Hey look, it’s another Rantlister interview!
I don’t think I have many more of these old Rantlister interviews left. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s only one more after this one. I have a couple other things from Rantlister that I may or may not repost, namely two iterations of their “About” page which gives the history of the site.
When picking List authors for interviews, the decision process was pretty much non-existent (save for some exceptions like Maddox or Thilo). We’d literally be on the forum bullshitting and realize that we didn’t have an interview lined up for the month. So we’d basically pick a site at random and shoot the owner an email with a bunch of generic stock questions (man I’m so disappointed in myself for using those questions).
That’s how we got this interview with Haddox of Sydlexia in January of 2011.
Haddox started his site as an outright parody of Maddox. During a time when a lot of internet ranters were being accused of copying Maddox, Haddox took it a step further and actually copied Maddox, from the layout to outright calling his own page “The Best Page in the Universe”. Even the name “Haddox” is a play on the legacy that Maddox built as an internet writer. Thankfully, Haddox has the distinction of being one of the only List sites still actually online (even though he hasn’t updated in 10 years), so you can see this all for yourself. While other writers were doing their best to avoid being compared to Maddox, Haddox leaned right into it in an amusing act of defiance that I don’t think many others could have pulled off.
Based on that, it would have been easy to dismiss Haddox and write him off as just another cookie cutter internet ranter trying to ride the coattails of the original, but Haddox’s site wasn’t anything like that at all. Sure, some of Haddox’s articles were clearly meant to be parodies of Maddox articles, but to dismiss Haddox as just being nothing more than a parody would be laughably wrong. Many of Haddox’s articles were original rants about various things that annoyed Haddox. In fact, Haddox wrote one of my favorite internet rants of all time, “How to ensure you get shitty service at a supermarket deli“. As someone who worked at a supermarket deli for almost ten years, that particular article really resonated with me, and anyone who’s worked at a supermarket deli will completely understand just how frustrating and annoying all of the things mentioned in that article really are.
Haddox was hosted on Sydlexia, a humor site that had a focus on 80’s and 90’s pop culture and video games. I’ll admit, I never really read Sydlexia’s stuff, but I had heard of them before I came to Rantlister. Sydlexia is also still online, with their last update being in 2017, so feel free to go give their page a read.
Anyway, here’s the interview I did for Rantlister with Haddox of Sydlexia back in January of 2011.
gr33tz y’all. This month on Rantlister Interviews, we have Haddox of Sydlexia.com. Wow, I was able to do this two months in a row and not fall victim to apathy. Fucking ace.
1. Why did you start writing?
I was supposed to be working on something else, and I didn’t really feel like it. One of my friends had been complaining about the lack of Maddox updates and the quality of recent Maddox updates, so I started the Haddox rants as a joke. The first five rants were written in about an hour and then backdated to make the page look older than it was.
2. How would you describe your site?
Profanity, misogyny, misanthropy, and dumb jokes mixed with occasional flashes of brilliance.
3. Have you ever thought about taking your writing to another medium?
I did! I was published in a porn magazine: http://haddox.sydlexia.com/im_published.php
They solicited me, though. I was paid surprisingly well for it, especially since they just reprinted something I had already written. But honestly, I prefer internet writing. Once you try and take your writing to another medium, you’re subject to deadlines set by other people. I don’t work very well with deadlines.
4. What’s your favorite website, other than your own?
In terms of rant sites? NinjaPirate. In general? Cracked. Whoever would have thought that a failed magazine would make such a great fucking website?
5. How did you hear about Rantlister?
Drake found me on MySpace, back when Myspace was actually relevant, and added me as a friend. I forget if he told me about the original list, or if I found it through my site logs, but I think I’ve been on the list pretty much from the beginning. When Drake stopped doing the list and temporarily retired from writing, Prophet e-mailed everyone on the list and let us know and he would be picking up the torch. Then when Prophet deleted his site, Bob Smash e-mailed everyone again and let us about what would become Rantlister. I still have those e-mails, and it’s pretty funny seeing some of the old sites who were CCed on them. Doon Brothers, anyone?
6. Describe your perfect day.
I wake up at 10 AM, and have sex with a sexy 33-year-old mom and her sexy 18-year-old daughter simultaneously… and sexily. This lasts for about an hour. Then I take a nap for an hour. Then we have sex again, and I take another nap. The sex/nap combo happens about five more times, then we order pizza, do some cocaine, and play Mario Kart 64.
7. Who or what do you hate most?
Vegans. They’re so fucking whiny and self-righteous. I don’t really mind vegetarians; vegetarianism is a dietary choice. But veganism is a lifestyle choice, and a big fucking part of that lifestyle is trying to bully others into becoming vegans as well. Shut the fuck up, vegans. I don’t care what you eat, but don’t you fucking DARE try to tell me what I can or cannot eat.
8. Do you read any of the other sites listed at Rantlister?
I read everyone on Rantlister, though some much more frequent than others. My favorite reads are NinjaPirate, BobSmash, DrakeGTA, and AngryJerk.
9. Being a ranter, it is almost inevitable that you have been compared to Maddox or accused of ripping him off at some point. What is your opinion of Maddox and his website, and your response to people who compare the two of you?
I like a lot of Maddox’s stuff. Not of all his stuff is great, and it’s easy to pick on the stuff that isn’t great, but hell, not everything I write is great either.
As for comparisons, my site obviously invites them. As I mentioned in response to the first question, the site was started as a joke. I copied the Maddox layout and changed the color scheme. The original nine articles are written in a parody of Maddox’s style, with some of them being obvious and direct parodies of popular Maddox rants. Somehow, I got positive feedback on it. Starting with “Stupid shit that girls put in their AIM profiles”, I started writing in my own voice and began taking the site more seriously.
10. Picture yourself being given unlimited and unconstrained authority over your home country. What are some of the main things would you change?
I live in America. I’d lower taxes, cut welfare, sell off most of our overseas military bases, decrease the national debt, open up relations with Cuba, and institute a trade embargo against China. Do you know how much shit we import from China? A whole fucking lot. Do you know how much of our stuff they import? Pretty much nothing. Fuck those assholes. I’d also allow Japan to have their own military again, and create a twenty year time table at the end of which Japan would be completely responsible for their own national defense. I would not engage in any military action whatsoever unless America, Japan, South Korea, or Israel were directly attacked by enemy forces.
11. What made you choose to call your page “The Best Page in the Universe” despite Maddox’s page having the same name?
Well, “The Second Best Page in the Universe” was also taken, and I really didn’t want to offend Thilo. Thilo could definitely fucking kick my ass in a fight. I figured Maddox wouldn’t really give a shit, and if he did, I could probably beat him up. I figure I could grab him by his back hair and suplex him. Game over. Besides, “The Best Page in the Universe” is more of a claim than an official title. People refer to Maddox’s site as “Maddox” and my site as “Haddox”.
12. What’s up with the name Haddox? Sounds kind of fishy to me.
Well again, the site started as a parody. Haddox rhymes with Maddox, it’s an actual last name, and it gave me an excuse to misappropriate the Flying Hellfish logo, so it was perfect.
13. How often do you actually get fan mail and hate mail?
When I updated more regularly, I’d generally get about 40 e-mails per week, usually split pretty evenly. Now I get roughly three per week, usually one fan mail and two hate mails.
14. Are you in fact Syd Lexia, the guy who owns the site your page is hosted on?
No.