It is often forgotten now, when it's all coming to and end, how it actually began. No Wonder, for the early life of this pandemic was very modest and ordinary. I thought it would be a good idea to take a look back. Not that there is much change to make a difference anymore. It's hard to prevent an explosion after blast wave has already destroyed most things you love.But perhaps it's easier to walk in the ruins of all good that was if we learn to understand how it all happened.
It first appeared around summer of 2007.
Some dude made that cool photoshop version of
the Man who laughsand people thought it was cool to use it in profiles and desktop themes.
Heck, I had it on my desktop too for a few months. God how naive we all were back then. Now..after everything, it feels like a million years ago rather than something that took place only last summer.
Back then, everyone thought it was nothing alarming. The phenomena seemed nothing more than it's own little island among millions of others in vast ochean of user profiles and signatures. Maybe we could have stopped it back then. But how were we supposed to know?
Later that summer, the first real promo pic appeared. It was just an extreme close up of a white face with shitty makeup plastered over it. The minimalist approach left masses intrigued over the movie and character, but everyone was little unimpressed of the picture itself. It infected only few profiles.
The modest effect of the promo pic bought humanity few extra months. If only we had made most of them. Isn't it funny how we can appreciate time only now, when we are running out of it?
We obeserved the few rare infected profiles with indifference. They were just Internet forum profiles after all, who gives a shit? Europeans of 14th century watched rats with same kind of indifference just before plague hit them..
Rest is history. Heath Ledger fucking dies!!!We had failed to see the signs and had made no preparations. We were like a little rotting wooden shed on the shore that gets hit by a massive tidal wave after another. Virus punctured through our non-existent defenses, millions of profiles fell before most had even heard of Ledger's death.
After Ledger's death the Joker virus mutates into something that closely resembles extremely destructive Brandon Lee-strain of mid 90's.
Imagine what sort of damage Brandon Lee infection would have caused, if Internet had been as widely used and sophisticated as it is now? What then wrecked havoc in the form of t-shirts and cheesy posters stayed away from Internet; thanks to very ungraphic state it still had. The lack of sophisticated geek-tehchnology saved us, as a race.
Now..now it's very different.
After Ledger's death, millions of profiles in hundreds of thousands of message boards got infected basically overnight
While crisis is most severe in predictable goth hideouts such as forums dedicated to people like Marilyn Manson or Tim Burton, it instantly became obvious that no one was safe.
Geek forums discussing computer games, forums evolving around good ol cock rock of 80's, secure seeming red neck hideouts..everything, simply everything got infected. Infected profiles would appear and spread panic in even most unlikely places.
I'm sure that somewhere out there is Middle Aged Mothers United (MAMU!) -forums, with username Phyldia1961 who has a SUPER COOL .gif-pic of Joker clapping his hans in prison cell in her profile, with some sort of a "WHY SO SERIOUS?!?!",or perhaps " I'm simple man gief dynamite!!=" - thing quoted in her signature.
The new Batman premiered about 3 weeks back or so, and according to my calculations approximately 82% of ALL user profiles EVERYWHERE in Internet have some sort of Joker-reference or picture in them!!
I have decided this is just unacceptable. It's cool character and cool movie and cool actor and cool everything but let's pull a line in here somewhere!!
I mean..for fucks sake!! Just head to any Marilyn Manson forum and try to find a thread that DOES NOT have ATLEAST 3 (THREE) different users sporting some sort of a fucking WHY SO SERIOUS - bullshitfest in their profile, I double dare you!!
Of course, you don't have to head all the way to a Manson forum to spot that, we have our own diceased and spreaders of infection right here!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!D!!!!!!!!!!!! Change your profile right now!!!
Enough with having to see Heath Ledger's joker everywhere all the time!!!
WHY SO SERIOUS MOTHERFUCKERS?!?!?!?!+11+1+1+1+1+
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