What caused Billy's disdain for Netphoria?
 

I'm curious, how did this all start? What events caused Bully's hatred towards Netphoria? Was it the fact that this forum wouldn't cover up the Devi Ever incident like certain a forum filled with depressed robots? What is the history of Bully vs Netphoria? It is quite fascinating that even until this very day, he holds the grudge. Is it because we're not just a bunch of starry-eyed worshippers of thee? Share your stories.

I'm having a hard time remembering now. I joined Netphoria towards the end of 1998.

I know Netphoria latched onto the "Bolly" thing (that James actually started from a Gish chat) but it was otherwise mostly positive towards the band throughout the Machina era. Or at least a lot more positive than it is now. Hype here was through the roof during the Arising shows.
When the O-board launched around 2000 that attracted a lot of new suck-up fans that worshipped every official post by Billy, I don't think the people there were very critical of anything he did, which was something that contrasted a lot with Netphoria. Though I think they were more heavily moderated and didn't allow trolls or jokes (or fun I guess).

Also this forum did have a reputation of sharing leaked albums, pretty much up until we got that sticky. Not sure how he felt about Machina leaking as early as it did.

Now it's actually pretty gentle, it was far more vicious / flat out unpleasant at times in the 2000s with some really fucked up stuff being said frequently. A lot of stuff was leaked here too over the years, did the Zeitgeist pictures get put up on here originally? I can't remember. Billy definitely set lawyers on Pakula when Arms Of Sheep etc got leaked which was probably the last notable event...

Nah, it was way before the Devi Ever thing.

I do think it started with the Bolly incident and the fact that he couldn't control the sentiment on Netphoria like he could the O-board. I'm not sure if there was something else specific though. I feel like I remember him disparaging the internet/internet forums back in the 90s but not sure where/when. Also, from what I remember even alt.music.smash-pumpkins had a bit of a cynical tone and lots of people from there ended up coming here.

I'm really surprised that Billy & his music would have attracted a cynical and critical fanbase.

This is how I remember it too. Negativity started in the Machina age, but it was critical of the mix/master than the band and the songs.

Zwan was a bit more divisive when MSOTS came out, because it was nothing like either of the live incarnations. Some fans still appreciated the pop/radio-friendly catchiness of the album, most still liked the live performances, and almost everyone loved Paz.

When b0lly broke up Zwan and trashed the other members very publicly (while they were all bound by NDAs, of course), and followed it up with an even more controversial solo album and tour is when Netphoria seemed to really turn on him directly.

What was the Bolly thing about?

Not that it started because of this but there was a hullabaloo with Linda Strawberry’s nudes

Bolly wants full control and adoration and he doesn’t get it from most Netphorians

Didn’t help that the day of the release of his solo album he said he was reuniting the Pumpkins.

But I remember the talk on the message boards getting so loud about the mastering of MSOTS, including even the Zwan official message board, that Billy had to address it. I imagine that pissed him off. “Loud at any volume”, lmao

That delicious time in 2005 when The Future Embrace was getting flamed by the critics and Pajo getting all the applause for Pajo the album :D:D:D

mmmm, truly delicious!

still remember there being a big display section for TFE when it came out

I wasn't even a fan then, but i had to stop & admire this shrine to the bald, naked man

anyway, here's wonderball

People hit the nail on the head with the fact that Netphoria represented an entity that could freely criticize his work which Billy could not control.

As others have said, there was definitely criticism of Machina and the "concept" and "shards of glass", but the criticism of the music itself seemed relatively restrained if I remember correctly. Going through the end of Zwan, I do not even think it was truly hostile on his part, more just "oh those crazy motherfuckers". I remember the tide starting to turn when the reaction to his 2004/2005 acoustic Chicago project was not 100% praise, followed by the abysmal reaction and general mockery of TheFutureEmbrace.

To me, things truly started getting nasty in the lead up to Smashing Pumpkins coming back in 2007. Instead of just admitting up-front that D'arcy and James were not going to be involved, he purposefully avoided the subject, which just seemed like rubbing salt in the wound. I do not think anyone truly expected D'arcy to be back in the fold, but by staying silent, I'm sure some took it as tacit acknowledgement James was involved. Either way, I remember it being a huge fallout when James issued a press statement saying that not only was he not involved, but hadn't talked to Billy in years, which made Billy's newspaper ad in 2005 appear even more disingenuous.

-lots of fans disliked machina, didn't understand the production or the mystery of it. but that wasn't everyone.

-EVERYONE was way into Machina 2. even suggesting the album was the real album and machina 1 was made intentionally mediocre to piss off the label, while billy gave the real fans the real record for free.

-the breakup saga was a bit too much for a lot of the fans to handle.

-nearly everyone excited about Zwan.

-huge disappointment in mary star.

-billy breaks up swan.

-billy starts to blog. this is where things really get contentious.. with him throwing james and darcy under the bus. fans now feel they have the right and freedom to be critical towards billy.

-the revival of smashing pumpkins is announced. the biggest debate on the bands legacy begins and it gets ugly, and when i say ugly it gets ugly for the next few years.

-fan steals photos from rehearsal space and posts them.. huge legal threats come his way.

-fans are absolutely brutal in their criticisms and bullying and billy has no problem fighting back. it becomes a cycle of hate.

-if all goes wrong comes out and is basically a documentary of the negative reactions from the fan base on all things modern SP.. as is what the fan base wanted vs what the band wanted to do.

-jimmy leaves, and mike byrne joins. this to me was the peak of contention.

-oceania comes out and you see a returned balance of some fans loving it, some fans hating it. ever since then it's more or less been the same, with the occasional personal jab/insult pointed at WPC's way. with the addition of Facebook groups to the realm, different areas of the fanbase go to war with each other. it becomes less about the band and more about the fans and all of their own narcissism/ego's battling it out with one another.

-in conclusion, SP grows up during the invention of the internet and is probably one of the first bands to experience the dividing of the fence between fan and celebrity. some of it is great for everyone involved, some of it is terrible.

as a fan looking back and typing out this whole experience, i realize how this relationship has had a negative impact on how i and probably a lot of other fans perceived the music. for example, there is some really terrific music that came out during the whole 2007-2008 revival, and it all got buried at the fans and billy getting angry with one another. and that had a lasting effect up until recently. there are also some fans out there that are just brutal and mean, and it made me brutal and mean, a side of myself i don't like. watching that gish lifestream for example, i felt happy and nostalgic celebrating the accomplishment with billy and jimmy, but at the same time I'm seeing some of those fans in the audience and reminded of how abusive and non accepting into their circles of the community they can be, and it kind of ruins it for me as a fan.

i honestly admire anyone who never got involved with any of the online communities in the past 20 years. my good friend is one of them, and he's oblivious to all of the fan drama that's been a part of SP's story since the mid 90's.

There was a chat on IRC for "Gish Month" and someone typo-ed Bolly instead of Billy and James said something like "who the hell is Bolly?"

that's the whole thing

still fucking funny 20-ish yrs later

I went to one of the 2008 shows where Billy told all the fans we were shitheads for wanting to hear anything pre 2007 even as he played a lot of those songs. He was clearly miserable the entire show.

That’s not directly related to netphoria, but it kind of is.

Don't forget about the 2004 Church sessions and Chicago songs hissy.

In 2005, remember, TFE leaked a week or more early.
Lawsuits, etc.

I think Bait and Switch Corgan was really insecure about TFE.
Which is weird, because we had no idea what kind of album was coming out. I thought it would be a hybrid acoustic album.
We get what we get with this dude.

The simple answer is Netphoria tells the truth and isn’t under a Billy NDA.

Because of posts like this one.

Yep, this rings true to me.

I was a regular at the first iteration of the oboard from 2000 to 2003. Netphoria was seen as a place where people hated Machina (and to some extent Adore), and Netphorians were considered vicious - not to Billy in particular but to other fans. Tbh, this was not untrue. There were some serious 4chan vibes here back in the day.

I can't remember any animosity between Netphoria and Billy at the time though. He didn't actually favor the Oboard either - he just let it be, and it became a message board that was more about the community than the pumpkins themselves. I don't get the impression he had any strong feelings about the wider online community at all.

Things were really exciting and positive for most of the Zwan era, but the loud at any volume stuff was a huge deal everywhere. I don't think Billy singled Netphoria out because of that.

Chicago songs would have been positive if Billy hadn't started his baby blue blog. That was when his relationship with fans really started to sour. By that time, I think we only had Netphoria, Zomb and BUIS? Maybe Blamo? As far as I remember, Netphoria was the only forum standing where people were actually invested in the band (as opposed to being a community of people who first came together because of the band). Basically, I think Netphoria started attracting people from the wider pumpkins/zwan community who were unhappy with Billy, MSotS, and his treatment of former members of Zwan and SP.

People didn't like TheFutureEmbrace on first listen and many no longer had the openness of heart to give it a chance. It wasn't an amazing album, but there was very little good will to begin with.

Things got even worse with Zeitgeist. The reaction to a 30s snippet of Tarantula was brutal, and Billy's reaction to the stolen photos was probably the moment when he burned all bridges here.

V accurate.

Teenage me thought that was unbelievably funny then - and nearly 40's me now still loves it. I can just seem James smirking and shooting that message into the IRC void.

Speaking of which - shit, we've had lots of Gish themed celebrations. Gish month! Gish Deep Dive! Gish merch! Gishaversary! There's been a lot of it.

Hot Gish COOKOUT

Smoked Gish!!!

Denzel Gishington

Gone Gishin'

Gish Me, Gish Me, Gish Me

Gish a Wonderful Gish

Gish Out of Water

Big Gish in a Big Pond

Catgish (sponsored by PAWS)

Gish (in place of Phish)

Freshwater Gish

Saltwater Gish

Fried Gish

Smells GISHY



oh you GISH the drift...

What is BUIS?
I used to read and seldomly comment on Blamo from 97-2004. It was a much friendlier netpho.
Like, when I say I regret typing on this forum, I do. Anytime over the last 20 years I've commented, there's always someone there to take you down.

Don't forget, he was miserable on the TFE tour.

And Zeitgeist also leaked about a week early.

:(

Gosh that’s hard. How can we make it up to u

jakobtheliar

Talkin come on over here

And i can rub u up, won’t ever take u down

Unless u wanna go down

To the underground

It’s not too late to soothe/heal

you're a liar, your page is all green

Because back in the 90's/00's everyone spoke in h4x0r / hax0r (hacker) language. So anyone who had rare material or information was 1337 / l33t (leet/elite).

Apply this to Billy's name and it would normally be b1lly. However.. because Billy has always said that "I'm your lover. I'm your zero", the joke just writes itself and b1lly becomes b0lly (0/zero)

And plus b0lly has always been a fun thing to say. I'll contact friends from school who i haven't spoken to in 10 years and they'll ask how "t3h b0lly" is (the billy). Billy also hates being called it as he's been called it in public/shows a few times and reacted badly

As others have said it's the hostility and lack of censorship he hates. Apparently back in the day he read the board a few times and couldn't cope with the negativity. I agree it's hard to get past but you've got to not take it too seriously