How to be an Internet Elitist

Although I cannot claim to be a pioneer of what we call today as “The Internet Culture;” I’ve been online long enough to have a fairly good understanding of what internet denizens are like. I vaguely remember going online just to download Alicia Silverstone pictures on a 14.4 KBPS connection or logging in to ICQ to ask one of my pre-med classmates to scan his notes for me and have them “DCC’ed” to me–A process which takes something like 4 hours.

I can’t claim to have sent plain text emails on a super computer that runs on vacuum tubes, there were internet pioneers who stretch farther into the past than I did. But one of the things that these pioneers and myself share is being able to witness a time when “internet culture” was a homogeneous thing–a badge we wear proudly.

The internet of 2007 is a long tail of thousands upon thousands of archetypes. Since I do not have sufficient time nor willpower to describe each and every one of them, let me provide you with keen insight into my favorite one: The Internet Elitist.

If you yourself are an internet elitist, please realize that I’m not making fun of you specifically. I’m just making fun of you in general. You know, because you’re a douchebag.

Who are the Internet Elitists

Internet elitists are typically in their mid twenties to their mid thirties. They spend most of their adult life obsessively fixating over the internet, something which they consider to be their domain. Among all the archetypes of modern internet users, the internet elitist is the one who share the most characteristics with the pioneers of the Internet. They’d remind you every chance they get too.

Internet elitists think that having an email address with a naming convention other than “name.surname@email.com” is “geigh” and using Yahoo! Messenger is “retarded” since the Yahoo! Messenger client “sold out” when it served ads. Internet elitists use Trillian or for Mac elitists, the more elite of internet elitists, Adium.

Awesomecakes! How do I become one?

Internet elitists have very discerning tastes when it comes to how they use the internet or how they entertain themselves over the internet. They will discuss their passions to a point of fanatical obsession. In order to qualify as an internet elitist, you must possess at least five of the following qualities:

• You must have a borderline deranged obsession for alternative browsers like Flock or Safari or Opera.
• You must hate a TV series after its first season or after people outside your circle starts watching them. Sure Heroes was cool but it totally fucking sucked after the first season. Now every episode feels like a really bad episode of One Tree Hill.
• A Zealous love for Tool. Nevermind the fact that Tool fans are the most widely-hated music club this side of Linkin Park land.
• Impossible, scrupulous standards for what makes a woman “attractive.” Despite the fact that an Internet elitist is most probably a virgin, or in the rare instances that he does have sex, he fails to satisfy both himself and his partner because of his obvious lack of stamina resulting from sitting in front of the computer for weeks on end working on a huge ass Photoshop or AutoCAD project; he will immediately spot or even fabricate flaws in the most beautiful of women.
• An automatic, inherent disgust for anything on the Internet he has seen before. When anybody shows an Internet elitist a funny video on YouTube, he’ll snap back with an almost knee-jerk retort of “The 90′s called, it wants its video back…“
• …Because after all, the video in question was probably posted on Digg months before.
• You should laugh at people who played Final Fantasy after Final Fantasy VII because the franchise “sold out” after that.
• The internet elitist buys computer hardware based on benchmarks and the recommendations of other internet elitists in a tech forum he frequents. Also, he, most probably, has a signature containing the complete system specs of his “rig” on any forum he posts at.
• Don’t have a blog. Blogging is so below you. However, make sure to leave anonymous comments on popular blogs which invariably questions the blogger’s sexuality or attacks his personal life.
• A blatant disregard for hygiene and grooming. After all, “Trying to look good limits my productivity” or “It’s a dot com thing.”
• Internet elitists are the life of the party. That is if by “life of the party” means whipping out your laptop, Cellphone, hell even your PSP to wardrive for free WiFi to post updates on Twitter about how “retarded” the party is.

Originally written for The Man Blog

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