SomethingAwful is not friendly to new users at all. My avatar is a crying baby that says "Stupid Newbie", and on my user control panel, I have a message that says "No new PMs (because no one likes you)."
Yeah, it's not a forum that fawns over some guy with a variable 140/160/90th percentile IQ just for showing up.

Anyway, I'll be treading lightly. Apparently you can get banned pretty easily.
for someone who has been banned often from GAF, I have received only minor probations on SA despite doing my usual stuff. The mods crack down on actual shit rather than the useless stuff GAF mods will ban you over.
Basically, rules:
1. Type well
2. Don't post while drunk/high and if you do at least never admit that you are
3. Don't use catchphrases
4. Don't use "lol" or the like
5. Make every post have some amount of content. Even a sentence.
The "Stupid Newbie" et. al. is to provoke you into buying an avatar, which costs $5. And the other minor jokes are just whatever. It even compliments you on logging out. It's just an SA shtick and doesn't mean anything.
tl;dr SomethingAwful is the best forum on the Internet