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| First! |
It's really the most despicable thing on forums, bulletin boards, and comment sites that you will encounter in your daily routine. That singular, eye-gouge-worthy response makes my teeth grind together like drunken high school seniors at prom. "FIRST!" is the call of the Internet moron marking his territory. And I don't use "his" in the classical gender-neutral literary sense, because let's face it: Women do not do this.
Why do they lift their legs and spray their musky, pungent odor on our boards? Why do they drag their e-asses across the lawn of my Internet? I have no real answer, but I do have a theory: this is their way of claiming their guaranteed 15-minutes of fame. Imagine the following scenario:
Tommy is a 27 year old white male living in his step-father's basement. He graduated from a public university with a four-year degree in communications, minoring in theater-arts. He spends most of his day as a "Sandwich Artist." During the day he glares dumbly at indecisive customers, scams free cheese off the line, daydreams about that new high-school girl that joined part-time on the third shift, and draws graffiti on the bathroom walls. When he comes home, he spends most of his time alternating between yelling racist obscenities over XBOX-Live and trolling Internet forums and bulletin boards.
His life is a meaningless vacuum. That is, until someone posts a new thread on whatever Chan he was lurking on - at which point he SPRINGS into action - so heightened are his senses that his body trembles with excitement when the RSS feed he has monitoring every website in the world goes "Ping!". Like some kind of wretched Pavlovian dog, he scrambles to his keyboard. His eyes are bloodshot and wide. He takes a moment - just a moment - to wipe some of the Cheetohs dust from his neckbeard... YES. A pristine article. He pounces, his fingers glide over the keyboard with a grace and speed matched only by those savants cursed with such genius.
"FIRST."
With the depression of the return key, his body feels a cathartic release. Another successful posting. Everyone will surely look on his work with an appreciative eye. Yes, he was the first there - and in the way that everyone loves a pioneer - surely his deeds will be recorded alongside such brave firsts as Buzz Aldrin and Audrey Munson. Tommy, the first man to comment.
Anyway, imagining it that way takes some of the rage out of my heart. Maybe there is some sort of subculture race to collect the most "First!" posts in Internet history? Is there an entry in the Guinness book? Maybe there should be. Maybe there should be.
Thank you for reading this first worst post, here are some firsts that are NOT the worst for your reading pleasure:
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