Hellfire Chat

**Hellfire Chat** was an unofficial chatroom on Album of the Year (AOTY) in the comment section of *Hellfire* by Black Midi. At the time of its shutdown, the chatroom had amassed around 81,000 comments.

## **Creation**

The first known use of the term "Hellfire Chat" was by user Rater\_Ratings on the morning of July 19, 2022, several hours before the site temporarily crashed.

On July 19, 2022, there was a site-wide bug in which emojis and special characters, particularly those within album and artist titles, weren't acting correctly. Various site functions, such as notifications, feed, community, popular reviews, etc., all became unusable. In reaction, many AOTY members started to chat in Hellfire Chat about the site's crash. After the site returned to normal, Hellfire Chat remained as a constant place for the AOTY community to chat with other users of the site. For some users, it was a replacement for the deleted Nurture Chat, remembering the mistakes causing its deletion, so there was little fear of Hellfire Chat being deleted. For other users, it was an easy way to discuss upcoming releases, classics, ranked lists, and movies.

A few weeks later, the chat gained its own identity and prospered. Late night conversations (such as games and album rankings) took place in the chat for months to come. The chatroom quickly became a popular spot for widely known users of the site to discuss their opinions about cinema, music, and sometimes literature.

## Peak in popularity

At its peak, Hellfire Chat would generate thousands of messages per day. The criteria used for core Hellfire Chat members to measure popularity was the Frequent Posters tab, which was a topic that was a target of recurrent discussion within the chat. Less prominent users would infamously mass spam the chat to artificially boost popularity. This tab was initially topped by chat member Andrei, until The Dynasty of Rater started. Hellfire Chat developed a monopoly on AOTY site-based chats, consistently appearing at or near the top of the Popular Album Discussion tab.

From August to September, 2023, 157 new pages of comments have been produced. In comparison, the previous 100 pages were produced over a span of 11 months.

## Discord server

On October 1, 2022, HillyBilly55 and Ozymvndias created a Discord server for Hellfire Chat, the former being the main editor of the server. Many feared this server would make the original chatroom obsolete. This ended up being the case, as the chatroom was lifeless within a few days. Rob commented "Dead chat" in the comments of the original chatroom. Many members revealed their faces and voices in the server, including Andrei**,** 1237**,** Ozymvndias, HillyBilly55**,** Wiloptics, and others. The server was active, having nearly 70 members and more than 20 channels at its peak. It would go on to periodically phase in and out of popularity, often challenging or even beating the active popularity of the AOTY chatroom. As of mid-2023, the server has since abandoned the Hellfire aesthetics and is less active, with many of its core members moving onto various other AOTY-associated servers or alternative modes of community interaction.

## Quadeca Chat and Hellfire revival

On November 10, 2022, *I Didn't Mean to Haunt You* by Quadeca was released. Because of the positive reception, many users flooded the comment section of the album. Over the next 48 hours, the comment section garnered over 2,000 comments. With the number of comments, many of which were off-topic to the release, some users started referring to it as Quadeca Chat. By this point, Andrei had been unsatisfied with the Discord server killing the original chatroom. Seeing people start a new chat, he both condemned Quadeca Chat and felt it was time to bring back the old chatroom, saying the following in Quadeca Chat:

*"Do I really condemn this chat? I have long since been dissatisfied with Hellfire moving to Discord. In an ideal world Hellfire chat would still be a thing. It was so nice because anyone could join and there would be the most random shit posted. Now it's just 30 people talking about shit sorted into channels. There aren't as many times where the chat is popping. There are less things to archive. Rob isn't in it. We don't have massive 30 reply threads. I know it may seem silly, but I want Hellfire Chat back. #HellfireRevival"*

The message became a short-lived copypasta in Quadeca Chat. A few minutes later, Andrei posted his final messages to the Discord server before leaving:

*"Change da world,* *my final message,* *goodb ye"*

This message was followed by a devastating ratio by Amy, simply commenting "Ratio lil bro", which quickly became an iconic moment in the Discord's culture and personal history.

On November 14, 2022, JustSomeGuy posted the chat's 45,000th comment with a modest ''hey''.

In the late summer of 2023, the Hellfire Discord server was shut down after a long and gradual decrease in activity. Discussion surrounding the potential creation of a new Hellfire Discord server followed in the coming weeks.

## Chatvalcade

Hellfire Chat's extreme saturation led to many users experiencing Hellfatigue. As a result, from August to September, there were a few scattered attempts to create an alternative chat on the comment section of Black Midi's second album, *Cavalcade*.

On September 9, user wiloptics coined the term Chatvalcade. The chatroom had gained hundreds of comments soon after. However, the chatroom was short-lived.

## Shutdown

On September 16, Clem, who had become an active user of Hellfire Chat, was banned from posting in Hellfire Chat. Clem has admitted to being a preteen, which likely led to the banning. This quickly led to shock in Clem's circle, as some users of the chatroom began spamming *Hellfire*'s comment section and reviews with "#FREECLEM". These users were scrambling for a new album to post under, and criticized Rob's decision. One user stated: "You cannot run a website for shit".

Around 12 p.m. on the same day, Rob shutdown Hellfire Chat, amassing a final total of 81,125 comments. The reason for this shutdown is unknown, but is speculated to be due to excessive spam. After shutting down Hellfire Chat, Rob stated in the AOTY Discord server: "Please no more starting "New Hellfire Chat" posts in random albums. I have things to do today, I can't."

## Post-shutdown and memorial chat

After the shutdown of Hellfire Chat, as a way to stop the spam and issues that come with chatting under an actual album, Rob opened The Hellfire / Nurture Memorial Chat at around 2:30 p.m. on September 16. The first message in the chat was sent by Rob, saying "Welcome chatters." News of the chat opening quickly spread in the community, and within three and a half hours, the chat crossed almost 2,000 messages with around 85 active users.

## Hellfire Chat album round-up

User KillBill asked Hellfire Chat members to listen to different "underground" albums that had less than 100 ratings on AOTY and to rate them. The one which got the highest number of votes becomes the album that everybody should have listened (if they wanted to).

Here's the list of the albums:

1. Hiperson, Bildungsroman (2020), post-punk.
2. Oxbow, The Narcotic Story (2007), punk blues.
3. Corea, Los Peores 7km de mi vida (2004), screamo.
4. Lydia Lunch, Queen of Siam (1980), post-punk.
5. Shining, V Halmstad (2007), depressive black metal.
6. The Doopees, Doopee Time (1995), art pop.
7. Hakushi Hasegawa, Somoku Hodo (2018), glitch pop.
8. Minimal Man, The Shroud Of (1981), minimal wave.
9. Wold, Screech Owl (2007), black noise.

## Core members

The users that were most active in the Hellfire Chat:

* 1237
* Andrei
* Auggi
* Bas
* Chode
* Daifukumochi
* Deathsplash
* Doofly
* Ethan\_J\_M
* Thefakejerma985
* Iris
* Hillybilly55
* ImplicitDoom
* JustSomeGuy
* KillBill
* Macks
* Maztergame
* TheUnrealGamer
* Ozymvndias
* Rater\_Ratings
* VideoBoy
* VideoJerome
* Windy
* Wiloptics
* Zaias