit of Oppo.
So to everyone who has made Oppo what it is, both the people who are here now and the ones who left their marks on their way through, thank you. It’s been an honor to be here with all of you. I couldn’t have asked to be a part of a better group. And thank you to the staff of Jalopnik, past and present, from the ones who gave us this clubhouse in the first place, to the ones who would come and hang out here with us, to the ones who went to war time and time again, both publicly and privately, to defend us and our home. As far as I’m concerned you’re Oppos as well and you will always be welcome in our new home(s).
If you’re not following the Oppo Twitter and Oppo Instagram [Dukey, please add links] (Fine, have it your way. The grum The Twit) I’ll do my best to post updates over there as they come. See y’all on the other side.
-Steven “Dusty Ventures” Harrell
HammerheadFistpunch: @HammerheadFistpunch
Party-vi: @party-vi
The chicken parm was real, you fucks.
Slackbot:
Shall I ready the Banhammer? (/Tears up/ Yes, Slackbot, yes. -Arch Duke Maxyenko)
For Sweden: @ForSweden
Others who were too late to respond will have their statements posted in the comments, if possible?https://oppositelock.kinja.com/https://oppositelock.kinja.com/
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You're doing good work. This needs to be saved. Supposedly a repost of this was the last post ever to Oppo and only beat out my "Last" post by a few minutes. So this was the final word to the herbs.
This has been such an incredible community it's a shame to see it have to move on to a new era but it was good while it lasted. And we went out with style, dagnabit!
Ernie @ Kinja lives on even on the Hyphen!
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Wow you even captured the #alternativefacts about parmgate. Great work!
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It's missing Hardibro's response:
I am a bird on the internet.
I'm guessing this isn't going to be a permanent part of my legacy, but I think you could do worse.
No one person deserves credit for OppositeLock as the point of Oppo is that it's a community thing. That's the "kin" in Kinja.
We shouldn't forget Nick Denton, though. Nick firmly believed that whatever gift he might have for hiring good writers and hiring good editors who hire good writers, you could never replace the knowledge of a huge mass of commenters. His theory was that everyone comes across a good story occasionally and a great story rarely so if you collect enough people with a desire to share you'll have a treasure trove of content.
It didn't always work. Each of the original core Gawker Media blogs had their own offshoots that operated with varying degrees of success, but I don't think any of them touched Oppo for its ability to produce writers we hired or stories we either shared or rewrote. That was Nick's vision. So why did it work here?
It probably helped that I did (and still do) believe in it in a way that other editors maybe didn't. Granted, Nick had a vision for a lot of things and they didn't always pan out. I thought it was worth the effort, though that's clearly not why Oppo became such a thing.
Is it because of the people? I remember putting together a list of the first commenters to try this, the people we trusted, and I was lucky that we had such a large list to pull from. Undoubtedly, we picked right, although the community has grown and changed and Oppo has remained, which isn't always true of online platforms. There's no denying the great people who effectively auditioned in Oppo that we ended up later hiring. I remember, in particular, Ballaban being annoyingly good and forcing my hand. Jalopnik has always been a place for people who couldn't get hired anywhere else at first, proving what they could do.
Is it magic? Maybe. We call something "magic" either when it's a gimmick, which Oppo isn't, or when it's the confluence of so many bits of good luck and serendipity that we can't compute the result in our feeble mortal minds.
This isn't to say that Oppo or the commenters were perfect. There were times when we were all ready to chuck you all into the ocean for the troubles you caused. As a breeding ground for new talent and for stories worthwhile to the individual but maybe not to the masses Oppo was great, but did it make sense for GMG to profit off of everyone's work this way just by providing a platform (I guess Zuckerberg would say "yes!")?
Either way, Oppo was unavoidable. A fun game we used to play was to compare Oppo's traffic to the traffic of so cold "established" media sites and laugh when Oppo blew them away. Even now, Oppo is bigger than many.
Oppo will not be the last part of the GMG that I loved that the people who are currently running the company are going to piss away because of lack of imagination or, really, any understanding of how to make money on the web beyond borrowing it from a VC. I've been hardened by too many wounds associated with the various eras of the company to shed a tear, but it is a real fucking bummer.
Just keep fighting. Keep doing what you're doing. Find an outlet for it. Oppo exists because of Kinja, but it can exist without it.
I'll keep reading.
Hardibird out!
And Collin Woodard's
When Stef asked me to contribute to this farewell to Oppo, I wasn’t sure I wanted to contribute. Roasts are great, and I’d like to think I’m good at them, but I also can’t actually bring myself to roast Oppo. It just wouldn’t be fair because I basically owe Oppo my life.
Rewind to that time when your Oppo post could get front-paged, and some idiot named Michael Ballaban (RIP) decided it would be a good idea to share a thing I wrote. Using the most masterful of arguments, I’d explained why he should be allowed to get married in a car club, and everyone agreed I was right.
Over the next couple of months, Jalopnik editors front-paged several more of my Oppo posts. I may have been living in North Georgia at the time, and I may have lacked a college degree, but since I had the approval of some of the (beloved) dumbasses who wrote for Jalopnik, I got it in my head that I might possibly have what it takes to become an automotive journalist.
I knew it would be hard, but I was also a waiter in his mid-20s. Surely, automotive journalism couldn’t be more difficult than working full-time at Steak n Shake, right? At the very least, it would be less sweaty and involve fewer high school show choirs showing up at 1 am.
Turns out, yes, it was. But I actually made it my career, ended up working at some of the most prestigious outlets, started my own site, and still get paid to write about cars. Could I have done it without dumbasses like Ballaban, Patrick George, and even Doug Demuro seeing my Oppo posts? Probably not.
And Brian, The Life of's.
But this doesn't need to live here, it had it's glorious moment in the sun.
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@arch-duke-maxyenko Thanks, I didnt see those last night. Could have been a kinja thing.
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Good stuff. Thank you so much for bringing it over.
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The line of Photo: Jim Spanfellers after my entry were screencaps of the invoice I sent in: https://www.scribd.com/document/484565297/201115-Invoice-Oppo-StefSchrader
Pay up, herbs. As noted, I have an engine to rebuild.
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This is gold
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I was also hitting the little "save page" button on the Wayback Machine's browser extension as I browsed last night, hence the billion tabs I had (...and still have) open. So, here's the last version I had, save for Hardibird's entry, which came in at the 69th hour: https://web.archive.org/web/20201116063235/https://oppositelock.kinja.com/eat-shit-oppo-1845683946
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@maximaspeed Moved to Best of OPPO.
Edit 1/19/22 - @ tag added.
