How the internet differs from real life
| June 21, 2012 | Posted by Joe Towse under satire |
Aside from the difference that one is on a computer and full of spam and the other is on Blackpool Pier and full of spam, which hopefully the reader noticed, there are several important differences between the internet and real life that one could do to know before venturing outside their hovel into the sun. In other words, this is a guide to surviving in the real world for internet trolls:
Tell it until it’s funny
There’s a small phenomenon on the internet called the meme. Now, I’m not sure if I’m alone in believing this (in fact I’m sure that I am far from the only one), but if a joke wasn’t funny the first time, it’s probably not going to be funny the millionth time you tell it. Sometimes, when contextually appropriate, memes can induce a giggle, but it is so rare that the moron parade can see contextual suitability or lack thereof that frankly it’s not worth it. U mad bro? Yeah, I mad bro.
Post count penis envy
You may or may not have seen my previous post about how one should go about extending their e-penis, but one of the conclusions is that post count on any given forum essentially is the ultimate test of validity for one’s opinion. In real life, if your other 20,000 statements were the most banal twaddle ever then your opinion would correctly be respected less. Not on the internet. Those who have the best opportunities to fritter their life away with this sort of thing are essentially oracles, apparently.
Dialectically deranged
With the internet comes a whole new way of speaking. Although still far from acceptable, one can almost understand the use of simple abbreviations (“lol” aside, as nobody ever means it literally, but the focus of internet discussion means that “IMO” is often a quite appropriate thing to prefix a sentence with). What is filthy, disgusting and scummy however (once again, I mad bro) is the use of “leet” speak” in common conversation. Just reading it makes anyone with an ounce of sense feel dirty to the core, 0r 4m 1 0v3rr34c71ng?
“You may be one of the world experts in your field, but it doesn’t compare to my YouTube account”
Take any given popular-ish YouTube video made by an expert in a specialist but incomplete area of study, and I guarantee you there will be hundreds of people calling whomever made the video “wrong” because “I has read the Wikipedia page.” This is very similar to point two, above, but it just shows once again how people tend to value the wrong people’s opinions on the internet – and if our society had always been like this, I think we would just barely be discovering the technology of round things.
When you die on the internet, you die in real life!
… or not. Although many have taken their own lives because of some form of internet humiliation, the ever-popular MMORPG genre absorbs the lives of many, often taking all other sense of meaning from their lives so devoid of love and hope. “AMGzzzz I died and lost my pixels!” sounds ludicrous, and it is. Frankly, that whole area of the internet is, in addition to being insanely profitable, hilariously pathetic.
“I’m a TSR author, it’s my birthright to complain”
We all look like this.
