What Have We Become, ShoutWire?

I miss the old ShoutWire. We may not have had much, but we did have boobs...

ShoutWire began as a pirate bar. Users weary from hours of downloading could come here, read some interesting news, and bitch to their hearts content. You could call the admins assholes and maybe see a nice pair of titties on your journey. It was a free-for-all of sorts, where all you had were your words and shitty attitude to protect you from pools of hungry sharks that lurked just under the surface in the comment section of each and every article posted.

I guess you could call me a relic from that age… an old man sitting on the porch drowning his sorrows in a dirty bottle of rye whiskey screaming to anyone who will listen about how things used to be different around these parts. Before the end of the night I would get so wild eyed and excited that I would nearly fall out of my chair while happily recounting tales of yore. Eventually however, I would be forced to bed by those younger, smarter, and more efficient than myself.

I remember when I fought for this place. I put myself on the line so that others here might taste freedom. We won that battle and for a while, I was a hero. But how long do heroes last before their deeds are forgotten and the wishes that were fought for in the first place are overruled for the better ideas of the politically correct and ‘let’s make everything safe for work’ crowd.

Serious business has become the order of the day. There is no more chuckling in corners for those of us who enjoyed kicking each other off the monkey bars and playing marbles for lunch money which we would only use to buy drugs and liquor later on in the night. “This is a corporation now, zero…” they tell me, “straighten up or you will never make it out of here alive!”

This is the same pirate bar it once was. Except now there is an ATM machine in the corner and SUV’s parked all over the front walk. Where Johnny Cash used to play, sounds of top 40 radio blare out over speakers. Rum used to be poured into dirty coconut shells, now it’s served chilled in shot glasses with pretty umbrellas and ads all over them.

So… what’s an old pirate-writer to do? I could fire everyone and start over, but that would defeat the purpose of who I am and why I started doing this in the first place. I could quit and thank my lucky stars I was ever even here in the first place, but that would take humility… which is a trait I don’t have. Option three is I could troll around until they finally find a way to get rid of me, most likely quickly, quietly, and in the middle of the night.

Option three…