On internet celebrity...

Video killed the radio star...
Internet killed just about everything else.

For seven years I have wandered this ethereal tower of babel we call the internet, and no matter where I venture, one annoying spectre has always reared it's ugly head. Whether I found myself in chat, forums, or blogdom, I have always encountered a few people who firmly ensconced themselves upon an imaginary pedestal constructed of bullshit painted to look like marble and scented to smell like roses.

I refer to these people as net-celebrities or net-celebs.

I should probably say that not all people who are popular on the internet are utterly full of shit. Some of them are actually interesting people who are worthy of the attention they get, but for the most part, I've found that the typical net-celeb meets a certain profile.

1. The typical net-celeb likes nothing. Being cool isn't something you can learn from a book, and to date there has not been a single class offered anywhere on the subject. The fast track to coolness is to devalue everything, because if you do that, you don't have to look like a dork defending something you like. Typical net-celebs hate everything, which brings me to number two.

2. The typical net-celeb is smarter than you. If you don't believe me, just ask him, he'll certainly tell you in painstaking detail the how, why, and when he is smarter than you. In fact, you won't have to ask him, he freely volunteers the information every 5 minutes like he's on a self-esteem egg timer. If you tell the typical net-celeb you liked the new star wars movie, he'll respond "that movie sucked, but I might have liked it if my frontal lobe were removed and replaced with cottage cheese".

3. The typical net-celeb would have no friends if it weren't for electricity. In fact, if an EMP blast went off near his house, he'd be fucked in the friends arena and probably have to start making some up in order to make himself feel better. In fact, many of the net-celebs I've had the displeasure of meeting couldn't even wrap their heads around the concept of bathing regularly. The day we develop a webcam that can transmit olfactory data will usher in a cultural revolution.

4. The typical net-celeb can do everything better than you. You designed a web-page? That's cute, but he designed an entire online purchasing web application using nothing more than notepad and mspaint. You went rock climbing last weekend? Well he scaled Everest and rescued a group of lost Shirpa's who now revere him as the sky god. In this way, the typical net-celeb is alot like Bill Brasky of SNL fame.

So, fair reader, you are left with three choices when confronted with a net-celeb.
1. Drop to your knees and worship him as the sky god he is. With a bit of ingenuity and luck, you can scratch and claw your way through the throng of followers who also think his shit is mighty and sit at his feet.

2. Boldly proclaim that sitting in your mothers basement rendering judgement of the worthiness of everything to a collection of weaker minded maternal-basement-dwellers doesn't make him the oracle on the mountain. It makes him a worthless loser asshole in an outdated Bab-5 T'shirt who needs to do something more constructive with his time.

3. Simply chuckle to yourself, ignore him much like he does the petrified bar of soap in his shower, and move forward without so much as casting a glance in your rear view mirror.

If you select option 2, be prepared for the following argument:

"You're an asshole"
"Are not"
"Are too"
"Are not"
"Are too"
etc..etc..etc..

If you have a five year old around, let him/her take over keyboard duties for awhile, you'll make better progress that way.