THROWBACK THURSDAY - "Ten Stupid Questions You Need To Stop Asking The Internet"

(originally published on April 28, 2010)

1. How do I meet people?

Wait, my Spidey sense is tingling… yes, it's telling me that you're using a device (the Internet) which is a solitary activity! Holy Saints and Mother Mary of Virtue, it's a bloody epiphany! All you have to do is get off the Internet!

2. I have this sex problem…

Asking people in an Internet forum for sex advice is like asking a Catholic priest for sex advice… the only answer you'll get will be from the perspective of gross pedophiles with weird fetishes. In any case, 100% of the sex questions on the Internet boil down to "I'm a pathetic virgin so I don't know how to sex!" Time will fix that. If it doesn't, oh well, that was probably nature's way of saying "We have enough of you already!"

3. I have this strange pain…

The web is not your doctor. We especially love how people will be gushing blood from an artery, bones sticking out, major organs lying on the ground, a chunk of whatever hit them still sticking out of their head, and their first thought is to type out a message to post to a forum and patiently wait for an answer while their vision goes black. We admire that restraint, but please go be a problem for the ER.

4. Does anybody else…?

Yes, yes, yes, yesyesyes, yes, YES, and YEEESSSS!!!!! Everybody else does too. Everybody else highlights the text on the screen as they read, picks their nose at traffic lights, checks behind the shower curtain before they use the bathroom, has weird inexplicable fantasies about being ravaged by winged monkeys, thinks Lady Gaga is overrated, has a paranoid moment when they think the TV is talking just to them, and experiments with unorthodox shoe-lacing techniques. We're all clones. Why do people derive such pleasure from posting these mundane, boring, trivial discussions just to find out that, yes, Virginia, everybody really does wipe their ass after they poop?

5. What's the easiest way to learn…?

Easiest way to learn anything tech-related? Forget it. No way will be easy enough for you. Kill yourself. You are a useless sponge on humanity, and if you did manage to motivate yourself to undertake the career path you're set on, you would only turn out to be the very worst at what you do. We need another designer who started out saying "What's the least work I can possibly do?" like we need a new strain of AIDS. And we hope you need heart surgery and the only surgeon you get will be a pimply, fat, Cheeto-toothed loser like yourself who started out in IRC going "HOW DU EY LURN OPERASHUNS, LOL?"

6. I just got ripped off – what should I do?

There are only two possible answers to this one: (a) blow it off, or (b) go after them. Going after them will involve anything from legal attack to sending Mugsy and Bumbles to work the offender over with needle-nosed pliers and a blowtorch, but whatever. Really, this is a loser question. Winners make sure that they don't get ripped off in the first place, and then if they do get taken advantage of, they wisely take a lesson and are grateful for the experience and move on. How did you think life works, anyway?

7. So and so's really bothering me – can we ban them?

Get used to the idea that the Internet is one big global anarchy. There aren't nearly enough sheriffs to put all the bad guys in jail. Your average web forum has a staff of one to five people, and let's face it, nobody gets into website work expecting that they'll be chained 24/7 to a hot server. They get into website work because they want to play golf with the guys and laugh about how, right this minute, their site is earning ad revenue! They'll do the minimum to block the heaviest spammers and let the rest go. Your petty soap-opera squabble with another user is the kind of thing that gets deleted unread.

8. Can anybody recommend…?

Yes, of course, everybody can recommend another movie, song, band, album, cartoon, manga, anime, restaurant, sex position, dog grooming method, or sex position combined with dog grooming method. So can Google, Amazon, About, Yahoo, Dogpile, and 1,000,000 other search engines. The Internet is made out of search engines! What other kinds of answers do you think you're going to get? Do you think there's a special bootleg tier of films that only the people in this forum know about? Can't you just read the blurb on the DVD case like the rest of us do? Can't you just use a search engine like the rest of us do? Search engines! Use them! Use them! Search engines! Search engines! Use them! Search engines!

9. My so-and-so made this – what do you think?

We think you're lying like a thief. Yes, we could all rip the Mona Lisa, run three Photoslop filters on her, and post it claiming that our seven-year-old daughter did it, hoping for lots of upvotes and hits out of sympathy. It's called "glurge." We don't do it because we are not losers.

10. Why do I feel like such a loser?

Well, let's see here. Did you sit through school doped to the gills on Ritalin? And then go into ten lifetimes worth of debt to fund your way through college getting a degree in some random-ass field you couldn't care less about? And now you're stuck in some dead-end job and you're broke and have no friends and either can't get laid or are stuck with the closest person who fell into bed with you and has now turned into a horrible troll who doesn't love you? Gee, no, we can't tell why you feel this way.

(via)