ballyhooOG 2001

There was a certain brand of guy on eZabel who could make you laugh so hard you forgot what the original conversation was about, and Brett Holloway was that guy operating at full volume from the moment he signed up in March 2001. As one of the site's true originals, he came out swinging with absurdist humor that lived somewhere between stand-up comedy and a fever dream — describing his approach to bad dates as "take a dump on her plate and make a run for it, all the time screaming 'I can't believe you fell for that, you stupid smelly gorilla!!'" and defending the existence of novelty songs with the observation that "the same people who hate it are the ones humming it. Its actually pretty genius." His comment style was unmistakable: a rapid-fire burst of conviction that would veer into total nonsense without warning, like claiming he wore "bologna sandwiches as socks" to avoid the hassle of losing them, or responding to a question about ambidexterity with "I also make monkeys fly out of my butt, but that doesnt make me a magician. What I am trying to say is, do you like pastrami?" He was the kind of poster who could derail a thread so entertainingly that nobody minded the wreckage.

Music was the engine that drove Brett's entire eZabel life. With 70 comments in Music Talk alone — more than any other forum by a wide margin — he was a punk rock evangelist who preached the gospel of face to face, NOFX, Lagwagon, and No Use for a Name with genuine devotion, writing that no matter what other genres pulled him in, "it always comes back to punk. It just makes you feel goooood." He was not just talking, either. Brett played in a band alongside flomojopoanode, iwz's brother bozo, and thefunkyfresh — a crew that practiced in Stanhope, NJ and occasionally pulled in new members through eZabel itself. When his band needed a vocalist, Brett created the secret alt account fitd to post a forum thread recruiting singers without committing his real name, then later launched rumur to cast a wider net for musicians across central Jersey. Under that alias he showed a more reflective side, arguing that as long as a band "is true to itself and doesnt compromise as far as their music goes, then whoever calls them a sellout can take a flying leap." He gushed about Brand New's "Sic Transit Gloria" with the fervor of a religious experience, championed the Smashing Pumpkins' drummer Jimmy Chamberlin as possibly "the best drummer in the world," and lovingly recalled seeing The Offspring at Irving Plaza in 1994 — before sheepishly admitting his actual first concert was the Beach Boys with his mom, noting they were "all in their 120's and still rockin."

Brett's social orbit on eZabel was sprawling. His top interaction partner was skaorsk8, but he was deeply embedded in the Stanhope-Hackettstown crew that included fivezero, thatdarngirl, malibu, and rocksupastar. He attended 17 events — eZabel parties, manhunt games, Xbox LAN sessions, go-karting, and multiple shows with his own band — making him one of the more reliably present members at real-world gatherings. His relationship with Ann Marie, who posted as hugz4u, was woven through his earliest years on the site, their exchanges full of the goofy warmth of two people who had built an entire language out of inside jokes. He was a Lord of the Rings defender who told critics to read the books before complaining about the movie's ending, a Daredevil apologist, a comic book reader who knew Bullseye from the page before the screen, and the author of one of eZabel's finest freestyle raps — a beatbox journal entry that peaked with the immortal line "WHO WANTS A CHICKEN BURRITO?" before careening back into rhyme. Even his haiku were delightfully unhinged: "Blue Blue Sea / Tasty test tube / Potato Attack."

eZabel Personality Type: ESTP — "The Freestyler." Brett brought raw, unfiltered energy to everything he touched — music, comedy, debate, even his job at a scanner that did not work while a seven-year-old stared at his head. He had the rare gift of being genuinely funny without trying to be mean, a guy whose instinct was always to entertain rather than tear down. His four alt accounts were less about deception and more about pragmatism — recruiting bandmates, goofing on friends, starting fresh when the mood struck. He faded after 2004, leaving behind 408 comments across five accounts, a punk band that practiced in a Stanhope apartment, and a legacy as eZabel's resident class clown who somehow also had the best taste in music on the site.