A Pwnag3 Manif3sto...

The purposes Xoxohth.com serves are legion. Its members provide the 411 on skirting TTTs. They commiserate with those gripped in the ennui of fulfilling "billable hours" quotas. Xoxoers are generous with advice, on matters great and sundry and tawdry.

But Xo's most conspicuous export is pwnage.

To be sure, the adjective "pwn3d," like the amorphous "right to privacy," has the structural integrity of an amoeba. For that reason, some clarification of the concept, as it applies to Xo, is well in order.

Who gets pwn3d? In no particular order, Xo pwns: pretenders to prestige, plagiarists, skanks, CGWBTs, CAGWBTs, idiots, and Xo Enemies. These items, clearly, are not mutually exclusive. Neither is the list exhaustive; as with the Ninth Amendment, our brief enumeration doesn't entail that there might not be other "reasonable grounds" bases for pwnage.

How does Xoxo facilitate pwnage? Sometimes a pwning is original to Xo. Sometimes Xo's role is parasitic on a pwnage already in progress. In either case, Xoers seek to add value.

Talk of "adding value" presupposes a calculus for pwnage extent. Quantification of pwnage is notoriously difficult; the class of all pwnings is probably not, mathematically, a well-ordered set: some pairs pwnings might be incommensurable. Nonetheless, here is a nest of three classes, which explain two main ways in which Xo creates, or ramps up, pwnings:

1) private pwnage: Any embarrassing event whose occurrence is only known to the pwn33 and/or the pwn33's acquaintances.

2) public pwnage: Any embarrassing event whose occurrence is known to (a suitably large number of) non-acquaintances.

These first two categories are easy to illustrate. If Janet Jackson had had her "wardrobe malfunction" while lip-syncing at a gathering of her closest friends, it would have been private. But its occurrence in a stadium of thousands of viewers (and millions at home) made it public.

For reasons which will become clear in the Gallery, below, a third category deserves consideration:

3) personal pwnage: An embarrassing event wherein a person's past public pwning is thrown in the pwn33's face (either IRL or online).

Example: Suppose Britney Spears were to walk into a Victoria's Secret, and peruse nether-region garments. A private citizen walks up to her and remarks, "Funny, I didn't know you wore underwear." The citizen in question has enacted a personal pwnage: s/he has made use of a well-known public pwning to embarrass Spears F2F.

In general, we will employ the following gradation of pwnage:

personals best publics best privates
Inter alia, Xoxo adds value to a pwning by: a) taking a private pwning public; b) making a public pwning more public (e.g., via outing or googlepwning); c) making a public pwning personal (e.g., by making available otherwise unknown contact information of a publically pwned invididual).

Gallery of the Pwn3d (A work in progress...)

Heide I.

What Heide wishes this pic looked like...

Basis for pwning(s): CGWBT, stupidity.

Grounds: Linked pic (and others here) substantiate CGWBT status. For stupidity, see below.

How Xo Added Value: First pwning originated at Xoxo; Heide googlepwn3d.

Aftermath: Heide hires Reputation Defender to nuke evidence of original pwnag3. Smart. Heide then grants an interview to ABC News, and talks about her experience. Stupid! Xoxoers quickly out the name and identifying details of "the student who asked that her name and identifying details be withheld." Guano hits fan as word spreads, and rebellious Xoers post threads to foil her plan. This guarantees a two-fold googlepwning: one of her, and one of her rep's "Defender." Possible personal pwnage follows posting of her email addy. Evidence emerges that this CWGBT's Ts might be F!

Kaavya Viswanathan (April 2006)

Basis for pwnage: plagiarism

Grounds: If you don't know Kaavya's back-story, then you're to be pitied. Or maybe not.

How Xo Added Value: It would have been impossible to add publicity to Kaavya's very public pwnage. Yet Xo took the pwnage to the third tier: by making it personal. While the thread for it has (curses!) vanished, Xoers posted her cell-phone number, and left messages on her voice-mail. Xoxo also plundered her Facebook page, photoshop-pwned her, then (after posting her e-addy) emailed her the links.

Aftermath: When someone is pwned this publically, personal pwnings are bound to follow (e.g., here). Continued scrutity of this "fake writer" (h/t) has led to some more or less amusing pwnlettes.

Lena C.

Basis for pwning: skankiness, stupidity.

Grounds: Skanky is forgetting about a condom lodged inside you until it slides out while you're sitting on the 'loo...24 hours later. Stupid is blogging about it for all the world, including prospective employers, to read. (Unless "employment" means writing for Hustler for the rest of your life, 'natch.)

How Xoxo Added Value: Peppered her blog with choice comments.

Aftermath: After Xoxoers posted their "180 comments" on her 25 January blog, the self-described "sex-blogger" removed the page. Updates continue sporadically.

Pensive (Mike C.)

Basis for pwning: Pretended Prestige (Pr3Pr3).

Grounds: tried to claim that his TTT background (Carleton)was of comparable prestige to a Caltech Rhodes Scholar. Later tried to blame episode on psychotic somnambulism and "schtick." Neither alibi has been credited.

How Xoxo Added Value: Kept threads going, thus guaranteeing googl3pwnag3.

Aftermath: Pensive still posts at xoxo. TITCR (always). Still trying to cobble together an online version of his card game, Ambition.