The Ten Internet Plagues

The Ten Plagues of Internet [I imagine this article as being mostly visual. Pictographic depictions of the plagues, either in the style of Egyptian hieroglyphics, or as medieval paintings. I think I prefer the former, but the latter has more source images to draw from.] Plague of Inane Tweets PICTURE: People kneeling and weeping on the banks of a “river” the river is a twitter stream. CAPTION: “… He moved his cursor and clicked the tweets in the twitter stream, and all the tweets were changed into bullshit. Many tweets seemed to be jokes, for they had the structure of jokes, and the tone of jokes, yet they had none of the humor, and so provided no enjoyment. Yet the people still read them and many hours were lost.” Plague of Memes PICTURE: A person oppressively surrounded by some sort of shitty meme. Maybe courage wolves? Or that stupid six square “What people think I do, blah blah blah” CAPTION: “… I will send a plague of memes on your whole country. The internet will teem with memes. They will come up on your facebook and your e-mail and onto your favorite websites, into the computers of your friends and co-workers, and into your workplaces and everyday speech. The memes will come up on you and your relatives, who will not understand them, and misuse them, and the tedium will spread.” Plague of YouTube Comments PICTURE: Something that looks like a cuneiform tablet, and underneath that a lot of crappy YouTube-like comments: “thumbs up if buzzfeed brought you here.” “gay” “LOLOLOL” CAPTION: “All the comments throughout the internet became like YouTube comments, for none of the comments were relevant to the original post, and all evil in the world was blamed on Obama, and a great fear of Sodomites did crop up in all corners. But when the magicians tried to produce YouTube comments by their sacred arts, they could not, because they were fake and gay. Plague of Spam PICTURE: Winged pills and dicks swarm around a man. CAPTION: “I will send swarms of spam on you and your loved ones, on your people and into your computers. Your inbox will be full of offers of penis enlargement, and free vicodin, and reported errors with your tax return. But I will deal differently with my people, for I will provide them with a powerful spam filter, and MistyGurlXXX will not bother them. Plague of Netflix Availability HCT PICTURE: A shepherd in a field. Cows lie dead in a field. Their bodies are marked with the features of good recognizable movie posters. CAPTION: “I will bring a terrible plague on your content on Netflix – on your physical DVDs, Starz and new releases and on any well regarded movie released in the last five years. But the Lord will make a distinction between the content you care about and the content that is thoroughly mediocre, so that Hot Tub Time Machine will never be removed from Netflix Instant.” Plague of Facebook Apps PICTURE: A man’s face covered in Farmville icons CAPTION: “So they took soot from a furnace and tossed it into the air and horrible apps broke out on the facebook profiles of all the people in the land. And no one could bear to stand before their friends because of the requests for time crystals and farm-related updates and Wall Street Journal stories that covered their facebooks.” Plague of Trolls PICTURE: A bunch of “walk like an egyptian” figures with troll faces. CAPTION: “I will send the full force of my plagues against you. At this time tomorrow, I will send the worst wave of trolls to ever fall upon the internet. Give an order now to avoid all public forums, because the trolls will descend on every person with lax privacy settings, and they will face statements intended only to enrage and depress, and the world will seem a sadder place, except for the trolls, who will have many lulz. Plague of Advertisements PICTURE: Something that looks like a tablet with hieroglyphics that is 90% covered by ads for papyrus, and crocodile dung, and Pyramid experts. CAPTION: “I will bring advertisements onto your internet tomorrow. They will cover the face of your sites so that the content cannot be seen. They will destroy what little internet enjoyment you have left after the trolls. They will push down your page and make sounds without warning and a tiger or some similar bullshit will seem to burst through the screen and sell you a soda. And it will be awful. Plague of Buffering HCT PICTURE: People pointing into the sky as if at an eclipse, but it’s that youtube buffering ring. It would be great if this could be an animated gif, so it was actually spinning. CAPTION: “And total darkness covered all the video links. Or at least it seemed that way. The video would play a little bit and then stop and then play and then stop. How much am I paying for internet. Why is it doing this?” Death of Google Privacy Policy HCT PICTURE: The grim reaper with the Google Chrome logo flying over a village. CAPTION: “About midnight I will go throughout the internet and that which you loved most will die. Anonymity and privacy will be extinguished for both the rich and the poor. And there will be a loud wailing throughout the internet – worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. And then everyone will forget about it and act like it never happened.

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