inversereality

At Fanime this weekend there was a convention panel supposedly titled, “Damn You  Internets,” which utterly sucked but had a subject name that I think utterly rocks. Although the event itself was lackluster, the mere name has spawned off a whole host of possible panel topics in my mind.

Try these potential panel discussions on for size:

YouTube and the New Generation of Boob
How to Haz Cheezeburgerz With Your Cat
Net Neutrality and the Truth About Why Our Tubes are Better Than Yours
Where Is Your Base and How It Belongs to Us
How to Become an Internet Star in 2008 (Without Resorting to the Pornography)
The Uneducated Masses and the Virtual Distortion of Meme
How Chuck Norris has Conquered the Internets (Again!)
Internet Scams Lotteries and How YOU Can Be a Millionaire!
MySpace Pictures and what They Say About You

Dear Nigerian Scammer,

As a frequent subscriber to your newsletters, and a long-suffering fan of your earnest but misguided attempts to defraud me, I just wanted to say that I am very impressed with the new post-modern movement in your online marketing. Taking on the role of an U.N. delegate in order to offer "compensation" to victims of your previous Nigerian scams is an inspired, and inspiring, strategy to get their personal information yet again. This latest meta-narrative communication definitely took me by surprise, and renewed my flagging interest in claiming one of the many virtual lotteries you've sent me in past years, but which I always felt too lazy to really pursue. I applaud your edgy, forward-thinking new agenda. I think this ploy will garner you many new fans from the internet community at large. It will no doubt be a huge draw for your previous clients, who will be eager to place their claim on the promised redress. As a dedicated reader, however, I couldn't help noticing that your bold new venture into post-modern territory seems to suffer from the same grammatical and rhetorical inadequacies that plagued your previous publications.

First of all, in America it's spelled "checks," not "cheques." I know that American English is probably not your first language, but it would still behoove you to spend some time researching the vernacular of the native demographic. Try to ease off on those spontaneous explosions of capitalization. It's generally considered poor taste in official business writing to pepper your letter with capitals just to get attention. I can understand how you might be culturally frustrated by this restriction, being from the internets and all, but it is a poor show, nonetheless. Consider applying periods to the end of your sentences rather than commas. It's a common mistake even amongst native English language users to confuse one punctuation sign for the other, but the inappropriate usage of commas creates a phenomenon we call "run-on sentences," which is much frowned upon by proficient language users and second grade teachers. The frequent appearance of run-ons will harm your credibility with the audience as a reliable charlatan to whom we should give our money. Such a minor detail, I know, but a minor adjustment that can do so much for your cause with just a little forethought. Also watch out for those tricky pluralizations. And by this, I simply mean that you don't need to add an "s" to the end of every other pronoun to be considered cool. It's okay to address words in the singular. Try it sometime. I promise it won't bite.

Given your hard work ethic and ever-evolving efforts to improve your form letters, it’s probably superflous of me to point out here the absurdity of hyphenating the prefixes of long-established words or to remind you of the need to maintain agreement in your tenses. Your laissez-faire dropping of prepositions is no doubt just an absurdist post-modern statement. But I had a little free time today, and I just thought wouldn’t it be nice if I could do my own little part to contribute to the cause? Just in case your copy editor was on vacation.

So, all the best to you in your swindling, and I look forward to your inevitable next spam letter.

Sincerely,
Inverse

What a wonderful, corrupt, post-modern world we live in. The original Intercontinental Bank now has a disclaimer up on their website warning users against sending any information to the spammers. Oh, and I looked up the word, “modalities.” There is no way that word makes any sense in this context. I am dubious it can make sense in any context, but it is a real word. I am admittedly also a little terrified at the thought of being fed it.