By Eugene Hlaing, Liam Kiely

Faculty Mentor: Cartland Berge and Shannon Hauser

Abstract

A reflection of the Two Gamers on a Couch genre through the lens of an archivist revisiting and reuploading the 2008 webcomic “Losing CTRL.” The genre became popular in the early 2000s, characterized by gag-of-the-week webcomics typically featuring two friends shooting the breeze while playing video games. Now considered lost media, Losing CTRL garnered the negative attention of “The Archivist” and their friends, and turned Nate, our artist, into a niche internet “LOLCOW” — a target of harassment for public entertainment. Writing both the comic and commentary, we explore the perspectives of an amateur artist during the 2008 election, and the perspective of the archivist on their past relationship.

http://losingctrl.net/