Stylistic Writing: Humor Essay, Research Paper

The Newbies Guide to the Newsgroup War.

You’ve just received a hundred different emails, all outlining the various ways the senders wish to kill you but you have no idea why. What does it mean?

You just got flamed. So what if you told them that alt.depressed.gothic is a load of narcissistic drivel? No one in the real world cares about their poetry and vendetta’s against jocks anyway.

The best way to respond of course is to flame them back.

First, compose your post. The post must include the following for it to be effective.

Laugh at your opponents. Constantly. Litter your response with ‘ I’m falling over laughing at you’ and ‘My stomach just fell out I’m laughing so hard,’ and ‘I’m in a wheelchair now because I’m paralyzed with laughter because you look like a gimp.’

Laughter diminishes your opponent as irrelevant.

Refer to yourself as God or Master. Continually. Do not answer to posts that don’t address you by this title. Remember, people cannot possibly hate you because you’re a moron. The only other possible reason is because you’re God and they’re jealous.

Also, remember not just to address your post to alt.depressed.gothic (or wherever it started.) All of Usenet wants to read the creative wisdom bursting forth from your enlightened mind so don’t forget to post it to groups like alt.knitting.appreciation and alt.celibate.zoroastrians.

Another good thing to keep in mind as you engage in this ‘war’ is that the person on the other end is not real. It doesn’t matter what you say. They’re just text. This gives you a remarkable amount of freedom. For example if someone says ‘my cat got run over by a truck,’ you can say ‘well I hope it was a big one,’ and it wont matter.

Remember, bandwidth is unlimited as long as you’re connected to the net. Include pictures of your shoe and relate it to deeply philosophical arguments that you’re currently making. You can even make a twelve-hour video of your bookshelf and post it – people will appreciate the effort.

If anyone complains about your multimedia contributions immediately accuse him or her of being a communist trying to censor you. Launch into a wild tirade about freedom of speech and democracy – the largely American population of Usenet will respond to this and the poor sod that tried to gag you will one day discover his house has been torched by the NSA.

Make up lots of things about your opponent. Remember, it must be plausible. Everything should start with ‘obviously’ and be relevant. For example ‘Obviously, Joe has no brains’ is a good argument that works just about anywhere because it will be true every time.

Flamewars are like lawsuits – everyone gets their hands dirty. Dig up as much dirt on your opponent as possible. Find their personal homepage and read their bio. Then inform everyone that not only does Joe have no brains, he likes cheese on toast too. This will paint a corrupt, sordid picture of him. When people start following your suit and flaming your opponent, you will know that you’ve won.

Occasionally you will come across a better flamer than you. Learn from them. Ask them if they will be your mentor. Tell them you will pay them money. Once you have sucked them dry you can turn around and defeat them.

However finding a flamer who can outwit the above rules happens once in a lifetime so don’t worry about it. Everyone online are sheep anyway. When in doubt refer to the rules above and remember you are always right.

Go forth and flame.