This month's issue of Wired contains an impressively in-depth article on the griefing exploits of the Something Awful Goonsquad.
Most famously, the Goonsquad was responsible for interrupting 2006's CNet interview with Second Life pseudo-celebrity Anshe Chung via airborne flocks of oversized penises.
While many residents of targeted virtual worlds (*EVE Online, World of Warcraft *and Second Life, in particular) refer to the Goonsquad as "virtual terrorists," Goonsquad members seem to see the entirety of their expeditions into these worlds as merely well-organized virtual jokes. Their goal, it seems, is to satirize the extreme importance that the game's players place on virtual objects.
Of course, there also seems to be a bit of malice in their online shenanigans.
According to Goonsquad member Isaiah Houston, "The way that you win in EVE is you basically make life so miserable for someone else that they actually quit the game and don't come back."
Whether you agree with the tactics used by the Goonsquad -- find them hilarious or see the whole thing as disgusting and disrespectful -- it's quite clear that they won't stop their mischief any time soon.
William Gibson once wrote "The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it." It seems the Goonsquad is simultaneously the staunchest practitioners of that adage as well as its finest example.
