Friday 25th July 2003: A Future History
Time for another tired concept to be flogged to within an inch of its life: the future timeline of the internet. They’re like a certificate of authenticity for humour sites – nobody will take you seriously without one. Being the charitable soul I am, I shall provide this one free of charge:
March 2004 – The 2004 edition of the Collins dictionary includes the ‘word’ “lol”, defining it to mean “I am laughing, but lack the typing speed to express this in more than three letters.” People begin to use it in conversation in the place of conventional laughter, which eventually becomes a sign of being behind the times. Around the same time, there is a marked rise in murderous rampages, which police put down to the average overly-sensitive lunatic’s inability to tell a “ha ha ha, you’re so stupid” lol from a “you’re quite the comedian, Frank” lol.
July 2005 – As a natural progression of the ‘lol’ phenomenon, a cult emerges in Hamburg, Germany, in which the followers renounce the use of varying tone of voice, preferring to speak in monotone, or, in the most extreme factions, pass each other notes in preference to speech. Though cultists are initially mocked for their obvious lack of social adjustment, certain fragments of the group turn out to be excellent marksmen thanks to Counterstrike addictions. Whilst several Sierra factories are burned to the ground in reactionist riots, the damage has been done. People are terribly nice to cultists after that.
Feb 2008 – Bill Gates succeeds in implanting an IEEE-1394/FireWire port into his forehead, plugs in an ADSL modem, and summarily declares himself “at one with the internet”. Bill never regains consciousness, but brainscans reveal seething activity, along with a database of pornography that causes several scanning technicians to go weak at the knees and take a two-week holiday. The remainder of the information, however, remains a mystery to the investigators.
Jun 2012 – A small group of Bill’s friends try to tempt him back out of the internet and into his corporeal form by hacking into a number of major Fortune 500 companies’ websites and inserting “Powered by Apple; Best Viewed with Netscape” graphics. Bill, however, calls their bluff, and several of his former friends require therapy after their computers spontaneously redesign themselves so that their sole capability is to display a continuous slideshow of Bill in various compromising poses.
Mar 2014 – A small starship reaches Alpha Centauri, built by the Chinese. The US summarily melts the planet, because, as then-President Johnson said, “We claimed diplomatic victory last year.”
Jul 2016 – A brief, world-wide power surge is observed, causing widespread destruction of unprotected electronics. This is initially a mystery, but logs kept on several science stations show a large pulse of energy aimed at a distant, previously un-noticed star. As far as can be determined, the pulse encodes the complete content of Bill Gates’ mind, and indeed, he is found dead hours later. The best minds on Earth are baffled as to his purpose, but they send a note of apology and a poster saying “DO NOT BUY FROM THIS MAN” along the same trajectory just to be safe.
Unfunny, you say? Well, I could’ve told you that 10 minutes ago. Check back in 2 weeks time when I’m mentally firing on all cylinders.