How Not to Look Foolish on the Internet

Lately I've found a guilty pleasure in Literally Unbelievable, a website that shows people on Facebook who have posted Onion "news stories" without realising they are fake.  Of course, I shouldn't be telling you about it, because the more people know about the site, the more people will know what the Onion is and that they could look foolish if they take it seriously.  And the more people know that, the harder it will be for Literally Unbelievable to find its content.  But even if it disappears, there are still more sites making fun of people being stupid on the Internet.  It's all part of nerds taking over the world:  Remember only a few years ago when the most ridiculed person on the Internet was The Star Wars Kid?  Now you get targeted for lack of knowledge, not lack of cool.

I recently saw this article reporting on, but also criticising the Internet's attacks on ignorant people.  Assuming you didn't click on the link and read the article, I'll summarise that it focuses on the many people on Twitter who were left dumbfounded by Dick Clark's death, apparently not knowing who he was.

Here's what the writer doesn't get:  I have no problem with anyone not knowing who Dick Clark was.  Well, anyone under, say, thirty.  After all, such a person would not have seen American Bandstand, that blooper show from the eighties, or the $X Pyramid.  And since these people are young, they presumably had something to do on New Year's Eve, so they wouldn't have come across him there either.

So why am I angry at these people?  Well, if you're Tweeting, you're on the Internet, and if you're on the Internet, you can learn anything you want instantly.  Instead of Tweeting, "Who is Dick Clark?" you could have gone to Wikipedia and typed in, "Dick Clark," and then you'd know.  That's what the Internet is like: it actually takes fewer keystrokes to cure your ignorance than it does to display it.