User:Zomaventures/Genmay.com

About GenMay.com
Genmay.com is the homepage for General [M]ayhem Forums, currently the 46th largest English speaking message board on the Internet, with over 22,429,807 posts and 141,591 members. It is currently has a ranking of 17,990 on Quantcast. Genmay is a general discussion internet forum. It has gained notoriety for internet memes and controversy that were generated from within the threads of GenMay. This site reaches over 128K monthly people, of which 73,144 (57%) are in the U.S. The site appeals to a young adult, primarily male following. .

History
The current General [M]ayhem was founded after the original HardOCP sub-forum was spontaneously shut down by its owner, one Kyle Bennett, after a server upgrade. Following the upgrade, users found their favorite forum had evaporated on July 3, 2002, and many users who disagreed with this decision were banned.

On July 4th 2002, some forum members broke off and started their own General [M]ayhem website, genmay.com. Sanjay Sabnani acquired Genmay.com in 2002. Mr. Sabnani founded General Mayhem, LLC in May 2004. While building General Mayhem, LLC's operations and network communities Mr. Sabnani has served senior executive roles in several public companies including: executive vice president, strategic development at Hythiam, Inc. (NASDAQ:HYTM) from April 2004 to December 2007; and president and director at Venture Catalyst, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCAT), from July 1999 to November 2000.

On April 2, 2008 General Mayhem LLC and the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, General Mayhem Acquisition Corp. entered into an agreement and plan of merger. The merger resulted in General Mayhem merging into CrowdGather, Inc., CRWG.OB.

Genmay is considered to be one of the ten most notable entertainment forum sites. Its direct competitors are 4chan, Something Awful, Fark, CollegeHumor, eBaum's World, The Best Page in the Universe, Rotten, B3ta, and YTMND.

Hoaxes, Memes and Controversy
E3's Booth Babes

In 2005, Alex Lorenzen posing as a disabled person attended E3 in a wheelchair in order to grope the models and take upskirt photos, which he posted on the General [M]ayhem forums. This resulted in several exhibitors threatening legal action. In 2006, E3 "banned" booth babes by requiring them to adhere to a stricter dress code, and some speculate that this was linked to the 2005 incident. E3 in 2009 has reinstated "booth babes."

Paris Hilton

On February 19, 2005, Jacobsen hacked into Paris Hilton's cell phone. By early February 20th, the pictures, private notes and contact listings from Hilton's phone account -- including phone numbers of celebrities such as Cristina Aguilera, Eminem, Anna Kournikova and Vin Diesel --had appeared on GenMay.com.

Within hours of the GenMay posting, Hilton's information was publishedon Illmob.org, a Web site run by 27-year-old William Genovese ofMeriden, Conn., known online as "illwill."

Christoper Walken for President Campaign

General Mayhem was responsible for one of the largest memes on the Internet-- Christopher Walken for President campaign. While the eccentric screen star played a member of the White House in the hit comedy "Wedding Crashers," rumors began to circulate that he was aiming to take over George W. Bush’s job in 2008.

In October 2006, Actor Christopher Walken became the subject of a hoax when a fake website was started in August of that year by members of Genmay.com in which they announced that Walken was running for President of the United States. This hoax gained in steam across the internet being covered by news media like Eonline.com and was widely attributed to the General Mayehm forum

When asked about the hoax in a September 2006 interview with Conan O’Brien, Walken was amused by the hoax; and when asked to come up with a campaign slogan, he replied, "What the Heck?" and "No More Zoos!.The site Walken2008, remains online.

Some believed it was authentic, until Walken’s publicist dismissed the claims. "The person who put this together was just trying it as a hoax, I presume," said Mara Buxbaum, Walken’s publicist. "My take on it is it sounds like the person who put this on the Web took his role."