Five Years of Jerkcity
Jerkcity is five years old today. In celebration of this event, I offer the Foreward to the, currently out of print, Big Book of Jerkcity.
This is the scene that I’m picturing. You’ve bought this book, read it, laughed a bit, and then tucked it away on some shelf, and forgotten about it. Now, it’s three months later and a potential girlfriend (or boyfriend) is wandering through your stuff. You have no problem with this because they’re getting to know you and, face it, you want to get laid.
Pretty much everything on that shelf is dull; it’s O’Reilly books, it’s a book on Photoshop tips and tricks, it’s the token Hemingway book to show your depth and, wait, what’s this? Dongs? This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, this is the moment that defines Jerkcity. “What the hell is this?”
Folks go two ways with Jerkcity. My assumption is that a majority of folks read one or two strips and end up offended in some manner. End of experience. The minority read a few strips and then a few more andsearc suddenly it’s three hours later and they’re searching Google for a nonexistent Jerkcity FAQ which explains what “t deuce hi” actually means.
Your potential significant other is going to see the cover and will quickly fall into one of the two camps. Depending on that landing, Jerkcity has had a say in whether or not you get laid – and that rules.
All of the regular Jerkcity players hang out online in a private IRC-like chat server. The core group has been there pretty much 24 hours a day since the mid-’90s. We’re there right now: Atandt, Deuce, Pants, Rands, and Spigot. Someone is talking about Togo’s and dongs. It’s a slow night, but not all nights are slow.
Very often, there are random spurts of comedy between one or more of the crowd and that comedy sometimes ends up in the Archives. This is a private database of over 9,000 excerpts of chat logs.
The existence of these archives is pretty much the entire reason that Jerkcity exists. The other two pieces were built on the fact we’d taken the time to save all our dick jokes.
First, I had the Jerkcity domain name. I don’t recollect the instant it showed up in my head, but I do remember thinking, “It’s short, it’s memorable, and pleasantly rude.” I’d no idea what to do with the name. I remember chatting briefly with Spigot about a professional masturbation resource, but, in the end, it’s more fun to jerk it than talk about it, so I dropped that idea.
The second piece of the Jerkcity puzzle was Comic Chat. This has been floating around my head as a potential tool for months not because of any technical ingenuity of the Microsoft product, but because I liked the artwork and I can’t draw at all.
Sometime during the summer of 1998, I was flying down Highway 85 in California and the three pieces fell into place. Three years of rude comedy in archive form + the simplicity of Comic Chat + a domain name looking for a home.
I drafted a few strips in Comic Chat based on the Archives, threw together the original site and tested it with the crowd. Fifteen hundred strips later, Jerkcity gets roughly 5,000 unique hits a day. I don’t really know if that’s a lot or little, but it’s a lot more than I ever thought we’d get.
I’d first like to apologize if Jerkcity prevented you from getting laid. I’d suggest that if you’ve taken the time to actually purchase this book that you probably better off without him/her – they wouldn’t have understood you anyway.
Lastly, I’d like to thank the Jerkcity fans. Considering Jerkcity is an enterprise that loses money and is supported by the free time of folks who have a lot of other stuff to do, it’s gratifying to wander into our usage logs and continue to see the Jerkcity fan base grow.
We’ll get you laid yet, I swear.
Rands,
February, 2003
Breaking News
CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, QATAR, April 15, 2003 — Coalition forces destroyed nine separate Iraqi Baath Party headquarters overnight, a Central Command spokesman said at a press briefing today.
The attacks included an “emerging target” in northeast Basra where 200 Iraqi regime paramilitary members were believed to be assembled for a meeting.
“We’ve been able to target some key elements of (the) Baath Party and some … terrorist cell organizations,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor E. Renuart, Central Command director of operations, “but what’s more important is we appeared to have discovered a cache of previously unreleased Jerkcity books.”
The general continued, “From the samples we’ve found, the books are clearly high quality. These books were not produced by Iraqi irregulars — these are the real deal… possibly produced directly by elite Republican Guard units. Our initial assessment of the books is that they contain 128 pages of weapons grade Jerkcity comedy.”
Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. commander of Operation Iraqi Freedom added, “Additionally, our intelligence is reporting the discovery of an original Jerkcity glossary located at the end of each of the book. This was an unexpected find in item usually considered to be a reproduction of existing comedy. We’re very pleased.”
“Pricing and distribution will be determined at a time of our choosing and on our terms,” the commander finished, “But we’re talking a matter of days, not weeks.”
[4/20/03 Update]: We’re live…
JERKCITY CARES
Pants put together JERKCITY CARE PACKAGES for all of you Jerkcity fans.
If you were interested in acquiring one, you should’ve dropped your address at a NOW REMOVED link.
Supplies were limited and of varying quality.
JERKCITY SUCKS PEOPLE
I’ve no clue when we rolled the 2.0 version of Jerkcity, but WITH EACH PASSING DAY THE 2.0 VERSION OF JERKCITY GETS OLDER AND OLDER.
What I am wondering is this:
1) What do you hate about the current Jerkcity layout?
2) What do you love?
3) What features do you think we lack?
4) AND NO WE’RE NOT PLANNING ON CHARGING FOR JERKCITY OR ASKING FOR MONEY
WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO IS KEEP THE MAGIC ALIVE FOLKS.
JERKCITY UPDATE
rands > T PANTS DO WE HAVE AN ETA WHEN JERKCITY CGIS WILL BE WORKING (ROUGHLY)
pants > T RANDS I HAVE THOUGHTFULLY CONSIDERED YOUR QUESTION
rands > AND
pants > SORRY I FELL ASLEEP
pants > OKAY WHAT WAS THE QUESTION AGAIN (ULTIMATELY I HAVE NO IDEA)
Rands is still talking about these fucking t-shirts
I just completed a roll-up of the current voting for the JerkShirts. On a percentage basis, this what you folks are saying:
- Logo #1: 25%
- Logo #2: 6%
- Logo #3: 3%
- Logo #4: 28%
- Logo #5: 8%
No, that does not add up to 100%. This is due to the fact that a lot of you had other ideas that you wanted to vote on. Popular alternate themes were:
- Panel From Random Good Strip + URL
- Just The Fucking Logo PLZ
- Ripping on the Long sleeve Requirement
- Requests for BLACK t-Shirts (We’ll call this the NERD/GOTH requirement henceforth)
I’m currently leaning towards either Logo #4 (because that is what a majority of folks voted for) or Alternate Suggestion #1 (because we can get a lot of mileage on REUSED COMEDY).
IF YOU HATE THE DESIGN WE CHOOSE I RECOMMEND ADJUSTING YOU BROWSER TO CLASSIC PEANUTS. Also, if we have a modicum of success with this run, we will be printing more. Also++, it appears we’ve be blowing someone over at Rotten.com because Jerkcity merchandise will be showing up over there, as well. Go figure.
There are many reasons why we’re doing this t-shirt thing and none of them have to do with making money. It mostly has to do with equipping you, the Jerkcity Denizen, with a mobile apparatus which enables you to silently trickle Jerkcity propaganda on the unknowing. THEY’RE ALSO GREAT FOR PICKING UP CHICKS.
Lastly, the first run of shirts offered @ Jerkcity.com will be SPECIAL in that they’ll likely pass through ACTUAL JERKCITY HANDS rather than be handled by a distribution house. This means they will be ALTERED IN SOME SPECIAL WAY — WHO KNOWS.
Rands talks about "JERKCITY", pt. 1
Q: WHERE DID THE NAME JERKCITY COME FROM?
A: The domain was thought up in 1998 independently of any actual use for it. A good domain name should just reek of good uses. Obviously, Jerkcity did. Thoughts of the ultimate MASTURBATION site came to mind, but seemed like a lot of work, and besides, I really didn’t want end up given teenagers tips on jerking. That is best a quest of self discovery
Q:
HOW DO YOU DRAW THE STRIPS?
A: We don’t. As is commonly known, we use a discontinued program called Microsoft Comic Chat. The dialog comes from a database of FUNNY SHIT said by JERKFOLK in a PRIVATE PLACE. We’ve significantly automated this process so that the generation of raw strips is very simple. Once the basic strp is done, we add the usul URL/TITLE/GRAYTEXT. Many strips are done completely OUTSIDE of Comic Chat when WE AREN’T TOO STONED TO SEE STRAIGHT.
Q: WHO ACTUALLY DOES THE STRIPS?
A: The mantel of JERK_STRIPPER has gone back and forth over the years. Rands started the strip back in August 1998. A few months later, Pants got hooked and he began generating strips as well as providing support for the care and feeding of the site. THEN RANDS LIFE GOT INTERESTING and Pants pretty much ran the thing for many months slash years… it was during this time that the JERKCITY MACHINE was really create in the form of all sorts of wacky Perl scripts made strip publishing really simple.
Strip creation is now essentially shared between Rands and Pants, but HE’S MUCH FASTER THAN I.
Q: WHAT IS FOJ?
A: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Q: I WANT TO BE A PART OF JERKCITY — WHERE IS THE IRC SERVER? I AM REALLY FUCKING FUNNY.
A: I’m sure you are, but no.
Rands talks about the JERKCITY t-shirt escapade
As anyone who is a frequent reader of the comic knows, we’ve been promising Jerkcity t-shirts for years. Pants has gone through several gyrations which I believe he’s only moderately happy with. These gyrations are sitting in a box somewhere in California.
After a little help and a little research, I found a reasonable process
to g
enerate
GENUINE JERKCITY T-SHIRTS with little to no effort and money on the part
of the JERK PLAYERS while still generating a quality product. MORE ON
THIS LATER. The problem with this set-up is we still needed to find the
proper logo/graphic to put on a shirt.
This was the first set of requirements for the JERKSHIRTS that we came up with:
a) Must be definitively JERKCITY-like
b) Must be able to be worn in public place (IE: ASK ME ABOUT AIDSY COCKSUCKING
wasn’t going to fly)
c) Must force the casual PASSER-BYER to think, "Huh? What the fuck
is a Jerkcity?"
c) Must be long sleeved (BECAUSE I FUCKING LIKE IT)
With this set of requirements, I came up with a design which had HGUAHGUHAGUHAGH in front and COY PANTS + URL in back. While considering this, I fired up my favorite browser and perused popular t-shirt sites to do a little ad-hoc market research. THE RESULT: There wasn’t a single popular shirt which had artwork on the front AND back of a shirt. (Yes, I know there are lots of shirts out there which do, but the ones which ACTUALLY SELL AND MAKE MONEY don’t)
What I interpreted this to mean was that I was significantly OVERESTIMATING the amount of a time the average person looks at a shirt. The key was that the entire message MUST BE delivered in a nanosecond and assuming that this attention-deprived person was going to take the time to look at the back was incorrect. This feels right when you think about it… what t-shirts do you actually remember? HAVE A NICE DAY. <INSERT SMILEY FACE> SAVE GAS. FART IN A JAR. Simple. Elegant.
Ok, so we needed a revised set of requirements:
a) Jerkcity-like
b) Public apparel
c) Simple Frontal Artwork
d) STILL LONG SLEEVED (DON’T THINK I’M GOING TO CHANGE THIS YOU NAZIS)
This lead to the current incarnation of T-SHIRT MOCK-UPS which we’ve asked JerkFans to vote on. This vote has been up since last Monday (4/8/02) and after a rough sampling of the emails which keep rolling in, there is no obvious winner…in fact, folks are sending OTHER ARTWORK in which is JUST BLURRING THE ISSUE. SOME HELP YOU FUCKERS ARE.
What I’m looking for is rather simple. I’m waiting to present a design to someone I know and respect and I want their reaction to be, "Hahah. That is fucking funny."
We’re not there, yet. And I need a nap.
