The Internet is full of idiots, which is why I love it so much

By Nury Vittachi

‘‘Thank you for writing hys-terical angry abuse under     my Facebook post! It persuaded me to bring my political views in line with yours!” I find myself writing that line increasingly often, and some folk even take it seriously. Internet discussions have their own rules. But I love them because there are few pleasures in life equal to watching people massively embarrassing themselves from the comfort of your armchair.

True story: A few days before writing this, a sneaky guy noticed that a chat-group of 32 people were all female. So he wrote a message and sent it to all 32 mes: “You’re cute. Where are you from?” But because it was a group chat, each woman could see that he had sent the same message to 31 others. When he realised what he had done, he wrote: “Oh s***!” and closed his account at the speed of light. A screenshot remains on the Imgur website.

For a good laugh, I recommend visiting Yahoo Answers. Here are my three favorite real questions from that site: 3) “I was bitten by a turtle when I was a young lad. Should I still drink orange juice?” 2) “How am I sure I am the real mum of my kid?” 1) “What percentage of water is celery?”

Sometimes this columnist and other ughty people post humorous replies to questioners. For example, someone asked: “How big is the specific ocean?” Someone replied: “Can you be more pacific?” A different questioner asked: “What is a person from London called?” The reply: “My neighbor is from London and he is called Rob.” And more recently someone posted this question: “HOW DO I TURN OFF CAPS LOCK?” The reply: “IT’S FOREVER IRREVERSIBLE. THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.” The joy of Internet conversations lies in the fact that people don’t have editors. One girl wrote “your stuped” under one of this writer’s columns. I replied: “Maybe, but at least I can spell ‘you’re’ and ‘stupid’.” But in general I avoid correcting people’s spelling on the web. If you do, a Law of ture kicks in which ensures that you make an embarrassing spelling mistake within minutes. (ians)