rocksupastarFounder

If energy could be bottled and sold at a markup, Mike Schiano would have funded the entire eZabel server budget by 2003. From the moment he swapped out his original handle of jdknight16 — mercifully retired after iwz roasted him for it — and rebranded himself as rocksupastar while blasting Cypress Hill, he established a persona that was equal parts class clown, IT guy, and surprisingly thoughtful friend. His profile listed his name as "Ricky Martin" (a running joke that stuck long enough for Ian to message him about it: "you changed your name to Ricky Martin hahahaaaa so funny! you big dork"), and his AIM handle was LittleMazda323, a tribute to the beater car he drove to Chubb Institute at five in the morning with holes in the floorboards so bad that thefunkyfresh's parents wouldn't let their kids ride in it.

Mike was the guy who built tree forts out of rotten wood with Matt Kelly, blew up a bee nest in his backyard with gasoline and a string fuse, jumped off roofs during manhunt games the night before his own wedding, and once knocked out englandkid during a particularly chaotic round of jailbreak. He had 42 stitches in his foot from walking barefoot through broken glass his sister left in the basement — his mom told the doctor not to put him under, so seven-year-old Mike just sat there and took it — plus a dent in his head from a bat that nobody believed, and more scars than he could account for. His childhood stories read like a highlight reel of suburban New Jersey chaos: riding bikes into rivers, getting stung by bees constantly, racing golf carts with the governors disabled at the course where he and Matt worked as teenagers. He was a self-described fish who learned to swim early and dreamed of being a lifeguard purely so he could do the slow-motion Baywatch run down the beach.

Beneath the goofball energy, Mike had a warmth that surfaced in quieter moments. His advice to younger members wrestling with crushes was surprisingly thoughtful — he'd tell them to relax and play manhunt, then circle back with real talk about not rushing things. He married katiedid (Katie Onorato) in October 2003, playing manhunt the night before knowing "if i got hurt or scratched in anyway, I would be dead the following morning." His first-year-of-marriage journal was disarmingly honest about struggling to transition from the guy whose apartment was central station for everyone at all hours to someone who recognized his wife needed her own time. When he reflected on what Katie meant to him, the bravado dropped entirely: "somehow katie is things that i never knew i needed... well... cept for the vegan thing... and the slow driving." The marriage eventually ended, but the way he wrote about it was real. And when someone on the site was going through a rough patch, Mike would deliver genuinely solid counsel about knowing who your real friends are — the ones who "pick you up, dust you off and then slap you upside the head but then move on."

His passions were loud and non-negotiable. Star Wars consumed a significant chunk of his posting output — he debated the prequel edits with righteous fury, ranked Han Solo as his favorite character ("hes confidence and sarcasm are the BEST"), and named his World of Warcraft account ENDERWILLSAVEYOU with a mage called Wiggin. He was a punk rock evangelist who would go to war with anyone who questioned his taste, memorably clashing with web-toedchloe in an epic thread where she told him he wasn't qualified to judge lyrics because he'd never read poetry, and he fired back with a mock-Shakespearean comparison of their writing styles that ended with "Rock Supastar > Web Toed Cloe." He championed Face to Face, Brand New, Strung Out, and Goldfinger with missionary zeal, ran a recurring "Song of the Day" feature in the forums, and once confessed that Matt had convinced him to perform an N'Sync dance routine — choreography and all — which still didn't get them any girls. He organized LAN parties with the intensity of a field general, ran WoW raids with Ian, flomojopoanode, and Larry until Katie walked over with hands on hips and threatened to create "internet connection problems" if he didn't log off, and got an official Blizzard warning for his guild's antics in raid chat.

His crew ran deep through the NJ congregation scene. fivezero, socalgal, forrestina, and Matt Kelly were his tightest orbits, and he attended practically every eZabel event from LAN parties to bonfires to go-karting to snowboarding trips where he commandeered a river raft after beachbum bailed and had to use Janine as a paddle. He moderated with a light but firm hand, shutting down starshiptrooper when she commented on his marriage and telling forum trolls exactly where to direct their opinions. He was the kind of moderator who would mod his own comments "stupid" before anyone else could get the satisfaction — and once jokingly introduced himself as "the owner, commander, big cahuna and overall admin of this site. I let iwz do all the work." He was also the resident tech support, casually diagnosing PS/2 mouse boot issues for Diana, explaining IP subnets to catch sockpuppet accounts, posting batch file scripts for network speed tests, and schooling Ian on why dedicated MP3 servers were superior to mapped network drives.

His peak year was 2004 with 1,583 comments, but he stayed active through 2009, popping back after a long absence to announce he'd started drinking soy milk and quote Limp Bizkit in the same breath. His typical sick day was a precision operation: text coworker at 6:25, receive obligatory insult at 6:27, assume sick position on couch, then alternate between video games and rented movies until Katie came home. He was color blind, covered in scars, had a beloved childhood cat named Bobo who disappeared the day his family moved, and wanted to be remembered for exactly three things: "nice guy, cool, sense of humor and really really really rediculously good looking." As malibu once predicted, he was destined to be the dad who gangs up with his kids against his wife — the instigator whose absence would make everyone suddenly behave. The site was never boring when Mike was logged in.

eZabel Personality Type: ESFP — "The Entertainer." Spontaneous and irrepressible, he lived for the moment — manhunt at midnight, golf cart races, LAN parties until dawn — and had the rare ability to pivot from a treatise on the multi-purpose utility of tampons to heartfelt advice about marriage without missing a beat. He valued authenticity, loyalty, and Taco Bell, roughly in that order.