Tuesday 22nd of August 2006 – Urban75 history
This is Urban75’s history, should you ever wonder where I met my friends from the internet.
http://www.urban75.org/info/about3.html (all the text below is a copy and paste from this link and all copyright belongs to ‘the editor’, the founder of urban75)
URBAN75: ABOUT US
Urban75 could perhaps lay claim to have pioneered the genre of interactive political cartoons, with its Punch/Slap games. Online since 1996, these simple Java animations let players virtually punch politicians and celebs by clicking on their faces. A click comically distorts the (over) familiar face.
The Guardian, May 13, 2004GOING ONLINE
Around this time, a Watford FC fanzine editor living in Brighton offered to post up material from the campaign on his BSAD website, and so the first web presence of urban75 was born!
Being back in the Dark Ages of the web, the site was a basic affair, but with news developing fast we soon needed more ‘hands on’ access to the server, so moved the site to a demon.co.uk homepages account in 1995.
Fired up with enthusiasm after being donated a modem by rock band The Levellers, the site started to take on related issues and offer up more diverse content, with the change in focus being reflected by a new name, ‘urban75’.
Word got around and urban75 was soon picking up traffic and web awards, with the mix of political content, satire, games and original photography sending the hit rate soaring.
In 1999, the editor was invited on to the US chat show, The Jenny Jones Show to befuddle the audience with his odd looks, his ‘crazy Wales-land accent’ and weird political talk.
read full story
As the hits to the site continued to climb, urban75 was eventually booted off Demon Internet after the success of their ‘Punch a Politician’ gallery and (since departed) ‘Slap A Spice Girl’ game sent the site bursting through their bandwidth barrier – by a factor of 40!
A happy new home was donated by Dircon, until growing bandwidth and server space requirements saw us expanding the site across the urban75.org and .net domains (originally sponsored by 1&1 until we pushed our luck too far by becoming their busiest UK site, and now hosted on commercial space at exonetric).
Over the years, the site’s been fortunate enough to receive glowing praise from the media. Here’s a few back-slapping examples:
‘probably the finest and best-designed independent site in Britain,’ Daily Telegraph
‘one of best 100 websites in the world,’ FHM Magazine
‘cutting edge culture and satire,’ the Guardian.BULLETIN BOARDS INFO
A vibrant bulletin board community has grown with the site’s expansion, with the forums currently boasting over 26,000 members (Jan 2006), contributing up to 6,000 new posts every day.
The first, basic version of the boards appeared in 1996, but the lack of admin controls proved too tempting to abusive users, resulting in the boards being abandoned.
Successive versions of the boards have offered more sophistication, with the the current vBulletin software doing a good job of handling the busy traffic load.
The boards now cover a huge range of topics, with over 30 themed forums covering subjects from politics, football, music, film, local issues, transport to knitting and cooking.
Occasionally, the boards have made national headlines, most famously when police commander Brian Paddick joined the boards to discuss issues with Brixton’s online community about local police practices and the growing drug problem in the borough.
For a while, a frank and fascinating debate took part with the maverick cop – Britains’s highest ranking gay officer – until the right wing tabloid press caught wind of a chief policeman posting on an “anarchist site.”
Maliciously quoting Paddick out of context concerning his comments about anarchism, a scandal was created which eventually resulted in Paddick being hounded from his post (he later successfully sued the The Mail on Sunday for damages).
More recently, the site hit the headlines when a survivor of the London 7/7 Terrorist bombs starting posting on the boards the day after the explosions (under the name of ‘Badger Kitten’).
Her deeply moving and passionate personal account of her experience made for compelling reading, with her online blog eventually being taken up by the BBC.
COMMUNITYOut of the boards, a real life community has developed, with posters from the boards forming diverse groups such as a Book Club, Craft Club, Walking Club, Gaming clan, Curry Club, a football club and a radio station, with photographers on the site taking part in a monthly photo compettion.
Club nights
In September 2001, the first ‘Urbanites club’ night was held at the Brixton Telegraph club.
Organised by the site’s posters already involved in club promotion, the night came out of a desire to bring members of the fast-growing community together.
There were at least 12 of these dedicated U75 nights between the end of 2001 and 2003, from which lasting relationships and even in some cases marriages and children were formed!
Musically, these events were dance music based, and featured mainly house music and techno, with occasional diversions into jungle, ska, drum and bass and breakbeat.
Offline Club
The ‘Urbanite’ events have now been effectively succeeded by the Offline club night, a free monthly event, usually in Brixton and central London (and occasionally New York).
Live acts have included Howard Marks (Mr Nice), Jim Bob (Carter USM), Milk Kan, Tom Robinson (TRB), JC001 (beatbox rapper), TV Smith (The Adverts), Gina Birch (The Raincoats), Katy Carr and Helen McCookeryBook, with guest DJ slots from Lester Square (Monochrome Set) and performances from Vic Lambrusco, Luke Wright and The Actionettes!
The club started life in the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton in February 2004, but ever-growing crowds forced a move to larger, multi-room premises at Brixton’s famous Dogstar club, followed by an additional fortnightly ‘Offline2’ event at Birkbeck College, central London and a one-off event in New York on November 2005.
Every month, the club offers an eclectic, fast moving selection of talent including DJs, poets, comedians, acoustic acts, bands, dancing girls, book readings, multimedia, political talks and more – and it’s all completely free!
Other club events closely associated with urban75 or its posters include the infamous ‘Hedgeparties‘, (outdoor raves held somewhere in South London), the ‘People’s Republic of Disco’ (PROD), 60s-indie dance club, How Does It Feel To Be Loved and dub/dance specialists The Ministry of Unsound.
copyright Mike Slocombe