Write With Verve

I had a writing assignment for my Creative Nonfiction class. I had to write about something I know, with verve. Lo and behold, I sit down to write and I forget everything I know anything about. I'm an idiot. How did I even get into college? I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

This is what I managed to poo out before class. People found it funny. My professor probably won't:

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The compendium of all knowledge in the universe is Wikipedia . The compendium of all the shameless inaccuracies online is the Encyclopedia Dramatica , and it has this to say on the subject of George W. Bush. George W. Bush is a thirty-five year old Texan comedy writer whose numerous accomplishments include pluralizing teh Internetz. With this helpful new terminology in place, we now recognize several Internets that exist beside each other, often connected by a series of tubes .

The first Internet is a place to gather and share information, promote the free exchange of ideas across all distances and cultures, and celebrate freedom of speech.

The second Internet is a place for thirteen-year-old girls to pose as 1337 haxx0rs by putting numbers into misspelled words. Other inhabitants include pornographers; people who pretend they are wizards, night elves or vampires; and people who live in their mother’s basement past the age of thirty-five. Thirty-five year old vampiric porn-collectors are commonplace.

Chuck Norris jokes account for the entirety of the third Internet.

There is a fourth, lesser-known Internet. Whenever a customer buys a can of tuna, or a truck delivers a supply of nail polish, or an employee takes a cigarette break, Wal-Mart computers record the event and store the data in one of several data caches across the country. No one knows the exact size of these data hordes, but they are rumored to store several terabytes, which would make the forth Internet larger than the other three combined. In addition to having a better intelligence service than the NSA,Wal-Mart employs more people than the United States military. They also sell guns. Despite this, Wal-Mart has never admitted involvement in plans for an armed takeover of Arkansas.

People often assume that a person’s involvement with the first three Internets is inversely related to the number of times that person gets laid. Despite this, many flock to matchmaking sites so a computer can pair them with somebody based on similar interests—namely their willingness to pay strangers to arrange blind dates. This industry has close ties to Internet memes, which are in-depth quizzes to unearth your hidden qualities. For instance, if I were a character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I would probably be Xander. Without the Internets, I would not know this.

The Internets tell us a lot of things. They’re particularly useful in an academic environment. With just a few clicks, I can find out what my classmates had to drink last weekend and who they drank it with. I can also lean where to buy a term paper for $9.95 a page, and the site my professor will use to prove I cheated.

The Internets give me free phone calls to my friend in the Philippines, and let me read (most of) The New York Times for free. I can fact-check the rumor I heard, or look up the obscure reference that went over my head. I can save time and kill time. I can publish any half-ass piece of crap and be sure there will be someone bored enough to read it. Even if it’s another rant about the Wal-Mart conspiracy.