People are
always asking me questions about my life and I-Mockery. Things like
"Where do you live?", "What's your favorite food?",
"What's it like running that site?" and "What's your
credit card number?" Well, I've decided to save myself a little time by
posting answers to some of the most frequently asked questions. So here ya go...
Question: What made you start I-Mockery?
Answer: Well, way back in high school my pals and I started up a
little print periodical that we called "Visionary Darkness". We ranted
about just about anything and had a great time doing it. When we went
our separate ways for college, I started writing humorous articles for
the newspaper. It was great getting emails from people who read them and
got some chuckles out of my rants. The threats of physical violence from
those who didn't approve were an added bonus.
While seeing my work in
print was definitely cool, the audience just wasn't as broad as I
wanted. Fortunately, a buddy of mine gave me some free hosting space on
the university's server and I started teaching myself HTML. I was amazed
at how many more people I was able to reach with an extremely basic web
site. From that point on, working on the web became quite the addiction.
I started teaching myself more and more about coding sites, and I also
got into Photoshop and Flash big-time. Since I couldn't stay on the
university server forever, I signed up for a new free web service called
"Geocities" and registered about 10 different accounts on there for all
of my various web sites. Yep, one account just wasn't enough. As my
audience grew and grew, I realized that I had to get the hell off of
Geocities and get a domain of my own. So, I registered good ol' I-Mockery.com
and moved all of my old sites over to the domain and the rest is
history.
Question: Where does the name "I-Mockery" come from?
Answer: When I
registered the domain, all the companies out there were using names like
"I-this" and "E-that", so I figured I'd poke fun at them with my domain
name as well. Thus, I-Mockery.com was born.
Question: Just who in the hell are you?
Answer: My name is
-RoG- (that's short for "awesometastic" in case you were wondering)
Question: Why do you work on this site so much?
Answer: I love
making people laugh. It's really as simple as that. Every now and then
I'll get an email from a person who is absolutely miserable sitting in
their cubicle at work, but they inform me that I-Mockery helps break up
the monotony of their day by giving them some hearty chuckles. It's that
kind of stuff that makes me happy to keep doing this. Sure, the site has
given me some great opportunities and opened all sorts of doors, but the
fact is I'm still here doing it because it's one of the things I love to
do.
Question: Does I-Mockery make any money?
Answer: In recent
years, yes, I-Mockery has started to generate a nice income thanks to
some great sponsors and advertisers who've been cool enough to help
support this site. I'm now able to cover my hosting bills and then some,
but I'm by no means sitting on a mountain of gold like Scrooge McDuck.
One of my goals has been to make this site my full-time job, but I'm not
going to plaster the site with porn ads 'n crap to achieve that goal.
I'd rather do it on my own terms (ie: the quality of the material on
this site generating enough public interest).
Question: What publications / shows has I-Mockery appeared in?
Answer: Well, we've
been in all sorts of stuff. Some of the publications we've appeared in include
National Lampoon,
Cracked, Entertainment Weekly, Yahoo Internet Life Magazine, The Guardian UK, Maxim, FHM, Wired, and countless local newspapers from all over the
globe. I-Mockery has also appeared on VH1's "Totally Obsessed", The Food
Network's "Unwrapped", Comedy Central's "The Daily Show", and various radio talk
shows. Of course, we also owe a lot of our exposure to some of our buddy
sites that we're affiliated with as they've always been cool enough to
plug us here in there. If you would like I-Mockery to appear in an
interview or a TV segment, don't hesitate to
contact us.
Question: Can I write for I-Mockery?
Answer: We used to
be more open about accepting submissions, but generally nowadays, we
stick with the people that we already have on staff (ie: Dr. Boogie,
Protoclown, Max Burbank, etc). While none of them are
full-time staffers, though Dr. Boogie is close considering how much he
helps out around here, when they do send in new material it's always a
classic read. I also just don't have the time to read the HILARIOUS
articles that every 12-year-old decides to send in to me. Still, you're
welcome to submit material if you want. Just don't expect myself or the others to find the time to read it
for about a year or so.
Question: How come you haven't updated [insert section of
I-Mockery here] in a long time?
Answer: Ever heard
the phrase "beating a dead horse?" No? Well, I have. Certain sections of
this site (the anti-rave and metal mockery sites for example) were created with the
intention of giving people some great laughs about things we hadn't
covered yet. Rather than try to update those sections with the same kind
of jokes over and over, I just prefer to leave them be. Besides, my
interests fluctuate on a daily (if not hourly) basis... so I often like
to start up new projects rather than work on 5-year old ones.
Question: Ok but what about the main sections of I-Mockery like
the Minimocks? How come you don't update those every day?
Answer: While I
wish the other staffers had the time to write for the site on a constant
basis, that's just not always the case (though we do update the site 5
days a week now). They have lives and families and
flesh-eating viruses which take up an ample chunk of their time. So...
that leaves the site in my hands. I'm in charge of coding it, creating
graphics for it, and writing for it. Oh yeah, and paying the bills for
it. Considering I also work 40+ hours a week and take martial arts
classes at night, I'm doing the best I can with what time I still have.
The new "Shorts" section has just recently been created so that myself
and the other staffers will be able to post smaller pieces on the site
that won't take us quite as long to write while we're simultaneously
working on the larger pieces. In all honesty, most minimocks take DAYS to finish. We put a LOT of time and effort into
making them both extremely in-depth and entertaining... and if it takes a few
days or even a few weeks to achieve that, then so be it. Quality over
quantity baby!
Question: I can't find one of my favorite pieces on I-Mockery!
Where is it?
Answer: If you
really can't find it, email me and I'll try to help you locate it.
However, I suggest using the
Google search engine first.
Question: What's with the Pickle hats and Wacky Space Goggles?
Where can I get them?
Answer: The pickle
hats came from an old advertisement that I found. You can read more
about that
HERE. The goggles came from a place called "Zipperhead" in
Philadelphia. It's a great little shop on South Street and I really miss
living there (not in the shop, in Philly). The goggles and the pickle
hat just seemed like two things that went together perfectly. I never
thought the two would become such a staple of this web site. It's just
another one of the pleasant little oddities of I-Mockery history I
guess.
Question: So do you
really like pickles that much?
Answer: Actually
no, I won't even eat them. Go figure, eh?
Question: Why
haven't you written about [insert movies, games, toys, etc. here] yet?
Answer: There's a
bajillion things out there to write about, and I'm still working on
getting to each and every one of them. If there's something you'd really
like to see featured on I-Mockery.com, email me and I'll put it on my
gargantuan to-do list if I think it's worth writing about.
Question: How come you wrote about something that some other
sites already wrote about? How come some other sites rip you off?
Answer: If some
other site wrote about the same thing I wrote about, it doesn't matter
to me. I don't care if they wrote it before me or after me. The web is a
big place and we're all bound to cross paths here 'n there. We each have
our own thoughts on certain topics so there's no reason any of us
shouldn't write about something just because it appears on some other
site already.
Question: Where's
the latest I-Mockery Club Pack?
Answer: While the
club packs were a huge success, the fact is they took a lot of time to
put together and mail out. Being that I already work a full-time job on
top of writing for I-Mockery, I just don't have the time to put together
all of the orders for new club packs. The sticker sales on I-Mockery
alone are hard enough to keep up with. Still, I might release some more
club packs in the future as a "seasonal" kind of thing. You know, more
Halloween club packs, and things of that nature. We'll see what happens.
Meanwhile, you can still order some
stickers!
Question: I can't download/find a file on I-Mockery, what happened
to it?
Answer: We recently
converted the entire site from ASP to PHP, so a lot of the paths have
changed. Your best bet is to start from the main page and try to locate
it. If you find any broken links, by all means feel free to report it to
us and we'll try to fix it as soon as possible.
Question: I want to
make a rom hack. How do I hack a rom?
Answer: Listen bub,
we don't make the rom hacks, we just review 'em. Should you want to
create your own atrocious rom hack to submit to us, more power to ya,
but we can't tell you how to do it. Do a search on Google for "rom
hacking" if you want to learn how to hack roms. They'll point you in the
right direction... maybe.
Question: I submitted a review to your Classic Games, Music
Reviews, and/or Movie Reviews site. How come it hasn't been approved?
Answer: While we
generally don't screen reviews for grammar, as you can tell by the
plethora of horribly written viewer-submitted reviews that we have, we
still do screen them to make sure the information is generally correct.
The people who work on the 3 review sites do it on a volunteer basis,
when they have the time to do it. So rest assured, if you followed the
rules for review submissions, your review will eventually get approved.
Whether people will mock you to hell for writing such a horrible review,
however, is another case entirely.
Question: I have a
product/site/company that I want to advertise on this site. How should I
go about doing this?
Answer: Email
webmaster@i-mockery.com
for all the juicy details. We've got very affordable advertising rates
and we're also happy to run sponsored contests. You can also
click here
to find out more about our advertising program.
Question: How can I help out I-Mockery?
Answer: Well, the
best way to help out I-Mockery is to tell people about it. We've never
spent a dime on advertising. It's all worth-of-mouth. You can also buy
some of the stickers, donate to the
zombie movie project, or buy
something on the ol'
Amazon wish list. It all helps!
Question: Are you really going to make a horror/comedy zombie
movie?
Answer: Does a
brain go "squish" like Jell-O?
Question: Did you really do a Zombie Walk in Richmond, VA?
Answer: Sure did.
You can read all about it on
zombiewalk.com .
Question: What are some of the other sites you run?
Answer:
Scarmageddon.com - a site that
allows you to submit photos of your scars 'n wounds along with the
stories behind how you got them.
Costumecritic.com - a site that
allows you to submit photos of your best and worst costumes so people
can rate them on a 1 - 10 scale. I have some other site projects in the
works as well, but I-Mockery is definitely the one I spend the most time
on by far.
Question: Can I use your content on my site?
Answer: Generally,
no. What reason would a person have to come visit this site which I
spend so much time working on when they can find the same exact content
elsewhere? So that's generally why all the material on I-Mockery is
exclusive to this site. Still, there are some rare exceptions, so if you
are interested in using one of my pieces or hiring me to write something
for you, feel free to contact me.
Question: If I link to your site, will you link to mine?
Answer: We must get
like 20 of these emails a day. While it's great that you like I-Mockery
enough to wanna put up a link to it, we get far too many link exchange
requests to return the favor. So you really shouldn't even bother asking
us if we'll link to your site. If we happen to come across your site and
like it enough to link to it, you'll hear from us. If you really want to
see your link on I-Mockery that badly, however, we do have some very
affordable advertising methods.
Question: Who would win in a battle between a flying shark and a
flying crocodile?
Answer: I think the
answer to that question is
quite
obvious.
Question: Do you have a privacy policy posted anywhere?
Answer: Wow, you
mean you actually care to read about that boring stuff? Oh alright, suit
yourself...
click here.
Question: Where is that "refreshing pink lemonade" anyway?
Answer: It's at the
Alamo... in the basement.
Question: Will you make a sequel to Domo-Kun's Angry Smashfest?
Answer: I'd love
to, but the fact is, that game took over 4-months of work between myself
and Tom Fulp. We both have extremely busy schedules these days, and
neither of us would want to start on the game without the other. So it's
all a matter of the two of us finding the time to dedicate to it. Not
making any promises, but the two of us always talk about doing the
sequel sometime in the future. In the meantime, you can expect plenty of
other gaming goodies from both of us.
Question: Where are those pics of you and the Newgrounds crew
hanging out?
Answer: The ones
that I blackmailed them with so that they pay my rent each month? Oh
what the hell...
here they are.
Question: So do you really like Boo Berry cereal?
Answer: No, I only
run the
Unofficial Boo Berry site, what do
you think?
Question: Are you still in a band -RoG-?
Answer: I've been
in a couple of bands, and done some comedic stuff with "Abbreviated.
Life. Expectancy." but I haven't had a chance to record anything
new in
a while. That's mainly because the motherboard on my new computer wasn't
compatible with the external recording device I was using. I really do
want to get into a band though, so if you know of a band looking for an
animated front man, contact me! Anyway, I do
plan on getting a new machine which I'll use strictly for recording
purposes, so you can expect more stupid songs from me in the future. In
the meantime, just keep listening to me sing "I Will Beat Pacman"
or "Dead Backstreet Boys"
instead.
Question: Where is I-Mockery based?
Answer: While I
would like to say "THE MOON!", the fact is we're currently based in
Richmond, VA. You can
read an interview I did with
Richmond.com recently too.
Question: What happened to the funny flash intros on the
I-Mockery homepage?
Answer: I've
created a page that archives some of the best intros we've had over the
years. It also explains why the intros are no longer the default page of
I-Mockery. Click
here for details.
Question: What else changed on this site when you moved it onto
the new server and converted all of those pages not too long ago?
Answer: Rather than
type it up all over again on this page, I'll let you read my original
post about it instead. Click
here for details.
Question: Is it true that there's a secret hidden on this page
somewhere?
Answer: Hmmmmmmmmm,
could be.
