Goon is Australian slang for cask wine. It's great for getting off your face, cheaply. It is also good if you like screaming hangovers.

One of the main characters in Diana Wynne Jones' fantasy novel Archer's Goon; so named because the guy who is nicknamed "The Goon" has been sent by an unknown person called Archer to strongarm writer Quentin Sykes into writing 2000 words for Archer. This leads into some really interesting times for the Sykes family.

A hired practitioner in the art of assault and mayhem, retained by unethical strike-breaking agencies, unions and management; a member of a private company police force. "Take a couple of them goons, wreck every truck pulling out, and give the drivers a workout (beating)."

- american underworld dictionary - 1950

Race of monsters in E.C. Segar's Popeye comic strip. The Goons were tall, rubbery creatures with enormous noses and eyes like black marbles, and were completely naked except for the patches of long hair at their waists, forearms, and shins. They spoke in a language that was represented in vertical zig-zag lines, like on a heart monitor.

See also Alice the Goon.

In hockey, the enforcer or cop is a teams insurance policy. They are paid to protect the teams star players from being elbowed, stick-slashed or hammered into the plexiglass boards. These tough guys are also paid to drop the gloves and fight. This is known within the holy innersanctum of hockey as rinkjustice, and the most feared and proficient of these warriors are called goons.

A term referring to the members of the Something Awful forums. As of February 12, 2008, there are over 112,000 goons. For some of them, the one-time $10 fee required to register on the forums acts as some kind of proxy, filtering out the trolls, poor teenagers and just about everybody who doesn't like the idea of paying to participate on a message board. This has lead to a somewhat close-minded mentality, the emergence of self-identity and circle jerking. Goons are proud to be goons.

Origin of the term

Years ago¹, one of the popular feature on the Something Awful front page was the Awful Link of the Day, where people made fun of a particular website or message board (often related to furries or some other marginal online community.) This would often generate a Goon Rush (see below) on that website, which would only stop once the guestbook got filled with goatse references and other generally nasty internet memes.

At one point, the webmaster of an ALOD target became rather angry at the unrully mob of goons mutilating his website. An email was sent to Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka (owner and admin of Something Awful) containing the following gem:
"You and your goons can't push me off of the internet!"
The term quickly caught on and stayed.

Variations

The SA community now had a name and started to use it ad nauseum, eventually spawning variations and neologisms used internally on the forums - although some of these are now bannable because of overuse. A few examples are:

• Gooncamp: A biannual or annual camping event.
• Gooncon: Annual convention where goons meet in Real Life.
• Goondolences: Condolences, usually said after a goon announces he has lost a friend or family member.
• Goonerocity: Generosity between goons, often following a plea for help.
• Goon Rush: Similar to the Slashdot effect. Occurs when a link is posted in a popular thread.

The Goon Mind

Since there are so many goons, it's hard to pinpoint specific particularities or traits of personality. Something Awful being a humor website, one can assume that the average goon is there for a good laugh. They also like to make fun of themselves and the recurring clichés defining a typical goons usually are:

• Is a male.
• Has a neckbeard.
• Is fat and a virgin.
• Either defecates or masturbates into socks.

This is despite the fact that a lot of goons are females or come from all walks of life.

Goons outside of SA

Goons have a strong presence in other online communities, such as Digg, Reddit and Facebook. A lot of online games have guilds or clans created and populated by goons, like in World of Warcraft (Goon Squad and others), Eve Online (the powerful Goonswarm alliance), Lunar Wars (GOONS alliance) and many more.

Because of the feeling of belonging mentioned previously, these groups tend to be tight-knit and well organized. This means that the Goons are now pretty well-known outside of SA itself and are often synonym with "These Something Awful retards who keep ruining my Internet".

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¹ Most likely before 2000. It seems impossible now to find the original email and one can only approximate.