Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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10 UCW OCTOBER 11-17, 2023 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM OPINION A child's garden of the internets by PITT DICKEY All three of the regular readers of this column have probably heard of the internet by now. However, in the interest of hoping for a fourth reader, today's column will explain how the internet works. As most people know, the internet is a series of wires and tubes hanging in the upper stratosphere suspended by bungee cords from ultra violet rainbows which are invisible to the naked eye. I know these things about how the internet is arranged because I did my own research on the internet. e rest of this column is based upon things I learned from the internet. Like Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want on the internet. You can do many things on the internet such as buying items from China, betting on losing football teams, threatening total strangers and assuming the identities of other people. e first model of the internet was invented in 1943 by Soviet scientists who were looking for an easy way to have bottles of vodka delivered to them during the Second World War. e Russian internet consisted of a series of empty tin cans tightly tied together by strings. Ivan would yell into one tin can. e vibrations would travel up to 30 feet through the string to cause most words to vibrate in the tin can held by Sergei at the other end. Astrophysicists later called this concept String eory. Earth women and men use String eory to string along second choice romantic partners while hoping for a better offer. With the advent of communication through tin cans and string, a huge demand for string developed. e Hunt Brothers were behind 1948's Great String Shortage when they attempted to corner the string market. ey collected their inventory to store in the World's Second Largest Ball of Twine on the face of the Earth. is is the very ball of twine that Clark Griswold and his family visited in 1983 while on their vacation trip to Wally World. Unfortunately for the Hunt brothers, the bottom of the string market fell out after Dr. Otto Frankenstein invented the series of wires and tubes that make up our current internet rendering the old string/can internet system obsolete. Pro tip: You can still see the world's second largest ball of string near the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Now that the history of the internet is clear, let us consider what is the highest and best use of the internet. Without a doubt, the Prime Directive of the internet is to argue with friends and total strangers on Social Media. While sitting in a darkened room, one can change the entire course of human existence by shouting insults at the rest of the world in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, or putting up memes that support your political viewpoint. No one has the ability to disagree with what you put up on the internet. As the King of Siam once said: "So let it be written. So let it be done." If you type it, everyone will follow your directions. e world will change at your whim. Go ahead. Try it. ere are certain code phrases which absolutely will convince any doubters of the correct line of your thought when posted on the internet. Learn the following key phrases to quell any dissent. If you see something you don't like, type "Nothing could be further from the truth." at squelches all debate. If you want to sound profound, type a statement followed by "Let that sink in." If you want to catch the attention of the world with some startling new research you found, type "is is jaw dropping information" or "is is a real game changer." Any meme that you put up will change the thoughts of everyone else on Earth. A great way to say I told you so is to type "Remember what I wrote 7 years ago." Everyone will always remember what you wrote back then even if they can't remember what they had for lunch yesterday. Trust me., the world is hanging on every word you post. If you don't like a politician, type "Who thinks Mr. X should be kicked out of Congress?' or "Mr. X should be in jail." Seeking consensus? Type a crazy rant followed by any of these phrases: "Who agrees with me?" "Retweet if you stand with me." "Let's see who is brave enough to share this." "Can't we all agree that XYX is true?" No one will dare disagree. All of these statements are guaranteed to bring the entire universe over to your point of view. e more emphatic your statement is, the more people it will convince, particularly if you type it in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Subtlety is wasted. Shrieking dogmatic statements are all you need to make your opinion the opinion of all mankind. Don't believe me? Was Hop Sing the cook at the Ponderosa on Bonanza? Let a thousand rants bloom. Pitt Dickey, Contributor. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. String theory as told by Pitt Dickey. Illustration by Pitt Dickey