Abbr. Enth.

As we all know, the internet is a series of tubes. We know this because Senator Ted Stevens said so in his June 2006 speech about net neutrality. And I quote:

Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

[...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

I’ll give him a bit of a break because he’s old, and old people are afraid of computers and all, but you’d think that if you’re going to give a speech on net neutrality to criticize a bill you’d at least know something about the internet. Now as nice of a lead-in as this would be for a post pointing out all the stupidity on our government, I’d rather pretend it was a good lead in for stupidity on the internet (just go along with me here, ok?).

Spend any amount of time on the internet and you’ll inevitably run into something that just brings your palm shooting up to your forehead in a slap of disbelief and shame. Sure there’s a ton of good information out there, but it seems like the people who really want to share their information are the ones who have nothing to say (see here). The sheer stupidity and ignorance of what you’ll find, accented with rudeness, foul language, and hate, is astounding. Go to any video on YouTube and start reading the comments. People who have nothing to say at all will still be spewing racist, ignorant, sexist, stupid crap. The same can be said for the online gaming community. While I don’t own any of the console systems that allow online play and headsets, I’ve heard some horror stories of what people will say over them.

So what makes perfectly normal people turn into complete idiots? I present you with John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory:

That’s right. Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad. So the real question is why? Why the stupidity and ignorance? Why the blatant disregard for anyone else? Was Freud right? Are we all really just that selfish inside, and it’s just becoming so obvious now that we have this tool of opinions with anonymity? Well I think that’s part of it, but I also think we can blame the e-peen.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of an e-peen, allow me to direct you to the definition from UrbanDictionary (edited for spelling):

Internet slang for ego, pride, or attitude in the virtual world. Long standing net definition for the age old “bigger penis” argument.

and also:

Unlike rl-peens (i.e. a real life penis), e-peens are ‘flexed’, brandished, whipped around, (or otherwise used) with unfailing regularity.

Another difference between e-peens and rl-peens are that e-peens can shrink and grow exorbitantly, i.e. more than a regular penis would with an erection.

Well under that definition it starts becoming clearer. I mean…who doesn’t want something they can be “flexed, brandished, whipped around [...] with unfailing regularity”? I can feel myself breaking down already, it’s just so…desirable.

So does the e-peen apply to women? Of course not, it only applies to men because there are no girls on the internet. It’s not sexist, it’s science.

This actually leads to one more reason the internet is so full of stupid. Things like YouTube comments and internet forums get in the way of porn. When guys are out looking through the series of tubes, hoping to find some good midget-on-midget action, and suddenly they find themselves in the midst of a heated debate about who’s prettier, Flava Flav or Carrot Top, you’re bound to have some testosterone filled, e-peen inflating comments about how it’s obviously Sylvester Stallone.

So what do we do about it? Well I’d hate to sit back and just let it happen, but to get involved will just fuel the fires of fuckwadity. Instead, I vote we just sit back and laugh, and possibly make up new ways to brandish one’s e-peen.