SoulRiser[]
SoulRiser's longtime avatar.
Also know by the alias of Mischa, Soul was born in South Africa during the final years of the bloody apartheid. At a young age , Soul suspected that something was wrong with the way that the schooling systems of the world worked, but scoffed it off, thinking that it was just "crazy talk". She soon realized the error of her ways, and after a foray into the world of post-secondary education, she stepped into the world of unschooling.
Creating a website known to users as "School Survival" in 1999, she became a silent figurehead in the unschooling movement, inspiring thousands of unheard rejects, victims and ordinary folks to step out of their comfort zones to join the fight against the institution that we all so openly loathe. Starting from humble beginnings, she opened the first forums in the early 2000s, where oldfags such as docjohnson and others preached their tales.
Soon afterwards, many great articles and stories were published on the main page of the site, and many informative lists of pranks, choices and advice columns were actively updated.
Eventually, the site reached a traffic number of over 100,000 viewers in 2006. All was well on the old forums, until the trolls struck. Beforehand, the forums had been a peaceful place, abundant with protest themes, pyramid schemes and a general distaste for the unthinking majority. That isn't to suggest that it wasn't pointless, oh no. Some members even organized walkouts, driving hundreds of like-minded individuals onto the cold streets of Montreal, the Midwest, and Singapore, all chanting the same messages.
The trolls were relentless in their escapades, driving many old members from the site. Over time, things cleared, and many of the oldfags that we know and love came to being. Heart of Shadows, Thought Criminal, RebelNerd and many more brave souls picked the ashes of the fallen forums, propping them into a near-masterpiece that created a community arguably better than the last one.
However, not all was well with Soul. In June of 2012, she shut down the forums indefinitely, for reasons unknown to most of the community. Lunatic formed a security blanket, where we've stayed as of the date of this article being written (the 28th of July). Was it a general loathing of the users? The schism between recreation and taking the morals of unschooling as srs buznis? We can only speculate.
Supposedly, she's considering handing over the reigns to a friend of hers. This will be a rocky ride, whatever happens.