What is a Box of Soap?

Once great leader of RedSpot, Chairman Jeff Gerstmann

When I was growing up a soap box was a small cardboard box in which soap was stored before use. These days you young whipper snappers stand on these cardboard boxes to give informal speeches or you find yourselves on the internet as an object of interest as decreed by by—decreed by who? According to the Democratic People's Republic (DPR) Soapbox's manifesto it is decided by "We" a mythical entity supposedly composed of GameSpot editors and writers but there is little evidence that this is the case. Indeed while now and then those around me would be highlighted and tied to the DPR Soapbox to preach their diatribe of choice neither they nor I knew exactly how they got there.

"All editorials are considered". This mythical We is a governmental entity with communistic systems of power. Even those two sentence blogs tagged accidentally as editorials were considered; for all blogs are created equal. But are they equally considered? What distinguished an editorial written by a mere plebeian and an editorial written by a +1 Orator of Distinction. An emblem; a rank; a bureaucratic medal.

While these Orators of Distinction distinctly orated there would be hundreds of others who orated just as distinctly. But even in a communistic society where all blogs are equal there was no room for all of them in spite of the quite noticeable fact that not all DPR Soapbox blogs are created equal—and nowhere in the DPR Soapbox manifesto does it claim as much. Indeed once you get that emblem you will be forever known as an Orator of Distinction, whether you orate distinctly or not. So long as you continue to contribute the odd editorial at least or until The Hague catches you and you become an Orator of Extinction. After the legitimate trial of course!

One can find on the DPR Soapbox blogs even more self serving, poorly researched, and poorly written than this one! An astounding statement, but one that rings true. One does wonder if those responsible for such blogs have always written in this way or through their permanent governmental position they have grown fat on fine wine and harlots and developed a bad case of gout in their typing fingers while beneath them their equals toil and sweat in the field trying their very best, their fingers nearly falling off, to win a place on the DPR Soapbox with high quality editorials that we all read, but We certainly do not.

But there is hope—or at least there was one. But because as with writing an editorial and having We not read it ends and does not begin with sadness I shall first talk of hope; for that is what must come before disappointment.

How to Climb the DPR Soapbox

Jeff Gerstmann demonstrates how RedSpot desalination works on the Irrigation Minister, Alex Navarro.

Unless there is a snake solid enough to support your weight in the DPR cardboard Soapbox then you will find that climbing one is a hard task indeed. Cardboard easily breaks; especially cardboard manufactured by the RedSpot Cardboard Monopoly. But as you can see from reading this very editorial I have climbed the cardboard box; but it was not easy. I will tell you of my story, and of the great nation of the Monkeys Writing Shakespeare Union where a man would not have the sweat of his brow licked off it by We.

As a small idealistic boy my father would sit me on his lap and tell me that if I worked hard, led a good, honest life free of deviancy I could have whatever I wanted. My father was an alcoholic so the fact that he had very little elated my fears that what he said was not true; I did all the work for him while he drank!

So I worked hard. I would churn out blog after blog on the blogofield. I cultivated a cult following and in one glorious moment of viral marketing I managed to a amass a blog to be proud of; it was a crop of seventy five comments and filled with the sort of content that one finds not in the goulash soup of the gulags made with grass and crickets, but in the gourmet treats that reside on We's banquet table itself.

But those who had the pleasure of viewing my blog through viral marketing tasted nothing but the dirtiest of flesh, and probably got a few viruses in the process; but we were not afforded soap to try and wash this sin from our own tainted flesh. We gave us nothing.

I could see my error; it was in the deviancy. I no longer hoped that blogs of a deviant nature would find their way onto the DPR Soapbox and thus started working on honest to God gaming editorials about GTA's technical failings and the like, but the harder I worked, and the more I sweated and the more We licked me the more I became disillusioned with the way the state of DPR Soapbox was run.

This is when in an act of rebellious protest I posted a blog pointing out the inherent homophobia of RedSpot after one instance of deviancy was erased from history by We's censorship department: Multinational Overpost Destruction Service (MODS). One Kevin-V replied, assuring me that because RedSpot had hired a homosexual it could not be homophobic. But few agreed with him, and there was a great disturbance in the great nation of DPR Soapbox. To silence this protest before anarchy took over We, or Kevin-V, gave me a DPR Soapbox emblem.

I was a fool! Until now I have stayed silent, but the emblem which I once held dear to my heart has become a symbol of my own hypocrisy. It has become a symbol of how We has oppressed the good citizens of DPR Soapbox for so long, and with the collapse of the great nation of DPR Soapbox I could not stay silent any longer. My brethren: they may have removed us from the public view, but amongst our peers we are not silent. We can fight. We must stand up: we must fight for all that we have done for DPR Soapbox!

We are one: whether you write only great editorials, or get a little lazy now and then, we must band together. Now is not the time to destroy ourselves: now is the time to destroy We.

Free Monkeys Writing Capitalist Manifestos

Greg Kasavin, the most well loved leader RedSpot has seen. They say he treated fellow countrymen as well as he treated his hair.

But brothers, sisters and all primates. There once was a great land. A land where those esteemed members of the elite were only of the elite through common consensus: not because they were equals! Indeed they were superior, and some of them were very superior indeed!

A virtual magazine that was open for anyone to apply for—in many ways like DPR Soapbox—bore wonderful fruits: exciting, informing and entertaining articles that were all quality checked on an individual basis, but it was a small country. Small enough for everything to be considered: and the fact that you know what you had written would be seen to and not be ignored by your superiors meant that, while still frustrating, rejection was not quite so empty. There was closure.

But this country had close ties to RedSpot, the land in which DPR Soapbox resides. I was told by my comrade monkeys in whispered and hushed voices that those who had a DPR Soapbox emblem could PM some of We (only one member of We was named making the total known members of We two) and point out writers they deemed worthy of DPR Soapbox accreditation. This sort of nepotism was not present in the nation of MWSU, but perhaps a necessity in the larger nation of DPRS.

Brothers, sisters, and apes. If you know of someone worthy of the DPR Soapbox do not merely offer consolatory comments on their worthy blog, but PM a member of We. If you can find one. Nepotism might be nasty, but perhaps given the size of RedSpot and DPR Soapbox it is necessary. Fight for those whose writing you like!

There is nothing wrong with a little viral marketing; especially when sent to those who work for a nation who likes ads of its own—oh yes, we will get to that in a moment.

And what of MWSU now? Alas it has sunk to the bottom of the ocean condemned forever to be trapped beneath the sea with no rapture for those who sunk with it.

All Nations under RedSpot Rule Unite As One

Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie: the only two known members of We.

It is not just us Soapboxians that have fallen victim to RedSpot's new anti-privatisation tyranny, but also those from the USSR (Union of Self-Served Reviewers), and let us not forget our brothers from Union who have been victims of RedSpot oppression for years and years. Genuine reform was promised years ago, but then Union was buried under tariffs and trade restrictions.

USSR has been swept under the rug; the rug of advertising. In the ghettos where citizens would once live in squalor every day writing original content that generated more clicks and advertising revenue for RedSpot now we found only ads themselves: we have been replaced by currency, and nothing more. We are but dollars to RedSpot, and though we have contributed to their wealth with no prize for ourselves but the opportunity of nourishing discourse, we have been forgotten and now find ourselves slowly being starved.

But they keep us barely alive on the smallest of rations hidden away in gulags where no one would think to look when searching for discourse. And DPR Soapboxians? We have it only marginally better off, relegated to a community tab that few will click on, and why should they? There is no mention of Orators of Distinction. Just a spotlight of the community; the sort of spotlight probably used to spot those trying to run across the border from DPR Soapbox to South Soapbox. No one wants to see these poor souls gunned down.

Today I saw a horrible sight. A blog starved to death. It lay all skin and bones on the land of DPR Soapbox. Yes, it was an Orator of Distinction, but it had not had one single nourishing comment. My brothers and sisters we must rise up—we must not let this happen to any other DPR Soapboxians. We must fight back. We must let RedSpot know that DPRS cannot be crushed so easily, that the USSR will not be trapped in concentration camps for ever—and if we fail? Then we must use our Union brothers as inspiration. They have survived on nothing for years; their existence may not be as full as our own at first glance, but they have shown us that survival in the spite of RedSpot oppression is possible. They have survived. We will survive.

They can take our DPR Soapbox land from us, they can cover the USSR with ads, but they cannot—they will not take our words. They will not silence us.