There is a caste of has-beens that barely even seem to exist any more.

I periodically type “Vanilla Ice” into Google, and each time I feel like a prison screw looking inside a cell to make sure the prisoner inside hasn’t hanged himself with his trousers. Vanilla Ice doesn’t even have nostalgia value any more. He’s the worst thing: a novelty act who didn’t realise he was a novelty act. On his Myspace he still tries to sell it that he’s some huge star:

A number 1 record in the UK sounds pretty big. I went on to Wikipedia to assess the bigness.

So it wasn’t in the UK, it was in Ireland. Although I think some of Ireland is still part of the UK, so maybe that’s right. Sort of like how he could say “My song was a smash chart hit!” when the chart in question was Eritrea’s, or “My song is beloved by an entire nation!” when it merely enjoys frequent plays on the Vatican City gramophone.

Also, it wasn’t his song, it was someone else remaking his song.

Still also, the original song is more than twenty years old.

Also still also, the original song is based off a sample from yet another song.

While it’s sad to see this guy bluffing his pair of deuces like it’s a full house, I think he’s missing an opportunity. What The Fun? Listen, man, your original fans a), are now 30-40 years old, and b) don’t care about you. You don’t need to censor your language for teenyboppers on MTV any more.

He should become like fellow has-been superhero Tila Tequila and just write the most surreal mind-bending crap imaginable. That’s the lone benefit of talking to an empty room. You can say whatever you want.

I miss the old internet. I miss the days when people had homemade personal websites that they coded themselves. It was like an exam you had to sit. If you couldn’t figure out HTML, too bad. Now every idiot is posting from a professionally designed tumblr template. The dissonance is chilling. Beautiful CSS3 compatible websites used as a delivery system for Socially Awkward Penguin memes.

I liked it when forums weren’t locked down with karma and upvotes and approval scores and other tools designed to make you into a sheep. Once, you posted to express opinions. Now, you post like a politician. “How will my post play with the ‘upvotes Dr Who references’ crowd? Will it enrage the anti-Care Bears demographic? Oh shit, we’re losing the mandate!”

Tumblr is a horror and a human rights travesty on par with the Holocaust and the Bataan Death Marches. Just a nonstop stream of disparate information being fed at you with no organisation. Things appear. Then they disappear. If you have something to say on Tumblr, make sure you don’t waste too much effort typing it. By tomorrow morning it will have disappeared from everyone’s dash and nobody will remember it.

Once, creative people thought you could make money on the internet. Then, they thought you could build a fanbase on the internet. Even that is beginning to seem like a pipe dream. If you make a pretty picture, it might go viral…after some ass-pirate on Reddit swipes your picture, edits out your name, and claims it was drawn by his autistic 12 year old sister. I have no idea who created half the shit I see online. It seems that wanting to be credited for your work is an obsolete idea, like “Be Kind, Rewind!”

Youtube becomes measurably worse each year. Remember how once you could pause a video and it would buffer to the end? And how could you see video ratings in the sidebar? Why don’t we still have those things?

Nobody reads any more. Images are how we talk. If you want to get some of King George’s English in front of a mass audience, it needs to be bold, punchy, feature at least 3 colours, be in ALL CAPS, and be superimposed over a dramatic image emphasising your point. Make sure you use simple words.

The entire internet should be buttfucked with dynamite.

McKayla Maroney is 16 years old. When she first competed as a gymnast, she was 13.

I remember when I was 13. I liked to play the Pokemon trading card game. One day, one of my friends did some shit to me (I don’t recall what happened, but it was stupid), and as punishment, his mom made him give me one of his cards.

He could have gypped me with a Magikarp or a Bellsprout, but he must have actually felt sorry, because he said “Ben, here’s a limited edition Mewtwo Promo card. It’s super rare. There’s only like 200 of them in the world. I’m sorry about what I did, and because of that I’m giving you the most valuable card in my deck. Please, don’t ever lose it.”

I took his Mewtwo Promo card like it was the Ark of the Covenant, and squirreled it away in a top secret location (aka, my bedroom). I never touched it or even looked at it. This card was limited edition shit. My peasant glance would be enough to take $200 off its resale value.

Later that year my family moved from Sydney to the Central Coast. I lost my Mewtwo promo. I was furious with myself. If I’d kept it with my other cards I’d still have it, but in my foolishness I had separated it from the rest. I looked everywhere, but it eluded me.

I wondered if this ever happened to Ash Ketchum. Like if a Pokeball rolls out of his backpack and he loses it under the couch. It would be bad news if the Indigo League title was on the line and your Charizard was under the lounge, sitting down there with all the dust bunnies and used condoms. That would ruin your day.

Let’s get back to the story. My own personal Gotta Catch ‘Em All (But One of Them in Particular) quest ended one day when I found the promo card at the bottom of a moving box. I was overjoyed. The Mewtwo-shaped hole in my heart was filled.

Then I went on eBay and saw my precious, limited edition Mewtwo promo card being sold for roughly five dollars.

Anyway, good luck to McKayla Maroney on being three years older than 13.