Things that are awesome/sucky about the Interweb/Internets/Series of Tubes

[Sycophant]

The Internet

My friends, my friends. Most of your existences, I would never have known of were it not for my secondary residence, the Internet. Nor you mine. If we were to contrast the amount of free time I spend offline with the time I spend online, I wouldn't be terribly surprised t find I spend more time connected than not. That's fine. The Internet has been a daily thing in my life for nearly ten years now and I'm of that generation who had the Internet play a crucial part in its development, while still being able to remember what it was like before its current ubiquity.

The Internet has actually given me a venue for my creative efforts, has introduced me to people with whom I can discuss things in ways I can't often find in my real life friends, and stands as my leading source of information and popular culture. The Internet totally rocks.

But lest we forget, the Internet totally sucks. Swing by the comments section at a popular entertainment blog, your local newspaper, a MySpace page, or--God forbid--a pornographic website, and you'll really feel the full weight of human stupidity and smallness in its rawest form, pressing down upon you like the world on Atlas's shoulders. And it might just be hard to go on living.

This idea I've had actually only consists of one post for now and I'm apparently not very good at keeping up with these list projects anyways. I'll post my one thing, a point/counterpoint kind of thing, and then if you have an idea that fits the theme, feel free to post your own entry.

[Sycophant]

Thing that rocks:
Minor corruptions of the English language

1337-5P34K doesn't seem to be quite as prevalent as it used to be. Or I've just been spending more time on movie forums than gaming forums, I'm not sure. With the Internet your mileage may vary. However, it has a legacy that informs a certain brand of Internet comedy that I have a great amount of love for. For example, we can talk about Danny Huston, James Stewart, and Carice van Houten as much as we like, but simply saying teh Huston, teh Stewart, or teh van Houten is instantly more descriptive and communicative. Note that you can't really do this by saying "the Huston."

Other examples: LOL cats, saying "OMG" outloud, and "pr0n"/"prawn"

Thing that sucks:
Minor corruptions of the English language

1337-5P34K doesn't seem to be quite as prevalent as it used to be. Or I've just been spending more time on movie forums than gaming forums, I'm not sure. With the Internet your mileage may vary. But its hideous legacy remains an ugly blemish on the face of Internet culture. The primary instance that springs to mind is the irritating trend of replacing the letter s with a dollar sign to indicate that a company or institution is seeking profit and you hate them for it. Recently, I've seen a lot of reference to the M$M for "mainstream media" and it irks the hell out of me. The most classic instance is Micro$oft. Like the positive qualities mentioned for "teh" above, this is also instantly more descriptive and communicative. Namely, it communicates "I'm lazy" and "I'm stupid and will attempt to debase your arguments by pointing out your so-called talking points or accusing you of brainwashing, even though I'm hanging my point on a cheap, tired Internet meme." If you want to drive these points home even further, you can further corrupt the word to a retarded pun someone who's probably dead thought up a long time ago. Example: Micro$haft Winblow$.

Other examples: LOL cats, actual 1337, whatever you want to call what the kids these days put on their MySpace pages

Apologies if I've offended! :pritch:

[Watashi]

I actually like the LOL cats.

I always use the words "teh" and "pwned" in real life too.

[Rowland]

I always use the words "teh" and "pwned" in real life too.Please tell me you don't say "roxxors my boxxors" in real life as well. A girl actually said that to me once. I kinda wanted to punch her in the ovaries.

[Watashi]

No.

If the girl was cute, I would actually find it amusing.

[Sycophant]

I used to say "r0xx0rz my b0xx0rz" (spelling, Rowland, please) out loud from time to time, but it was only because I wanted to be punched in my non-existent ovaries.

Well, that's not true. But I probably said it once or twice, but it was ironic so it was A.O.K.!

[D_Davis]

It's Caturday!

http://lolcat.com/pics/threadlovercat.jpg

[Watashi]

http://lolcat.com/pics/kittengamer.jpg

[D_Davis]

http://www.pantherkut.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/my_pokemons.jpg

[D_Davis]

Today's Caturday thread on Fark is epic - it's almost browser crashing.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3450358

[Watashi]

This has always been my favorite:

http://lolcat.com/pics/killsuperman.jpg

[D_Davis]

:lol:

That's a good one.

I love LOLcats, I don't care if the meme is old, they still make me laugh.

Almost as much as HA HA Guy.

[Sycophant]

Today's Caturday thread on Fark is epic - it's almost browser crashing.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3450358It actually did crash my browser! Nearly my entire system! But my screenwriting software survived the turmoil. Thank God!

Please note that I said LOL cats both rock and suck. Everything posted here so far is pretty awesome. But my aversion to pet-lover brand humor keeps me from enjoying some of it.

[D_Davis]

It actually did crash my browser! Nearly my entire system! But my screenwriting software survived the turmoil. Thank God!


I had to let it load while I took out the garbage.

[Stay Puft]

http://i27.tinypic.com/t684gm.jpg

[dreamdead]

I am fairly certain that I'm responsible for the shift to teh Stewart and teh van Houten. I hope my legacy is secure at this site because of those offerings...

And may the awesomeness of the terminology never yield teh Bay or teh Ratner.

[monolith94]

http://homepage.mac.com/jeancarroll/caturday/meta02.jpg

my favorite!