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[[Image:Maddox.GIF|right|thumb|The top banner for maddox.xmission.com]]
'''The Best Page in the Universe''' is a personal satiric humor [[website]] created by self-proclaimed pirate George Ouzounian, better known as Maddox, from [[Salt Lake City, Utah|Salt Lake City]], [[Utah]], [[USA]].
==About Maddox==
'''George Ouzounian''', born in [[1978]], is the creator of the website The Best Page in the Universe. He is of [[Armenian people|Armenian descent]]. He took the pseudonym from an old cartoon called "Madox 01" as evidenced by [http://www.poindexteronline.com/site/2003/08/whoever_sucks_the_least_is_kin.html this interview].
==
He attended [[Woods Cross High School]][http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=utah] in [[Woods Cross, Utah|Woods Cross]], [[Utah]] and later attended the [[University of Utah]] with [[Mathematics]] as his major. As well as English, he can speak [[Armenian language|Armenian]] fluently and is currently learning [[Mandarin Chinese]]. In the future, he would like to work in [[Bermuda]], [[Hong Kong]] or [[Thailand]], and eventually work toward another degree or a masters.
He is familiar with several [[programming language|programming languages]], including: [[Informix]] [[4GL]]/[[SQL]], [[Perl]], [[C programming language|C]]/[[C plus plus|C++]], [[sed]]/[[awk]], [[Unix shell]] ([[Korn shell |korn]], [[bourne]], [[bash]]), [[Pascal]] and [[PHP]].
===Career and work===
Despite his professed hatred toward it, he currently lives in Utah, and until [[2004]], was a programmer for a [[telemarketing]] company working from 40 to 55 hours a week. <!--What the heck is his current job? Working on his website? REPLY: Beats me-->
Ouzounian's primary focus began with his very popular website which now also serves as a launching pad for his various other projects. On [[August 11]], [[2004]], he announced the production of a [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=comic comic], although nothing has yet been published. On [[February 22]], [[2005]], he announced that he was writing a [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=book book], to be published in June [[2006]] by [[Kensington Books]]. On [[October 18]], [[2005]], he revealed through his mailing list that the book will be titled [[The Alphabet of Manliness]], and will be approximately 150 pages long.
On [[June 17]], [[2005]], he invited [[videogame]] [[programmers]] to "make a game that doesn't suck." Ouzounian posted a flash video on his website depicting what the game might include. The video shows, among other things, a [[pirate]] running over elderly people and children, attacking [[zombies]], kicking a dog over a fence, using [[beef jerky]] to heal himself, a [[lesbian]] scene, and an exploding [[dinosaur]]. As stated on his website, he wants a game "where the main character murders feminists with his giant boner, lesbian centaurs get their backs broken with sledge hammers, elderly people get body slammed into cactuses, and emo dumbasses get prostate examinations with the business end of my shoe." [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=maddoxgame]
===Interests=== <!-- this should be expanded beyond musical preferences -->
Maddox has discussed his [[music]]al preferences in several interviews. On his website, he has mentioned few artists which he listens to. In terms of the discussion of music on his website, he prominently discusses/lists music he dislikes. [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=dipshit] Throughout the site, however, he hints about liking the band [[Pantera]]. In addition, during an interview by GorrillaMask.com, Maddox mentioned his favorite musician to be [[Towa Tei]] "because the third hand is just badass". [http://www.wet-online.com/21q/gmaddox.htm] He also lists [[Dmitri Shostakovich]] as one of his favorite composers. He has also stated that [[Steven Wright]] is his favorite comedian in [http://www.gorillamask.net/archive/000240.shtml this interview].
==The website==
The site originated from a text document he wrote listing 50 things that made him angry. He gave the list to several people on [[EFnet]]'s [irc://irc.efnet.info/coders #coders]. The response was positive, and he started the controversial website in [[1997]].
As the title suggests, the [[website]] proclaims itself to be "'''The Best Page In The Universe'''". The format could be considered that of a [[weblog]], although Maddox himself has decried blogs in [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=web_logs this article] and [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=banish this article] and disagrees with the characterization.
The page is headed with a [[Che Guevara]]-like image of the author, wearing an eye patch and a [[skull and cross bones]] on his [[beret]]. Maddox uses this image as a parody of a revolutionary icon, and does not proclaim himself to be a [[socialist]] or [[communist]]. However, he often proclaims himself to be a pirate, and draws himself as such in his articles.
The website's layout is simple and minimalised in order to save on bandwidth costs as well as to protest against flashy websites with little content. It uses large text in light colors on a black background instead of the more widespread black text on a white background. As Maddox explains in his [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=faq FAQ], black text on a white background is like ''staring at a lightbulb''. All the code on the site is written by hand in [[vi]], since ''"anything else is for failures."''
Maddox also has an [http://store.theworstpageintheuniverse.com/ online store] which sells merchandise such as stickers and t-shirts with controversial messages such as ''"For every animal you don't eat, I'm going to eat three"'' and ''"Littering kicks ass."''
[http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=news News] is also posted at infrequent intervals. The pieces range from major things such as the announcements of Maddox's book, comic, and illustrators, to smaller things such as responding to people's requests.
===Articles===
The articles as a whole have slowly evolved throughout the years. Early articles (around 1998 or so) were short and posted frequently (every week or so). As updates became more sparse (Maddox said, "Since I'm no longer writing that book, updates should be more regular now." [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=book]), the articles have become much longer in length. Newer articles also include media such as sound clips and add-on pages to enhance his point. Some recent articles have also been translated, such as the [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sideways Sideways] ([http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sideways_it Italian translation]) article.
Maddox often adds images in his articles to illustrate a point. Controversial drawings on his website include cows being eaten, [[hippie]]s being killed, elderly people being fired into the sun, and similar images intended to shock the viewer. Maddox claims that he draws most of the controversial pictures himself using [[Microsoft Paint]] and occasionally [[Adobe Photoshop]], [[Paint Shop Pro]], and other [[computer graphics|graphics manipulation software]].
Updates to his site have become so infrequent due to his other projects that their non-appearance has become an on-going joke. He recently launched a competition for people to send him cartoons about himself or his website, most of which are attacks on his largely adolescent male fanbase who continually harass him vie e-mail for new articles. Entries so far include a depiction of Maddox leaping out of a computer monitor and smashing two fans' faces together, and a cartoon of one boy who checks the site for new content only to find a cartoon of a boy checking the site, who finds only a cartoon of a boy checking the site, et cetera.
===April Fool's Days===
On [[April 1]], [[2004]], the site was changed around as part of an [[April Fool's]] [[joke]]. The title of the page was changed to '''"One of the Better Pages in the Universe"''', and the new image showed the author superimposed on [[Mr. Clean]]. The caption was changed to "this page is about my opinions. if you disagree, you have a right to your opinion and I can respect that." The background of the page changed from [[black]] to [[white]]. He made a new series of articles parodying the vapid posts that have come to represent the majority of [[blogs]].
Many visitors thought that the joke was legitimate, that Maddox had either "turned into a hippy", his site had been [[hack (technology slang)|hacked]] or someone accessed his computer while he was away. Maddox says that he received over 2000 emails over the April Fool's joke. In response, he authored a retort on his site, saying that he had lost all respect for people who visit his site due to their inability to realize a [[joke]] when they see one: "I seriously contemplated taking down my site and just posting links to animal porn for you retards." [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=april_fools_you_morons]
On [[April 1]], [[2005]], the site was changed again, this time as a parody of a [[Terri Schiavo]] support blog. It was made to resemble a poorly designed [[Xanga]] page, with satirical comments by fake users, and a photo of [[Ashley Olsen]] as a user picture - a micro-rant in itself, as a comment similar in content to the 'normal' Maddox had been posted.
===Hidden pages===
Maddox's website is also known to contain several "hidden pages," found only by fans typing in random URLs. These pages are often unfinished works, or first drafts of articles that were moved around. There is [http://www.thebestfanpageintheuniverse.com/index.php?page=hiddenpages a list of known "hidden pages"] available at [http://www.thebestfanpageintheuniverse.com/ The Best Fan Page in the Universe]
==Internet popularity==
The website is notorious for its [[profanity|profane]] manner of [[satire|satirizing]] anyone and everyone whom its author deems unworthy. Even Maddox's [[fan (aficionado)|fans]] from time to time become the object of his [[egotistical]] rants. Sometimes his rants are about society itself, but often he talks about recent events, such as the [[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas|Grand Theft Auto]] [[Hot Coffee]] mod [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ticket_to_hell], [[Revenge Of The Sith]] [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=episode3], or [[Sideways]] [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sideways]. His articles are often quoted as a voice of satire or truth.
The popularity of the website is attributable to many things. He writes anti-establishment, non-partisan diatribes, dissociating with any party or philosophy. For example, he calls both [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]s and [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]]s "dirty bastards" [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=repubs], and tires of being labeled a liberal or conservative [http://maddox.xmission.com/aliens.html]. On the website itself, the page is simple, with a black background on large font, and has no ads or popups at all, a rarity in a place where both are the norm on high-traffic websites.
Both his rants on society and recent events and his website as a whole have made it an enormous hit. On [[August 18]], [[2003]], he said that "The Best Page" receives more visitors than [[McDonald's]], [[Pepsi]], and other large corporations, even though he has spent nothing on advertising or promotion [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=owned]. On [[March 18]], [[2005]], the site reached 100,000,000 hits [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=100million_stats], and has many people visiting the site at any given time.
The large following that Maddox commands has led to some major Internet backlashes. In [[March 2005]], Maddox slammed [[Orbitz.com]] for "[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=orbitz_blows selling me an impossible itinerary]," causing rifts in the online travel booking industry. The article and backlash against Orbitz prompted many online travel corporations to offer solutions and customer service lines to rectify mistakes in itineraries. In other incidents, merely posting a link has led to his fans flooding the link: the Mothers Against Maddox petition was flooded after Maddox posted it; likewise, when a radio DJ stole from his [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=trippin Cameron Diaz] rant [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=radio_hack], Maddox reported that the radio station got flooded with thousands of visitors, callers and people emailing them to call them on the plagiarism.
Maddox is also an Internet celebrity. In a response to an email that accused him of "hid[ing] behind [his] computer," [http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1#IMPRESS] he boasted, "I get recognized in public all the time, don't you think that if I was afraid that I wouldn't post my badass pirate picture on the internet for millions to see?"
==Criticism==
He is accused on his [http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1 hatemail] pages of not actually arguing the points the detractors make, but simply distracting the reader with visual aids and insulting the detractor; however his defenders would argue that this is intentional, and the main criticism he is making of his detractors is that they care. <!--I know there's some guy who made a huge cartoon about Maddox and dissected the Chump Change email and response, can someone verify and link? -->
Maddox is also frequently criticized for not updating frequently. He has responded to this criticism by posting a news update titled [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=update052404 Foreplay] on [[May 24]], [[2004]], and a [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=update020405 special request] on [[February 12]], [[2005]]. Small updates are sometimes posted on the front page: an update on [[August 22]], [[2005]] tells visitors, "Updates coming soon, I have work, get off my nuts."
Due to the nature of his rants, some of his fans occasionally come to criticize him for attacking their favorite thing. He calls these people his "[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=aliens biggest ex-fan]" and says he has received "one email like this per week about every single one of my posts since 1998."
===Blocking===
Due to the controversial content, both countries and some [[Internet_filter#Content_filtering_software_products|internet filtering]] products have banned his website. On [[January 8]],[[2004]], the [[United Arab Emirates]] was the first country to ban his website [http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=uae]. On [[September 11]], [[2005]], the site was banned in both [[Saudi Arabia]] and [[Qatar]]. On [[September 13]], [[2004]], Maddox wrote the [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=websense Websense] article in which he described being filtered and banned on several services, such as Websense, Lexmark, and the Department of Defense.
===Politics===
Certain message boards have had heated discussions about Maddox and the political power he might wield with the seemingly large number of young followers that he can influence. A recent outburst was shown when a MAM (Mothers against Maddox) poll was opened; immediately, thousands and thousands of pro-Maddox readers started posting rather vulgar comments on the poll, entirely destroying it.
It is estimated that at least a million people or more read Maddox's site regularly; even if a fraction of those people agreed with Maddox's political ideas, he could affect political elections. Some have even suggested that, if he was to run for office, he could gain a significant following, either due to serious or satirical voters. Maddox himself has championed a [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=regressive Regressive] party platform and notes on his page counter that he cannot run for president until [[2016]].
===Mothers Against Maddox===
'''Beth Robbins''', a mother, formed [http://www.geocities.com/mothersagainstmaddox/ Mothers Against Maddox]. Her slogan was, "Help us Fight and Finally Shut Down the Most Hateful site on the Internet." She also created a petition to get the site shut down. When Maddox wrote about it in his [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=websense Websense] article and posted a link to the original [[Geocities]] site, Mothers Against Maddox was inundated with visitors and repeatedly exceeded its bandwidth limit, so Maddox hosted a [[mirror (computing)|mirror]] [http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/mam/]. The Internet petition Robbins set up was ridiculed because it is unregulated; people can sign numerous times, and on PetitionOnline, signs cannot be removed or edited. After Maddox posted the petition link, the MAM petition shot up to the Top 10 Active Petitions, with Maddox fans flooding the petition and posting extremely vulgar comments. The petition was eventually deactivated.
A popular theory is that Maddox himself created Mothers Against Maddox. No evidence has shown this to be true. Supporters of this theory claim that some of Maddox's writing style is apparent in some of the pages, and that the site contains links to [[MAVAV]].org, a [[hoax]] page set up to mock parents in favor of [[video game]] censorship. This theory is based on the assumption that Maddox mirrored the website to thebestpageintheuniverse.com, an alias to "The Best Page in the Universe", to prevent the real site from going down due to lack of bandwidth. The real page has sometimes been spotted working when its bandwidth wasn't clogged up. Additionally, some people have also emailed Beth Robbins and received replies.
===Something Awful===
Maddox has a long-standing feud with [[Something Awful]] webmaster [[Richard Kyanka]] and many of the site's thousands of forum members. After a falling-out with the site's administrators, Maddox [http://maddox.xmission.com/sa/ berated Something Awful] as being too [[capitalist]] (since it costs $9.99 to register on their message boards). Detractors point out that Maddox sells merchandise from his website. Unlike Something Awful, Maddox does not require payment to use any part of his site. Maddox states on his online store that "You're not doing me a favor by buying this stuff. I'm doing you a favor by selling it."
Something Awful has struck back against Maddox a few times, ridiculing his alleged elitism and his style of writing [http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2136].
==Imitations==
<!--Don't list any knockoffs, please -->
During the nine years that it has been online, "The Best Page in the Universe" has become a cultly followed website which has spawned many imitation pages. Generally, these "knock-off" websites can be placed in one of three different categories:
*Parodies which publically assert Maddox has influenced their website; many of these even proudly imitate Maddox's style of writing, artwork, logos, and trademark colour scheme.
*Satire websites which claim their writing has not been affected by Maddox.
*Thieving websites which copy the exact content of articles written by Maddox.
==Charity==
On [[September 4]], [[2005]] Maddox opened a charity fund for [[Hurricane Katrina]] storm victims. The fund donated 50% of the profit he procured from his online [http://store.theworstpageintheuniverse.com/ store] to the [[Red Cross]]. On [[September 26]], [[2005]], he posted the results, donating $3,068. [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=katrina]
==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://maddox.xmission.com/ The Best Page in the Universe]
[[Category:1970s births|Ouzounian, George]]
[[Category:People from Utah|Ouzounian, George]]
===Maddox fansites===
*[http://www.thebestfanpageintheuniverse.com The Best Fanpage in the Universe]
*[http://www.maddoxmania.com MaddoxMania]
*[http://www.theobsessivemessenger.com/sites/maddox/maddox.htm Spoof of Maddox's Page]
===See also===
*[[Adequacy.org]]
*[http://www.poindexteronline.com/site/2003/08/whoever_sucks_the_least_is_kin.html Interview]
[[Category:Comedy websites|Best Page in the Universe, The]]
[[Category:Internet personalities|Best Page in the Universe, The]]
[[Category:Armenian-Americans|Best Page in the Universe, The]]
[[Category:Fictional pirates|Best Page in the Universe, The]]
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