"Yeah, I’d still put Goy Superstar at #1.

The appeal is that he had the complete AutoAdmit package: extremely high verbal intelligence, total commitment to the bit, bizarre specificity, and that ability to make a thread feel like you’d stumbled into an alternate intellectual tradition that existed only on XO. A lot of great posters were funny because they had recognizable shticks; Goy Superstar could be funny while seeming genuinely impossible to model.

Johnsmeyer is probably the stronger pure troll artist for me, especially at the level of individual bits. The Box has a different claim as the forum’s trickster deity. But if I had to pick one poster whose output best captures what made peak AutoAdmit unlike every other forum, I’d pick Goy Superstar."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5909734&forum_id=2#50171009)

Haven't seen anything "racist" from him as far as I can remember.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5909734&forum_id=2#50171114)

million by johnsmeyer and other poasters

hell even luis' banana bread thread is more memorable than anything by him

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5909734&forum_id=2#50171121)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5909734&forum_id=2#50171129)

The site's own retrospective from 2009 put Watchmen in the “MEGAPOSTERS” tier, alongside names such as Pensive, Poetic Dreamer, Jewdood, MediaKid, and Whokebe. That was already a pretty elite classification.

What's particularly interesting is that later poaster retrospectives confirm that Watchmen was central to the site's culture, including the origin of the “TP” (“the poaster”) suffix. A 2017 discussion explicitly says the convention started with Watchmen as part of his shtick.

And his reputation has had unusual longevity. In 2026, nearly two decades after his heyday, poasters were still invoking “watchmen tp” as someone they wished were around to deal with a crisis, and another retrospective thread specifically discusses his death as part of the board's lore.

My ranking

I'd roughly put the historical tiers like this:

Foundational / Mount Rushmore

rachmiel

Great Teacher Onizuka

The Boondocks

fiver

Renada Deshada

rk982 / Joe

All-time greats

solzy

Evan-2001

Theaetetus

Pedicabo Vos

IH

some of the truly enormous early posters

Iconic megapoasters

Watchmen

Pensive

Poetic Dreamer

Jewdood

MediaKid

Whokebe

So I'd say Watchmen is probably somewhere around the top 15–25 most historically significant AutoAdmit poasters, depending heavily on whether you're measuring volume, cultural influence, quality of posts, or mythological status.

What's unusual about Watchmen is that his mythological status seems substantially higher than his formal tier would suggest. The fact that “Watchmen” became practically a generic cultural reference on XO—and that “Watchmen the poaster” itself became the disambiguating formulation—is a pretty strong indication that he left a distinctive mark on the board's vocabulary.

If you're interested, I can also reconstruct a top 25 AutoAdmit poaster pantheon, separating the old-school legends from the 2008–2015 era and explaining where each one ranks.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5909734&forum_id=2#50171422)

Where does Watchmen the poaster rank in the history of AutoAdmit

If by Watchmen the poaster you mean the longtime AutoAdmit/XO poster, he ranks very highly in the site's historical pantheon—though more as an iconic character/megapoaster than as one of the foundational founders.

The site's own retrospective from 2009 put Watchmen in the “MEGAPOSTERS” tier, alongside names such as Pensive, Poetic Dreamer, Jewdood, MediaKid, and Whokebe. That was already a pretty elite classification.

What's particularly interesting is that later poaster retrospectives confirm that Watchmen was central to the site's culture, including the origin of the “TP” (“the poaster”) suffix. A 2017 discussion explicitly says the convention started with Watchmen as part of his shtick.

And his reputation has had unusual longevity. In 2026, nearly two decades after his heyday, poasters were still invoking “watchmen tp” as someone they wished were around to deal with a crisis, and another retrospective thread specifically discusses his death as part of the board's lore.

My ranking

I'd roughly put the historical tiers like this:

Foundational / Mount Rushmore

rachmiel

Great Teacher Onizuka

The Boondocks

fiver

Renada Deshada

rk982 / Joe

All-time greats

solzy

Evan-2001

Theaetetus

Pedicabo Vos

IH

some of the truly enormous early posters

Iconic megapoasters

Watchmen

Pensive

Poetic Dreamer

Jewdood

MediaKid

Whokebe

So I'd say Watchmen is probably somewhere around the top 15–25 most historically significant AutoAdmit poasters, depending heavily on whether you're measuring volume, cultural influence, quality of posts, or mythological status.

What's unusual about Watchmen is that his mythological status seems substantially higher than his formal tier would suggest. The fact that “Watchmen” became practically a generic cultural reference on XO—and that “Watchmen the poaster” itself became the disambiguating formulation—is a pretty strong indication that he left a distinctive mark on the board's vocabulary.

If you're interested, I can also reconstruct a top 25 AutoAdmit poaster pantheon, separating the old-school legends from the 2008–2015 era and explaining where each one ranks.

Yes do it

Yes. I’d revise my earlier estimate upward a bit after looking at the historical references. There is enough surviving discussion to make a reasonably serious AutoAdmit historical ranking, although this is inherently subjective because there isn't an official all-time leaderboard.

One important distinction: I'm ranking poasters by historical importance to XO, not by whether I think their actual posts were "good."

My rough AutoAdmit pantheon

Rank Poaster Historical status

1 Rachmiel Foundational / near-mythical

2 Fiver Foundational; enormous influence beyond ordinary poasting

3 Koz Foundational-era legend

4 The Boondocks Old-school institutional legend

5 Great Teacher Onizuka One of the defining early personalities

6 Renada Deshada Major early-era figure

7 Joe / rk982 Foundational megapoaster

8 Pensive Elite classic-era megapoaster

9 Poetic Dreamer Elite classic-era megapoaster

10 Watchmen Iconic megapoaster / cultural legend

11 Jewdood Classic megapoaster

12 MediaKid Classic megapoaster

13 Whokebe Highly distinctive old-school personality

14 Solzy Major later-classic-era figure

15 Theaetetus Major intellectual/classic-era poaster

16 Pedicabo Vos Strong classic-era reputation

17 IH Significant old-school presence

18 Lisa Rowe Extremely memorable, though her historical significance is partly tied to XO lore surrounding her

19 Shortporch Major personality with an unusually enduring legend

20 OperaSoprano Historically significant largely because of the Watchmen episode and surrounding lore

But Watchmen deserves a special qualification

I think #10 is actually conservative if we're measuring cultural imprint rather than raw posting volume.

There is unusually strong evidence for this. In a 2017 retrospective, poasters explicitly attributed the origin of the “TP” / “the poaster” convention to Watchmen's shtick. One poaster says flatly that it “started with Watchmen” and was part of his shtick.

That's a huge cultural contribution for a single poaster. “X tp” became a piece of the board's vocabulary.

And the longevity is remarkable. In March 2026, someone was still saying:

“I wish watchmen tp were around to step up and lead us through this dark period”

That's almost a decade after the major Watchmen saga.

There was also a dedicated 2018 thread about the campaign against him, and the 2025 retrospective material still treats Watchmen as one of the names that belongs in the site's historical lore.

So I'd actually divide the pantheon into four levels

Tier I — Founders / civilization-builders

Rachmiel

Fiver

Koz

The Boondocks

GTO

Renada Deshada

Joe/rk982

These aren't merely famous posters. They're part of the mythology of what early XO was.

Tier II — Canonical legends

Pensive

Poetic Dreamer

Watchmen

Jewdood

MediaKid

Whokebe

Solzy

Theaetetus

This is where I think Watchmen belongs most comfortably.

Tier III — Major historical poasters

Pedicabo Vos

IH

Lisa Rowe

Shortporch

and various other major personalities whose reputations were substantial but somewhat more era-specific.

Tier IV — Famous characters / saga figures

OperaSoprano

and numerous other people who became enormously famous because of a particular incident, feud, thread, or period rather than because their entire body of work defined XO.

The interesting Watchmen distinction

Watchmen is unusual because his historical significance isn't proportional to his post count.

He seems to have been remembered for a particular style: bizarre/offbeat humor, the “Watchmen TP” persona, and eventually the enormous amount of lore surrounding him. The board itself eventually started treating “Watchmen” almost as a historical character rather than merely an old username.

And there's a fascinating bit of evidence for how deeply embedded that became: when discussing the history of the “TP” suffix years later, people didn't merely remember Watchmen as an example of the convention—they remembered him as the origin of it.

So if you asked me:

“Who are the 10 most important poasters in AutoAdmit history?”

I'd probably put Watchmen around #8–10.

If you asked:

“Who are the 10 most iconic AutoAdmit characters?”

I'd put him even higher—probably #5–8.

And if the category is “poasters whose personal shtick actually contributed something to XO's permanent vocabulary,” he's arguably top 3.

That last category is probably the most interesting way to rank them, because “tp” is basically a linguistic fossil of Watchmen's presence on the board.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5909734&forum_id=2#50171423)

1. Evan39 — Probably the purest AutoAdmit “character.” The mythology around Safeway, Seattle, Chad, pep, disastrous life circumstances, etc. has become almost independent of whatever the actual poster says. There’s a flame megathread going back years, and people still write elaborate Evan fiction. AutoAdmit

2. Rachmiel — Founder, proprietor, occasional deus ex machina, and permanent part of XO’s cosmology. You almost have to include him because the site itself is inseparable from the Rach character. AutoAdmit dates to 2004 and Cohen appears as one of the three “FOUNDERS” in the old board ranking. Wikipedia

3. Renada Deshada — One of the canonical old XO legends. The famous 2009 “Top 200 Posters” placed Renada in THE UNTOUCHABLES, basically the highest ordinary poster tier. AutoAdmit

4. Mainlining — One of the strongest modern additions to the canon. At this point Mainlining has become a quasi supernatural entity in board fiction: the Mahchine™, surveillance, Nunavut, BAM, mysterious wealth/status mythology, appearances in other posters’ flame narratives. AutoAdmit

5. The Box — Possibly the greatest actual character arc in XO history. A 2026 history thread summarizes more than a decade of board participation, XO relationships, IRL drama and accumulated lore and explicitly argues that the total canon makes her one of the board’s greats. AutoAdmit

6. Fiver — Classic era royalty. Another member of the old “UNTOUCHABLES,” and still invoked in discussions of XO’s craziest historical events almost twenty years later. AutoAdmit

7. Watchmen — Huge old era presence, but especially iconic because pieces of ordinary XO language apparently trace back to him. Multiple old posters remembered Watchmen as originating or popularizing the “TP” convention for “the poster.” AutoAdmit

8. Mr. Jinx — Maybe less recognizable to someone who joined late, but foundational XO lore. In a 2026 retrospective, an old poster called the 2004 Mr. Jinx outing and subsequent moniker proliferation “the seminal moment in board history.” That is an enormous claim about how early XO culture formed. AutoAdmit

9. Pensive — Archetypal old school megaposter. He appears both among the canonical “megaposters” in the old ranking and in surviving ancient threads with extremely elaborate Pensive specific flame lore. AutoAdmit

10. Boom — I’d give him the final slot because modern XO has transformed Boom into a stock fictional character: wheelchair, bat, conspiratorial screaming, Mainlining interactions, etc. He now appears in elaborate ensemble fiction alongside Evan, Mainlining and Disco Fries. AutoAdmit

The people I’d put immediately outside the ten are Disco Fries, NYUUG, whokebe, Sonic Youth, To Be Fair, :D, Trustifarian, CSLG, RSF, and Rasquatch. The old historical sources explicitly single out NYUUG, whokebe, Sonic Youth, :D and Rasquatch as major personalities, while CSLG/RSF and Disco belong more to later generations of board mythology. DocDroid

If you weight pure comedic character lore more heavily than historical importance, I’d probably go Evan39 > Mainlining > Boom > The Box > Disco Fries as the top five. That group has crossed the line from “people who post on a forum” into something closer to recurring characters in an extremely deranged collaborative sitcom.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5909734&forum_id=2#50171425)