4-cent_garbage.com
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4-cent_garbage is Chris's idea of Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. Since he blames ED for breaking up the closest thing to a relationship that he ever had, he must demonize it in his comics.
In the comics, it is depicted as a business based in a large 72 floor office building in which several hundred employees work. Apparently, the business runs both a website and a magazine, the contents of which are unclear. The website seems to be analogous to the real life ED, having several articles on existing people, or at least mentioning them[1] and a huge load of dickgirl images which are uploaded nearly constantly.
Jason's final speech in Sonichu #8, as well as Chris's ramblings in the Time Void, seem to indicate that any percieved inaccuracies in the articles or images hosted on the site are deliberate attempts to slander Chris and his Sonichus.[2] Why exactly Jason would wish to do this or why he has chosen to target Chris is never addressed, but his presence at the PVCC meeting in Sonichu #7 seem to suggest that the company and all of its employees are a part of Mary Lee Walsh's secret trolling cabal.
It is worth noting that this is the closest Chris has ever made it to creating an actual parody.
Inspiration
4chan is an internet forum with dozens of boards dedicated to both broad and niche topics, from anime to the paranormal, to art to pornography. Well known as a platform full of trolls and homos, 4chan's place in Christory is short-lived but highly influential - and some of the first contact Chris ever had with trolls. In late 2007, members of the video games board took notice of Chris's comics and began creating satirical (largely pornographic) artwork based on Sonichu. A collection of this art was sent to Chris by 4chan user Evan, provoking fury and the demand that Rosechu be drawn "masturbating and squirtin'", rather than with a massive penis. The email exchanges between Chris and Evan would peter out in the face of Encyclopedia Dramatica.
Encyclopedia Dramatica is a satirical Wikipedia with hundreds of articles on internet culture, personalities, and politics- all of which are written to be as offensive as possible. Just like 4chan, it is full of trolls and homos.
In 2007, while stoking his ego, Chris discovered ED's page satirizing him and his Sonichu comics. What really grinds his gears about the page was the "fan art" of Rosechu with a penis. Beginning 10 November 2007, Chris embarked on a quest to make the website less scathing by uploading hideously drawn Rule 34 of his little abominations (and Slaweel Ryam), along with the infamous ShecameforCWC.JPG to his page.
Evan never mentioned that he was from 4chan, so Chris likely found out about the site through a message sent by a white-knight. An e-mail on 5 November 2007 attempted to alert him to the ED page, and referred to the article as being created and written by the same people making fun of Chris on 4chan's /v/ board. Whether he paid any attention to the message or not, what is known is that on 12 November 2007, Chris first acknowledged 4chan when he made another edit to the "Chris-chan" article:
| “ | Christian Weston Chandler would like ED and 4chan to know the following: I will continue to Shove The True Facts From My Heart and Soul Down Your Throats, only until you take this WHOLE PAGE Down For Good. | ” |
From this, it can be reasonably assumed that Chris discovered 4chan and ED around the same time, and that he considered them to be essentially one and the same. Chris would continue his Sisyphean edit war against ED well into 2008, but ultimately, all he succeeded in doing was alienating Megan Schroeder.
By August 2008, Chris was finishing Sonichu #7, and he apparently felt the need to address these recent developments in the pages of his comic. Issue #7 opened with Megan as a supporting character in the story, but with the real Megan wanting nothing more to do with Chris, he decided to write her out of the story. As for ED and 4chan, Chris would lump these two concepts together and dub them "4-cent_garbage_Magazine.com." The name is a slight mystery, because underscores (_) are not permitted in Internet domain names.
Introduction: Sonichu #7
Sonichu #7 was the first issue of the series to be influenced by Chris's interactions with online trolls. While Chris didn't finish the comic until 20 August 2008, the events of the issue are all set in 2 November 2007, one day before the ED article was created. Just as past issues of Sonichu were very loosely based on Chris's real life, he must have wanted to acknowledge the conflict with ED/4chan and his estrangement from Megan in #7. But all of that happened after 2 November 2007.
Chris's solution was the Time Void; a poorly-defined realm where Chris's character would be trapped for the next two issues. While stranded in the Time Void, Chris would somehow experience events going on in his real life while the fictional events in the comics unfolded without him. Upon entering the Time Void, Chris found himself assaulted by "random...new memories...popping in...my head!" These were memories of things that happened after 2 November 2007, so Chris was essentially using the Time Void to "remember" the future. Along with fictional events like the Battle of CWCville, Chris also experienced "memories" of Joshua Martinez setting him up with "Lori Lopez", and Megan "dumping" him via e-mail.
| “ | Dumping me? But why?!! 4-cent_garbage_Magazine.com? Mocking me? Slanderous Filth?!!! A drawing of me and Meg-Chan... Intimate? And I drew that?!! She dumped me over that? Oh... that hurts! Still. Curse your 4-cent garbage! | ” |
| Chris first mentions 4-cent_garbage in the Time Void, Sonichu #7 | ||
It became clear from this scene that once Chris escaped from the Time Void, he would do battle with 4-cent_Garbage as a proxy for ED and 4chan, just as he had battled Jerkops and Manajerks as proxies for those who interfered with his Love Quest.
Conflict with Sonichu and Rosechu: Sonichu #8
In the first part of Sonichu #8, "Rage Against the Garbage", 4-cent_garbage was formally introduced as a villainous organization dedicated to slandering people for the sake of amusement. (Note Chris's inability to differentiate between slander and libel, the former of which requires spoken words or real-life gestures, impossible for a website or magazine to do.) Rosechu discovers the site on 3 November 2007, which just happens to be the date that Jason Kendrick Howell created the "Chris-chan" article on ED. The site's content includes a page that slanders Sonichu, Chris, and her, along with "lifelike" drawings of Rosechu with a pickle. While Sonichu is overcome with the stress of seeing his mate depicted with a penis, Rosechu decides to fight fire with fire by editing the site, just as Chris had tried in real life. She crawls into her dirty, mildew-laden bathroom and takes pictures of herself in the nude, and then uploads them onto the 4-cent website. However 4-cent_garbage simply adds more dickgirl pictures, and she realizes that her plan will never work.
Instead, she travels with Sonichu and Wild to 4-cent_garbage's headquarters in Clarksville, Tennessee, to confront the leader of the organization. While Wild sneaks into the building in search of one of the Sonichu Balls, Sonichu and Rosechu take the elevator to the top floor, and meet Jason Kendrick Howell and his 17-year old "womanslave" Kathleen, who had previously cameoed in issue #7. The meeting is civil at first, but when Jason refuses to take down the "Chris-chan" page, Sonichu tries to fight him, and loses. Rosechu fares better as The Incredible Lioness, having inflicted wounds that would have killed a normal man in fact, but the page remains up, and their mission is ultimately a failure.
The Fall of 4-cent_garbage: Sonichu #10
Upon Chris's return from the Time Void on 9 August 2007, he immediately coordinates an attack on the 4-cent_garbage HQ, ordering Sonichu, Wild, Black Sonichu, Punchy Sonichu, and Son-Chu to meet him in front of the building. Chris arrives first as Chris-Chan Sonichu, and Jason and Beel lay a trap for him and try to steal his medallion. However, Chris discovers that the TRUE AND HONEST source of his Anchuent powers is his high school ring, which he uses to retrieve the Medallion and free himself.
Later, when Chris's allies arrive, he orders Son-Chu to transform into a sound stage for Christian and the Hedgehog Boys. Using the Gitar of Fail, Chris then leads the band in a live performance of Revive Zordon, and the intense power of their music begins to shake the building apart. Inside, Jason converts his throne into an escape pod, and flees with Kathleen, leaving the others behind. Jason declares that he is retiring from trolling, in order to settle down with Kathleen and live a normal life. Chris also takes the time to use Jason as a mouthpiece to condemn Clyde Cash and Jack Thaddeus for "slandering and torturing and innocent man", even though that was what Jason was supposedly doing not two issues ago. Beel meanwhile decides to take shelter in the basement, explaining that he could not be killed and would simply be reassigned to Count Graduon once the building was destroyed, and Clyde and Jack, alone on the top floor and with no way out, choose to commit suicide by leaping down the elevator shaft together just as the building collapses, refusing to let themselves be killed by Chris.
The building then gives way and collapses, with 1,500 people still alive inside.
Sonichu #10 reports that of the 1,500 people who were in the building...
- 500 were "prefectly [sic] unharmed".
- 250 were too drunk to escape on their own.
- 125 of these drunk trolls managed to get out alive with help from sober trolls.
- 125 of the drunk trolls were hurt, injured or killed.
- 125 sober trolls were hurt, injured or killed.
- 250 others were injured.
- 150 others were "safe but hurt".
- 100 were killed.
Note that this only accounts for 1,375 people.
Despite having just destroyed a building and killed between 100-350 innocent people, not to mention the injuries of at least 650 others, Chris then calls for the ambulances himself while he and his team of recolors help to rescue the survivors that they themselves had nearly killed. Afterwards, Chris then weeps for the victims of his own mass murder, whilst also maintaining that it was the trolls' faults they were killed, because they made fun of him on the internet.
Supposedly, destroying 4-cent_garbage's headquarters disabled its website as well, along with Encylcopedia Dramatica's website, such that both sites' data was irrevocably lost, and neither would ever be restored.
The 4-cent_garbage building
4-cent_garbage appears to be a multimedia operation, with a website and a print magazine operated from a brick-and-mortar building in Clarksville, Tennessee. The location of the building is probably intended to refer to where the real Jason lives, or at least where Chris thinks he lives.
The 4-cent_garbage building is 72 stories tall (66+6, as described by Beel), and the interior is painted bright red to resemble Hell. On the ground floor, Beel sits at the receptionist desk and directs visitors to an elevator on the far side of the atrium. Employees are seen on several higher floors drinking an alcoholic beverage called "Reeb", and passing out on the floor when their shift is over. Their work seems to involve sitting at computer terminals, uploading and editing images of Chris and his characters.
On the 72nd floor, Jason Kendrick Howell holds court with his womanslave Kathleen at his side. It is unknown where Clyde Cash and Jack Thaddeus were stationed in the building, or what their jobs were before the building's destruction.
Security in the building was incredibly lax. Wild Sonichu turned invisible to sneak into the upper floors in search of a Sonichu Ball, only to find it left on a desk. Once he took the ball, his invisibility wore off, but he was still able to slip back out of the building unnoticed.
The elevator gags
A large part of "Rage Against the Garbage" features Sonichu and Rosechu exploring different floors in the 4-cent_garbage Building. Why Sonichu and Rosechu would stop at so many different floors to look around at whatever's going on is never explained, but they clearly react to whatever is depicted, meaning that they must have pressed all the buttons on the elevator controls for no good reason.
This appears to have been one of Chris's attempts to employ some of his trademark random-access humor, by showing wacky stuff on each floor. Much of the material featured in these pages were images lifted directly from Encyclopedia Dramatica, whether Chris understood their context or not. In some strange attempt at foreshadowing, Chris located these images on ED and then put them on his user page while he was still trying to edit the site.
| “ | You'll be seeing the following images AGAIN Soon Enough. | ” |
| Christian Weston Chandler, on the images he put on his ED user page, which would later be used in Sonichu #8. | ||
Whatever his reasons, Chris seemed to believe that using images from ED in one of his comics would somehow be a big deal. The floors used in the comic are listed below, along with a description of what Chris put on each one.
- 2nd floor: Chris draws 4-cent_garbage.com employees passed out drunk at their workstations. When one of them recovers from his hangover and gets up, he relieves the only other conscious employee of his shift and takes over. The relieved guard then drinks a can of "Reeb" and passes out on the floor like the others, while Sonichu and Rosechu look on from the elevator and sigh.
- 3rd floor: Pedobear in a bathtub with the Powerpuff Girls. Sonichu doesn't understand the joke.
- 4th floor: Banner reading "I hate SMRS", a reference to "Sonicrocksmysocks", from the ED article of the same name.
- 7th floor: A 4-cent_garbage.com employee works on a drawing of Rosechu with a dick. Rosechu angrily leaves the elevator to punch him in the face, shouting "I have a vagina, uterus, and ovaries, you freak!!!"
- 8th floor: Sonichu spin dashes a 4-cent_garbage.com employee working on a picture of Mary Lee Walsh, nude and leading Sonichu by a leash.
- 9th floor: Sonichu and Rosechu electrocute an employee as he works on a picture of Sonichu sucking Rosechu's penis.
- 10th floor: Chris emerges from the Time Void to attack an employee working on a picture of Chris using the Oversized Drinking Straw of Fail. Sonichu and Rosechu cheer him on in unison.
- 11th floor: Troll parody of artwork by Branca, a batshit insane fan of the animated band Gorillaz. Sonichu considers it to be sad.
- 12th floor: Fanart of Knuckles as a gangster, surrounded by sexualized versions of female "Sonic" characters. Sonichu naïvely wonders when he became so popular.
- 13th floor: Female versions of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Sonichu and Rosechu are dumbfounded.
- 14th floor; Pedobear, depicted to resemble Phoenix Wright.
- 21st floor: Les Grandes Baigneuses an 1887 painting by Paul Cézanne. ED has a copy of the image which has been edited with captions to reference the "Branca" article on ED.
- 22nd floor: Yu-Gi-Oh! Rule 34, from the ED article. Sonichu innocently considers it an impressive dark magic attack.
- 23rd floor: An anthropomorphized Charmeleon with her arms handcuffed behind her back spreads her asscheeks, as if for sexual activity. More Rule 34 from ED's Pokémon article. Sonichu ignores the sexualized content, and boasts that he could easily defeat the Charmeleon. Well, duh, it's handcuffed.
- 24th floor: Hate art of Snapesnogger's hermaphrodite naga character drawn by Zeriara.
- 33rd floor: Rule 34 Art from ED's Transformers page.
- 34th floor: Sonic/Amy Rose Rule 34. Sonichu cheers on his "pal" as they watch him have sex in a position suspiciously similar to the "missionary cowgirl" used by Sonichu earlier in the issue.
- 35th floor: Nude artwork of Amy Rose, Rouge the Bat, and Cream the Rabbit (who is 6 years old.) Sonichu and Rosechu shout "Holy Crap!" in unison.
- 36th floor: Strip poker game featuring various female characters from Sonic the Hedgehog. The image has been adapted into a parody of a Magic: The Gathering Card.
- 51st floor: The entire White House, with John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Hillary Clinton, looking on while Barack Obama paints the walls black. George W. Bush cheerfully knocks his eventual successor off his ladder. Sonichu and Rosechu offer no discernible reaction. Chris notes that his father Bob Chandler came up with this "joke." Recall that this story is set in the fall of 2007, so the joke really makes no sense for that year.
- 61st floor: Erotic artwork of Dot Warner, from Animaniacs. NOTE: In the cartoon Animaniacs the character Dot Warner is 9 years old.
- 62nd floor: Erotic artwork of Lois Griffin, from Family Guy.
- 63rd floor: Erotic artwork of Marge Simpson, from The Simpsons.
- 64th floor: Rule 34 of Misty and a Starmie, from Pokémon. Sonichu and Rosechu make out during this and the preceding three floors.
- 69th floor: Image of "XBOX 360-ko", an anime-style character patterned after design elements of the Xbox 360. As the following floor features an Xbox 360 console being destroyed, Chris includes a disclaimer, stating that his hatred of the HEXBox should not be connected to any lingering resentment of women. This was later changed to a ramble about the purpose of the building and about the trolls in general.
- 70th floor: Drawing by Chris of an Xbox 360 console being chopped in half with a meat cleaver. Sonichu and Rosechu applaud the instrument's destruction. The imagery is a clear indication that Chris secretly desires to murder women. This was later changed to a drawing of a sad troll admitting that Chris is right about the previous floor.
- 71st floor: PS3 message congratulating whoever murdered the HEXBox. It states that you may "now play your PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii in peace", as though the existence of a single Xbox somehow interfered with such activity. This was later changed to an achievement for exposing all the trolls.
Note that it is never addressed whether or not the images such as the Rule 34 depicted here are really just drawings on a computer or poster in the building, or if they have a physical presence. However, the fact that Sonichu cheers on Sonic as he has sex with Amy Rose suggests that they are really there.
Business and Staff
| “ | I am a troll with no such beliefs, I know that we are born, then we die. I intend to make the most of my pitiful life by tormenting every person within my grasp until they all die from the shame and the distress of their existance [sic]. The page will stay up; this meeting is over! | ” |
| Jason Kendrick Howell, responding to Sonichu's request to remove the "Chris-chan" page, Sonichu #8 | ||
4-cent_garbage does not appear to have any clear marketing objective. While this may seem like an oversight on Chris's part, it may well be a genuine commentary on the pointlessness of 4chan and ED's activities. While most people would consider them to be entertainment sites, with no other purpose than to provide humor or diversion, Chris obviously doesn't find them funny, and so he depicted 4-cent_garbage as a tower of bullies, mass-producing cruelty for its own sake. In the comic, Jason says his only goal in life is to hurt as many people as he can before he dies. While he may have only been speaking for himself, this seems to be the raison d'être for everyone else who works there.
In Sonichu #10, Beel explains that "this trolling gig is my hell", suggesting that he has been condemned to work there, possibly because he had once been "main assistant to Adolf Hitler". Unable to die, Beel would simply be damned to serve yet another villain, Count Graduon, once the 4-cent_garbage building was destroyed.
While Clyde Cash had been previously depicted in Sonichu Special #1 as an agent of Mary Lee Walsh, he also appears in Sonichu #10 supporting 4-cent_garbage. Though confusing in some respects, especially concerning the canonicity of the Sonichu Specials, this dual role may not be a complete contradiction, as the exact relationship between 4-cent_garbage and PVCC is never explained.
References
See also
- 4chan posts (Bella)
- Sonichu #7
- Sonichu #8
- Sonichu #10
- Jason Kendrick Howell
- Kathleen
- Beel
- Clyde Cash
- Jack Thaddeus
- The Incredible Lioness
- Revive Zordon
- Twin Falling Towers
- Chris and death
- Jail Letter - 21 October 2021
External links
- 4chan - A *chan imageboard and inspiration behind 4-cent_garbage's name.
- Encyclopedia Dramatica - An internet satire wiki and inspiration behind 4-cent_garbage's role in the comics. (the archived home page of encyclodediadramatica)
- 789chan.org/cwc/ archive - A defunct *chan imageboard which sometimes adopted the name 4-cent_garbage in reference to the comics.
