Attention, boys and girls, your attention please!
Welcome to Internet 101, I am your instructor, E. Normous Arse, Ph.D. This semester we will attempt to help you establish a basic level of fluency in the primary currency of the Internet — memes. Yes, in order to be a fully-fledged member of the broad online community, it is absolutely essential that you are able to comprehend a fair number of popular memes and other cultural reference points in order to understand the endless variety of inside jokes, remixes, offhanded remarks, and other versions of social intercourse that you will encounter online. Without these under your belt, you will be like a wandering simpleton, unable to understand almost anything said to you by a long-time “netizen”. And no, nobody says “netizen” anymore except those deluded people at BoingBoing.
So let us begin with your required reading and viewing:
Here are 99 assorted Internet memes that anyone who professes to understand the Internet MUST see. Some, like the Dancing Baby date back to the earliest days of what was then quaintly called the “World Wide Web”. Others, like “David After The Dentist” are as recent as last week. There are a few notable omissions, such as the many variations of the “Mr. T Ate My Balls” , the Hamster Dance , and the more recent “Yo dawg!”, but we can cover these in class.
The rest of your syllabus is posted online, of course, so I won’t waste your time with that here. Please be prepared for a short quiz on this material for the next session. Class dismissed.
