On the Subject of UK:Resistance

What else is there to say?

Sad news by way of the recent winding up of classic, vaguely Sega-obsessed sarcastic commentary site UK:Resistance. I can't remember how I stumbled upon it, I suspect I was turned on to it in the late 90s by console-monkey friends. Anyone aware of the site will also be aware that it's been on auto-pilot for the last few years so it's not an especially shocking announcement, but in its heyday it was a go-to for gaming-related comedy. Run by Mr Gary Cutlack, who has gone on to write for proper gaming mags and sites, not to mention making a bunch of slightly odd youtube videos, UK:R was like Charlie Brooker with a bit less swearing. Cutlack also runs Idiot Toys, which is worth a visit unless he plans on shutting that down too. But first be sure to visit the UK:R archives while you still can. It's amazing how much work he put in back in the early years. Note the Employee of the Week posts, which no doubt influenced my very own Thought for the Days.

A few years ago Cutlack sold out to Shiny Media who promptly slapped its trashy branding and a million ads over his sites. Being a poorly-conceived blog portal wank-fest which I suspect was supposed to be some sort of nerd Gawker, Shiny spontaneously combusted shortly after. Cutlack was given back control of UK:R in lieu of money owed, and managed to grab back the idiottoys domain when whatever was left of Shiny forgot to renew it.

UK:R was also notable for its user forum. Based at boards2go and featuring a high-speed/low-retention policy, it often offered some jaw-droppingly funny contributions from regulars, not to mention impromptu porn dumps from mad-as-a-brick resident porn scene freak murphy "The Reverand DMark" or whatever his handle was back then. The original forums were nuked following a spectacular public breakdown and revelations of intra-forum infidelity from Cutlack's bit of fluff. Can't remember what she called herself now. Absolutely top-drawer entertainment, while it lasted.

The "official" forum was followed by a succession of indie spin-offs, before settling on the (theoretically) still-operational, if virtually flat-lined UKPersistance. Originally a lot of the old crew were regulars, before the community was eventually eviscerated by further dramas, including more infidelity revelations (this time featuring oversized yank pinball fanatic and long-time UK:R regular "Dork") and the leak of ill-advised nudie pics of genuinely-female "Frap", who also happened to be real-life UK Frag Doll "Jam". Or did that happen on the original board? Whatever, they're preserved on ED if you're interested. White-nightery and schism followed, and UKP was never the same again. DMark/Mark seemed to tire of people criticising his taste in forgettable Eastern-European heroin-addict skanks and disappeared, taking his endlessly amusing old-school racism and tales of crazed stalking and cleaning up various bodily fluids (if not producing them) at the family B&B with him.

UK:R itself was almost entirely Cutlack, although there were one or two guest contributors over the years. Ignoring the recent ones who were promoted from serial commenter as Cutlack gradually lost interest in the site, the one who sticks in my mind is The Swill Man. God only knows where Cutlack found him, he seemed to be some yank teenager and he didn't last long. I seem to recall Cutlack eventually revoked The Swill Man's posting rights with a vague shrug.

More recently UK:R has been your one-stop destination for monthly "Here's a picture of a spiral. The Dreamcast logo was a spiral!" updates as the site continued its long slide into obscurity. Meanwhile Cutlack has become something of an underground celebrity in the gaming world, and the (relatively) large volume of comments which followed the closure are testament to the fondness literally dozens of people have for what he has achieved. Good luck with your future endeavours, Mr Cutlack, I salute you.

And I'm sure that wherever he is now, Dork is a cunt.