Lowang

Lowang (often incorrectly spelled as Lo Wang) is the spiritual leader of a radical, elitist socio-political movement in Beavercreek, Ohio, popularly known as Lowangism.

The Lowangist school of thought refers to the extremist philosophical belief that the existing social order is irreversibly flawed and a small group of opportunistic social elites possesses sufficient power to supplant the established cultural standards via deception and intrigue. Its founder, Tiberius Lowang, identified the movement's principles with the antisocial behavior exhibited by Lo Wang in the video game. There are two widely accepted definitions about Lowang and Lowangism: the classical definition and the postmodern definition (also known as the Beavercreekian Lowang).

Classical Lowang (1997-1998)

Lo Wang is the main character of the video game Shadow Warrior, released by 3D Realms on May 13, 1997. This character, possibly one of the most offensive in video gaming history, is now known as the Classical Lowang to differentiate him from the Beavercreek Lowang:

“Lo Wang. Master ninja assassin for 20 years. A Shadow Warrior. Shadow warriors are the best of the best, and Lo Wang was the best of the Shadow warriors. Every top company in Japan had a shadow warrior... a protector, a negotiator, a cleaner. Lo Wang worked for Zilla Enterprises, a conglomerate with control in every major industry. Too much control. Power corrupts, and Master Zilla's corporation was corrupted to the core. Lo Wang discovered Master Zilla's demonic scheme to rule Japan, using creatures summoned from the dark side. A man of honor, Lo Wang quit. But one as powerful as Wang either must be on your side, or on no one's side. Master Zilla unleashes his creations for their first test: to kill a single man, a shadow warrior… Lo Wang!”

One of the more notable features of this game is Lo Wang's continual barrage of antisocial, racist, sexist in-game remarks intended to be humorous. In addition, Shadow Warrior was incredibly violent and gory (as was typical of first-person shooters of the time). For example, he tried to woo several bathing Japanese girls with outrageous one-liners and was flatly rejected. Such weltanschauung and cynicism greatly inspired an elite group of high school students from Beavercreek, Ohio, who helped to push the fame of Lowang to new heights years after the original game was rendered obsolete by better FPS games.

Emergence of Beavercreekian Lowang (1997-1999)

Lord Myst

The new reincarnation of Lowang took nebulous shape in early 1998. An elitist student codenamed Lord Myst of Beavercreek, Ohio, a fanatical video gamer and warrior, was motivated by the game decided to bring Lo Wang’s antisocial ideals to real life. Henceforth, he pulled off several disruptive, a.k.a “Lowangic” activities in school. These include writing a fake virus and spread it across school network, lighting a match on the bus while returning from a math competition, playing Super Nintendo games in C++ class, making ninja student IDs, and dressing up as the mascot of a rival school on Halloween. Lord Myst also took an active interest in ninjitsu, often threatening to pulverize people in the name of Lowang.

Succession

Such abnormal activities greatly inspired a freshman codenamed Tiberius Lowang. Around autumn of 1999, Tiberius Lowang began to imitate Lord Myst in obtaining a ninja ID and play video games such as Gundam Wing: Endless Duel on teachers’ computers. After the Bergamo Competition in spring of 2000, Tiberius Lowang officially inherited the Lowangic traditions when Lord Myst graduated a few weeks later.

Era of Tiberius Lowang (2000-2002)

Rise of Tiberius Lowang

Tiberius Lowang officially began his Lowangic career in early winter of 2000. While delivering a speech in Rayburn’s class about Joseph Stalin, he blatantly integrated irrelevant video-gaming references such as Lowangsburg and Tiberian Sun into the presentation and received full credit for it. This success officially led to the coining of two neologisms: lowangize and Lowangism. Lowangize means to deceive (usually the teachers) and incorporating totally irrelevant information (often sexual or game-related) into a serious presentation. Lowangism is the ideology which in part advocates academic elitism and gangsterism in schools. Believers of Lowangism take pride in passive, subversive activities against authorities and/or established social norms.

It’s also worth noting that Tiberius finalized his cognomen after the speech. He combined Tiberius (second emperor of the Roman Empire and also relevant of Tiberian sun) with Lo Wang to form the new name: Tiberius Lowang.

Achievements

Some of the fields in which the new Lowangic order fought against social norms include video gaming in school, pornography, and pseudo-sadistic activities, i.e. finding pleasure at the misery of others. These include setting off a violent screensaver during the middle of math class, playing Mortal Kombat 4 when teachers needed to use their computers, blatantly talking about pornstars and softcore pornography such as Suze Randall photo shoots, spreading Communist propaganda in school, deliberately warning people over AOL Instant Messenger, finding valid excuses to skip classes, linking questionable sites and secret poem pages on the school website, claiming Jefferson Davis to be the sixteenth President of the United States when broached by teachers, pretending to be a gay student in a government project forum, cracking the Internet filtering tool, hiding students’ backpacks in lockers, drawing racist, pan-Asian, Beaver-supremacist cartoons of rival academic teams, undermining the authority of scorekeepers and readers in competitions, pulling diabolical pranks on teachers, commandeering books, making prank phone calls, farming land in turn-based online games, and countless other similar activities.

Legacy

These activities obviously earned the attention of other elitists at Beavercreek High School. Numerous people have expressed their interests to continue the Lowangic tradition or at least have shown appreciation for the works of Lowangists. Three notable Lowangic followers include Bakos de Lowang, Jonathan Lowang, and Sergei V. Ulyanov. Within two years, Lowangism had transformed from a one-man phenomenon to a prospering underground society. Some of the Lowangic legacies are still around today, waiting to be discovered on teachers’ computers (Unreal Tournament, movies, etc.) by future Lowangists.

Lowang Dynasty (2003-2004)

War of Supremacy

Another monumental chapter in the history of Lowangism was written when Tiberius Lowang decided to sign up for an online game called WWII: War of Supremacy and convinced fellow Lowangist Bakos de Lowang to sign up as well. These two powerful soldiers joined the Dark Side and participated in some of the greatest Axis victories of all times. They also scored more than five top finishes in less than a year, a feat unparalleled in the history of the game. They soon became two of the most feared Axis generals in War.

Meanwhile, Bakos and Tiberius Lowang also added War II to their propagandistic agenda. For example, while on a math trip to North Carolina, these two soldiers dutifully wrote out the URL of War II on the banner and surrounded it with Communist and anarchist symbols. Tiberius Lowang also urged people to join War II in a speech honoring his most influential teacher and another speech to the graduating students.

Crest of Lowangic Flood

In the spring of 2004, a War II recruit named Spooner wrote, “I know the Lowang Dynasty here.” The rest is history. Fellow War II players start to refer to the Lowangs as the Lowang Dynasty. Popular slogans include “Dark Force Rising!”, "A Ninja Knows No Fear", and “Axis for Life!” Aside from online gaming, the Lowang Dynasty took pride in academic accomplishments, such as when Bakos de Lowang secured the school top AMC 12 scorer title for the dynasty. Domestically, Tiberius Lowang was distrusted by most of the teachers & students - he had been repeatedly threatened with disciplinary measures for the alleged hacking of school Internet filtering system.

Decline of Lowangism (2004-2005)

Graduation

Lowangism declined after the prominent Lowangists graduated from Beavercreek High School in 2003. After seven years of continuous Lowangist activities, there were no longer any capable leaders left to continue the practices of Lowangism. Despite three attempts by Bakos and Tiberius Lowang to resurrect people’s interest in the Shadow Warrior via extremist propaganda, the new breed of underclass overachievers did not favor leading risky lives in school. The Lowangist rituals were shunned and Lowangic treasures buried in the dark corners of cyberspace.

Anti-Conservatism Crusade

In April 2005, a student from University of Dayton contacted the police, parents, and school district administrators over a website operated by the Lowangists. She threatened to sue these participants if they do not take down the site immediately.

Unimpressed, the Lowangists compromised by removing content deemed excessively inappropriate and promptly transferred ownership to a Socialist named Sergei Kasyanov from the former Soviet Union. Tiberius Lowang riposted with a famous letter, known as the Declaration of April 6th, to refute the student's groundless charges. This attack marked the end of individual Lowangist movement, to be replaced by an alliance with other liberal forces in the Miami Valley region against neo-conservative presence in Beavercreek and abroad.

Lowangic Lore

Legend

Lowangist scholars attempted to expand the scope of the Lowangic lore by writing a new saga:

The original definition of Lowang contains no description of the entity's physical existence. It is simply a powerful Force released during the first alignment of the nine planets of the Solar System. Second only to solar radiation, the Lowangic Force has been crucial to the evolution of organisms on Earth. Around 6000 BC, during the genesis of the Egyptian civilization, a prophet named Anubis harnessed this energy and broke the shackle of death. His followers worshipped the immortal Anubis, who later laid the foundation of the Egyptian religion. In honor of his achievements, the Egyptians revered him as louk-wangha, or the eternal one.

After the decline of Egypt, Louk-wanghaic monks dispersed to the mountainous regions of Central Asia. Louk-wanghaism eventually reached India, where it absorbed elements of Hinduism and later Buddhism to become the Lowangism today. The Chinese historians transliterated louk-wanga to Lowang in the imperial chronicles. The followers of Lowangism settled in China around 200 BC during the height of the Qin Dynasty. They were known for superhuman, or Jedi, reflexes and ascetic spiritual purifications in the Gobi Desert.

In 1895, a monk named Wang Feihong brought Lowangism to Japan. Almost immediately the militaristic Japanese warriors schemed to kill Wang and steal his powers. However, Wang slaughtered thousands of samurais before disappearing during the middle of a thunderstorm, and thus into the annals of martial art legends. Fifty years later, in 1945, a mysterious monk emerged from the ruins of Hiroshima six hours after the detonation of the atom bomb. Claiming to be Wang Feihong reincarnated and calling himself the "Shadow Warrior", this monk assassinated over ninety top Japanese war criminals not tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East over the next few years before disappearing again. In the early 1990s, the American 3D Realms software company programmed the revolutionary game "Shadow Warrior" from these Far Eastern legends.

Lowang isn't just a name. The Shadow Warrior is Lowang but Lowang does not necessarily represent only the Shadow Warrior.

Relics

Lowangic relics are items or symbols that were monumental in shaping the character of Lowang through the years. Some of these items include elk antlers, samurai sword, Chicken Cow CD, Ninja ID, Shadow Warrior rap, tin foil helmet, Quetzalcoatl-Ascencion folder, Gates QuickTime Demo video, Andrew Blake's Girlfriends CD, WWII - War of Supremacy, and defiled Mu Alpha Theta banner.