Television Without Pity
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Television Without Pity is a website devoted to snark and 25-30 page "recaps" of tv shows written like poorly researched Greek mythology term papers. The website is run by a clique of over-intellectual (they wish) "writers" who masturbate at the thought of their "power" as recappers with fandoms in hopes of getting shout-outs by their favorite TV shows. However, as many fans of the website know, most of the recaps are instead poorly written fanfiction, vehicles for the writer's personal political views, shoe shopping tales, and other flaming bullshit they see fit to force upon their audience. The website was founded to slobber over the shitfest that was Dawson's Creek, and expanded to other shit ass teevee shows. It was recently sold to Bravo. Bravo promptly added blogs no one reads and a movie review section that no one reads, which gets more promotion than the actual recaps. And to top it all off, they redesigned the website to make it utterly unreadable.
Recap nicknames
A common annoying trend that the website has is that many recappers feel the need to refer to characters on shows not by their actual names but by cutesy insider nicknames. These nicknames are assigned within 5.3 seconds of a character's first appearance appearing on screen and are often ultra-insider as far as referring to the actor/actress's past work, insulting term of contrivance, or just plain contrived in an attempt to be "cute". The nicknames are almost never explained or rescinded, unless a guest recapper is brought on for an episode while the regular recapper goes MIA due to lack of coke and heroin.
For some shows, like "24", this renders the entire recap one huge inside joke that is impenetrable to the casual reader who isn't familiar with the show and its history.
Jacob, Queen of the Pretentious Nerdwank
One of the worst things to happen to a fan of a show being recapped on TWOP was the arrival of Jacob. Jacob, a gay man who wishes he could make money writing big fancy word-filled essays on tv shows, has a tendency to write 25-30 page recaps filled with melodramatic bullshit and pseudo-intellectual rantings, complete with references to "The Hero's Quest" and attempts to make over-the-top Greek mythology metaphors out of all of the shows he recaps. His antics were among the reasons the website stopped carrying Doctor Who, since fans kept complaining about how his recaps were unreadable garbage, let alone the fact that he was such a huge Rose Tyler fanboy that he was going out of his way to frame each episode as being all about Rose, Rose, Rose.
His awesome reviews would make an English professor spontaneously combust, as they contain 9,008 run-on sentences because the fucktard can't possibly structure his thoughts with any iota of fluidity or eloquence. He also has a tendency to be completely inept at the most simple of professional blogger activities: Rating shit with letter grades. His superiority complex leads him to rate everything an A+, proving he has the taste level of a hillbilly on Paxil. But then again, this could've been evidenced solely by his tendency to be sexually attracted to every DESU poseur to grace the show with their presence.
Forums
The forum on Television Without Pity is the most arbitrarily over-policed, nitpicky forum on the entire Internets. It's also the most anal retentive about its Nazism, as demonstrated by the fact that they've written page upon page of FAQs, none of which offer any answers of value. And god help you if you try to openly question ANYTHING about the website, its policy of what shows get recapped and which shows won't, or which shows are on the official unofficial "shit list" of shows that will never, ever get recapped. In seconds, you'll be banhammered for daring to rock the boat and not sucking cock/cunt of the recappers.
The worst moderator is the above-mentioned Jacob, who tries to hide his identity by using an alias, "Bayliss", as a moderator. Jacob/Bayliss will ban you for any arbitrary reason.
Others include "Miss Alli", who ignores her job as a fabulous lawyer, to spend approximately 23.5 hours a day policing all the forums of the shows she recaps, and then the basement forums too. Every once in a while, she takes time out of her busy schedule to have users pay her to show up at meetups, where she typically gets shitfaced and tells random strangers about her various "TV husbands" that she thinks about while she masturbates in her cold, empty apartment she lives in by herself because of her inability to get a husband. She's apparently equipped with a wi-fi enabled laptop, as even when she's taking a colossal shit you're not safe from being banned in two minutes flat. Bravo wisely fired her when it took over the site.
Also of note is the worst moderator ever, Strega, who makes a huge fuss about banning people (or "warning" them if Strega feels like a benevolent overlord) for daring to speak above a whisper as far as internet arguments go, as well as for bringing up questions about why the website refuses to recap certain shows yet recaps other even shittier shows that inevitably get banished to "permanent hiatus" when it turns out that no one wants to read recaps of them.
"Shipping"
Squeeing fangirls, after 2.3 nanoseconds of two characters appearing on screen, start demanding that the two fictional characters should have or proceed towards having a fictional relationship. If they don't get their way, they're never watching that fucking show again, especially if the two characters don't fuck by the season finale.
Cliches
Cliches on the TWoP forums are meant to be beaten into the ground so hard that you cannot detect a trace of originality in a soil sample with a fucking electron microscope. Examples:
- Hoyay!
- "Everything you want in the worst possible way"
- I just threw up in my mouth a little.
- You owe me a new keyboard!
- Coke and cum all over the keyboard!
- Shut up, [character's name].
- [descriptive non-existent tag] comment [/descriptive non-existent tag]
- YMMV
- Cutsie nicknames for character pairing: ("LoVe", "Clex", "Lumi", "MiSa", "Lacy", "RustMon", etc)
- An episode is terrible but redeemed by a character being shirtless (always men, since only coke-addicted gay men write on or read TWoP)
- Roslin/Adama=TRU LUV!!!!!!!!!!
- Ronnie Gardocki is a super-spy triple-agent God among men who will smite the sinners and right the wrongs of man and make male facial hair fashionable again!!!!!!"
- I'm online 20 hours a day, and I piss into an empty 2-Liter so I don't miss anything
- 'See You Next Tuesday/Catch You Next Tuesday or other euphemism for "cunt".
The Pixel Challenge
Here users can use MS Paint to make Image Macross with low-resolution Tv screen captures. The highest level of skill shown in most of these pictures is having less-crooked thought bubbles. An obsession with Veronica Mars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Lost is a must, or photoshopping even gayer shit into Smallville or a random Adult Swim screencap. No one can figure out why this shit is funny, or considered photoshopping if all they're doing is adding thought balloons.
Shut the motherfucking hell up
If you did not watch the latest episode of "Lost", "The Amazing Race", "Veronica Mars", or "Blue's Clues", laptop in lap, taking notes in MS Word, and do not post your thoughts within 5 minutes of the episode ending, well, you're just repeating what other people have said. That's a fifteen days, fifteen pages violation! Now bend over and take the fist like a good little bitch.
Healthy disrespect for users
The writers on Television Without Pity are teh best ever, and everything they put out is gold. Platinum, any precious metal. Their cum is tastier than Ron Jeremy's, and that's saying something. They shit platinum nuggets, and even ordering a Happy Meal at McDonald's shows that what silver-tongued devils they are. Every word, every sentence, every observation is on the level of Shakespeare himself, except that they're writing about Billie Piper or Katie Suck-Off or the mom from Donnie Darko. Don't dare even do anything but praise the recaps, or else they'll write you into one of [1] them.
Yes, somebody dared to criticize Pamie (a self-important John Kerry ass-kisser), and she turned her ever-so-magnificent "snark" towards the hand that feeds her. Dan Kwa, former "Lost" writer, answered criticism of his writing style by referring to the critic as [2]"Goofy McTwat Twat". W00t! Shit, this is what you get from a quality education. Everyone reading should be envious of that level of writing skill; it takes years to master that kind of grasp of the English language. In fact, you should read that and then go cut yourself for shame that you will never, ever be good enough to write for that website.
Snobbery and obsession
Everyone who posts at TWoP forums does not "watch" tv, they "view" it. They view it through an expensive lens of post-high school education, and they can see the subtle nuances, the plot points, the chemical make-up of Kiefer Sutherland's nacho farts, etc, etc. No matter what you write, they've done it, too, and better. They're more educated, they're more insightful, and your grammar fucking sucks. Take yo ass back to IMDb, where people have actually touched a cock or a vagina once in their life.
Legendary users
Roobear, and his many Canadian-province named alter-egos is well-loved for his intense, burning hatred of that fucking Bastard Elmo from Sesame street, BET, and his undying love for jailbait Cutie Pie Kay Panabaker. Roobear's greatest dreams include accelerants, dousing puppets with hot lava, and pistol-whipping Frankie Muniz.
