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I heard of this site named Rexxfield, ( www.rexxfield.com/ ) who specializes with online reputation and some methods for repairing them. One method that I found very interesting is their OLIMIRE process that uses web search engines criteria to push offensive sites off the first page of Google Searches, or at the very least, below the fold. (FYI, the Fold of a web page is where the bottom of the screen is, and you need to scroll down to see the rest. Its usually about 700 to 800 pixels down from the top of the visible window of your browser.)
Im contacting this company hoping that they could help me improve my own personal reputation. The proprietor of this companys writing a book about it and hes looking for case studies. However, I have the feeling that I could be a rather formidable challenge for him, mainly because most of the flack in my Google searches are caused by my own hand. Mainly, the old fanfictions of the late 90s to early naughts that I dont even have on my page anymore, but other people have gladly offered in their own pages without my permission or control. These sites, of course, have a higher rank than my own site, and it has gravely affected my chances for personal development and even, in general, get over with what happened in the past.
The point is this: Im sorry for writing Piasa the way I did. I want to rewrite it and make it what it should have been (a domestic take on a Toho-style Godzilla movie) all along. Im sorry for Sailor Moon: American Kitsune. Im sorry for making the original version of BAM the quagmire it became. Im sorry for all those half-assed works, both in word and in art, that most people troll me over. Im sorry for getting so bogged down in the flack that I end up dropping projects and looking for a better replacement in areas that might not welcome me in. And Im especially sorry for being an ass about it all. I wish Ive never done any of it. I wish I could leave it behindit is over a decade old, I need to sayand move on with my life.
Problem is, Im just not allowed.
Not as long as the Encyclopedia Dramatica and the other anti sites stuck on me like the Scarlet Letter remain in top ranking on Google searches of my name. Without this digital millstone around my neck, I would have forgotten all about these sites, or at least, be in on the so-called joke.
If you think what they do is harmless and accuse me of whining, let me ask you this: If I came looking for a job, and all you see in me is the Google search, would you hire me? Would you take as much as a passing glance at my resume or my submission? Would you ever consider what I can contribute to your organization or company, or even your life? Would you think of anything other to do than dress me downin public for added effectand see me get thrown out of your sight? Regardless of who I am now and how far Ive matured since then?
People say I should be happy that Im famous. Well, with this level of Fame, I should be getting offers to do books and movies. Projects that should get me off Social Security.
At the heart of the matterthe reason why Im still hereis the one thing I want out of life. The one thing thats hopelessly impossible for me to get in some areas: Forgiveness. Redemption. An image of me thats different than what Ive gottendeservingly soduring the nineties.
I want to be known for what I can do, instead of someone elses lulz.
Thats why Im looking into this Rexxfield comapny, with the hopes that I can at least salvage some good out of what could be the worst public reputation anyone outside of politics could ever have.
Its also why I want to publicly thank each and every one of you who still welcome me into your sites, groups, hearts, and minds. There isnt that many places I can go that doesnt troll me outright, and I feel strongly connected to the sites that do.
To all else, I want to ask you this: I dont know if youre either a diehard troll or someone who just heard of my reputation and want to know more about me directly. I wont make that distinction now. What Im asking out of you is something small, but at times would seem easier to rather cure cancer or change the orbit of the earth: I want you to keep an open mind about me. Im not the David Gonterman of over a decade ago, when I was younger and foolish. I want you to thinkmaybe in spite of either one of usthat I can be different than the image some has in me. And that I can be better than who I was and will continue to do so.
Thank you.
EDIT: Claiming that I deserve to be ED's whipping boy because of a perceived lack of improvement on my talent is rather counterproductive. I'm not talking about my talent, I'm talking about who I was personally then compared to now. When people talk about my bad reputation online, such as what Relee talks about, it's about me as a person. (Besides, people saying that someone deserves to be flamed at the levels I've gotten would be like taking someone who's been stabbed in the back and charging them with concealed carry.)
My 'Google Rep' would be part of why I haven't improved as an artist, according to some. You might work your butt off getting to the next level, but if all you're going to get out of it is what the ED says about you, what's the point? (Seeing the same poor results no matter what you do or how you do it could make for some major discouragement.)
That's why I'm glad and very grateful about the predominately positive responses I've been getting, throughout the net as well as here. It's the reason why I even bother keeping on going in this site.


Embrace your bad reputation. No, seriously. You might not like that you're viewed as some internet pariah, but you have to realize that you have something more people never come close to: an audience. Sure, they might just be "in it for the lulz", so to speak, but bad publicity is still publicity and your stuff has an actual reader base. What you need to do is just post absolutely everything you've ever created. Yes, everything. It doesn't matter how shameful you view it, just post it unaltered. From your earliest fanfic to the the latest comic, leave nothing untouched. This will ease the accusations that you're trying to dodge your reputation and, thus, remove one of the key elements that people are attacking.
Speaking of which, stop trying to delete your old web presence. It doesn't work. The harder you fight to get your stuff deleted, the harder people will fight back to keep it available. Your attempt to escape Encyclopedia Dramatica, MSTron, Commuter Barnacle, etc. has only fueled the fire and made people seek out more of your stuff. If you had not tried to delete everything possible and been a dick about it in the process, all your stuff would have just come to a natural death on its own and you'd have been largely forgotten.
However, since that option has largely lapsed a long time ago, you now have two choices. Either you embrace your reputation for creating self-indulgent, socially awkward wish fulfillment pieces (please don't deny that this isn't the case, even with your recent stuff) and start trying to outdo yourself (for example, take the ridiculously overpowered "Davey Crockett" and make him a literal god). You should probably refrain from the racism, sexism, homophobia, incest, etc., but you have a lot of material to work with.
Or, as somebody suggested, change your name. This is a much, much more difficult path because you have a, shall I say, "unique" artwork style and if David Gonterman vanished without a trace while somebody else with a suspiciously similar style showed up out of nowhere, people would figure it out pretty fast.
However, here's a third option: do both. Cultivate David Gonterman, the thin-skinned Marty Stu writer and cartoonist and post a couple rushed pieces of artwork and prose on a regular basis. Keep it in the radar. On the side, create a new persona with a completely different name and a radically altered artwork style. Use this persona to distance yourself from the David Gonterman that is subject to the constant ridicule of the internet. You still have a potential future. All you need to do is make it happen.
And it isn't like I intend on wiping out every vestige of my earlier years off the internet. There's a Gonterman Shrine by JSP which I've long ago came to an agreement on, and sites like the Portal of Evil, MSTron, Commuter Barnacle, and so on wasn't as vocally (okay, textually) in your face as the ED is. (It's impossible to ignore a troll when he's at full volume at distances only Marine Drill Instructors are accustomed to.) They have their tube, I have mine, we get along nicely.
And promoting this bad rep of mine is something I might be toying with in the near future. You've probably heard of WhatPort80, a site being touted as a Work Safe version of ED. I might actually make an act of preemption and actually write the David Gonterman article there, that acknowledges the dirty water--with the necessary links and all--that passed under the bridge and keeps up to date on the current projects. That way, you won't have me arguing that a certain page that talks smack about me isn't 'my' page at all because I didn't write it.
Anyway, writing your own critical article is a good first step. Getting past the hubris would definitely go a long way towards overcoming the reputation. However, it will only work if you are both comprehensive and offer original insights. Don't just say "Sailor Moon: American Kitsune was released over the first few half of 1996". Go one further and explain the rationale behind doing the infamous retcon of Usagi's backstory (even if, in retrospect, it boils down to "I wanted to share her specialness"). There are dozens of writeups about you and your work that endlessly feed off each other without offering anything all that different. If you want this writeup to really stick, you have to make it something more than just the Gonterman-approved edition of everything else.
Also, I find it amusing that somebody brought up TV Tropes because I wrote the original drafts for both "David Gonterman" and "Gonter Verse", specifically avoiding the tendency to complain in the process. They haven't really mutated that far away from that tone, either (for something so infamous, the description for American Kitsune is downright mellow). Anyway, it's most certainly not a troll website. Hell, most of the people on that site hate Encyclopedia Dramatica, 4chan, Something Awful, etc. and most references to said sites are pretty negative.
And there might be a place to make my own critical article in the WhatPort80 site, one of the many "Kinder and Gentler" humor sites that sprouted by the ED war. I've even signed up to edit pages with the hopes that I could make a David Gonterman article on it. I wonder if I could.
As far as Encyclopedia Dramatica goes, a pretty notorious furry managed to get his ED page removed, so you should have little bother. He posted about it here:
[link]
(I kinda fall into the PG-13 levels myself, IMHO.)