I'm sure there are internet scholars out there. Every time I hear about a scholar for something that only came into existence in the last few decades, I get weirded out. If I said, as a child, that I'd gone viral, a lot of people would be worried about how sick I was. Perhaps I was Patient Zero of a plague.
On the internet, obviously, that means something different. I've only ever gone viral once, when I wrote a review of Real Killers on Forced Viewing, and it caught someone on Reddit's attention.
But I don't think I've ever really thought about the history of the word "viral," and it wasn't until I read an article by Cory Doctorow stating that the first viral video ever was the Bill Gates Microsoft Antitrust Deposition.
Holy shit. That was in 1998 when we apparently gave a shit about the existence of monopolies and actually used the laws on our books to prosecute these--I told myself I wouldn't go off on any rants this week. You get what I'm talking about.
And what the fuck? I hadn't thought about this moment since it was in the headlines, and even then I probably didn't pay much attention to it. But watching it now is pretty awkward. If you ever want to see Bill Gates out of his element, you should watch it here. When he's on the defensive, he's very panicked. You can see it in his eyes and hand gestures. He also asks a lot of really stupid fucking questions. He's a smart guy, so I can only assume he asked them because he's being weaselly.
And now I want someone to put the fucking leeches on Bezos EXACTLY like this. I want to see that fucker sweating bullets while a prosecutor brings the hammer down on him. He needs it. Badly.
Also, the day I learn that there's an emoji scholar is the day that I pull a full Sam Neill at the end of In the Mouth of Madness.
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