Interneter of the Week: Conan O’Brien

Conan O’Brien’s internet usage came around only after years of failed attempts at starting a career in real-world entertainment. He had brief stints as a writer for The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live before landing a gig as host of an obscure late night talk show called Late Night. O’Brien flirted with real success when he was promoted out of that bleary late-night/early morning vacuum into his dream job as host of the Tonight Show. O’Brien quickly found that position to be ill-suited to his dedication to quality and originality; he was fired soon after accepting the job.

It was only after these many years of struggling with the hardships of the real-world entertainment industry that O’Brien finally found his place, and it happened to be on the internet. On February 24, 2010, O’Brien got a Twitter account, and his career took off with immediate and explosive success. At last, O’Brien had found his place.

Conan’s Twitter is a stunning piece of internet humour done right. He posts with an unobtrusive reliability, and always has something amusing to say. Take, for example, this early message: “This morning I watched Remington Steele while eating Sugar Smacks out of a salad bowl. I was naked.” Now that’s good writing.

O’Brien’s latest spark of creative internet genius was to announce the first person he would follow with his account, Michigan resident Sarah Killen. His wit drove thousands to her humble Twitter account, and she has quickly gone from 3 to 11 000 followers. That’s the power of real internet celebrity.

Conan O’Brien, Shufflingdead salutes you for being one class act.

Filthy hipsters want to get drunk with toddlers

Brooklyn’s population of filthy hipsters has a problem: they’re getting old, and that means the inevitable divide between those with, and those without horrible miscreant children has crept into their insatiable appetite for supporting local drink houses.

Apparently, babies are technically allowed in New York bars, and tight-sweatered indie-as-fuck types like Matt Gross just love heading down to the local pub for a pint with their spawn in tow. Of course, bars are also the destination of choice for the lonely, single, drunken, rowdy, and horny of the world, and they don’t mix well with children. The two groups have clashed repeatedly in recent times over things like bans on buggies in bars.

It seems the breeders have found their sense of entitlement grow to such Brobdingnagian proportions that they now see no reason not to encroach on the last piece of sacred, adults-only ground in society. It’s astounding to me that this has been allowed to occur at all, don’t New York bars ID?

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South Korea vs. 2channel

When a conversation takes place on the world’s largest internet message board, people listen. Combined with fervent nationalism, the results of a little trash talking can lead to all out internet war.

A South Korean group recently launched a massive denial of service attack on Japan’s almighty 2channel, causing an estimated $2.5 million in damages. The attacks came in part as a means of celebrating Korea’s March 1 independence day, but also as a response to criticisms made by the anonymous posters of 2ch regarding Korean Olympic figure skater Kim Yu-Na.

Most of 2ch’s servers are located in the US, and the site’s hosting company is looking into having the attack investigated as cyber terrorism by the FBI. Responses to the attack have ranged from the expected Japanese internet counter-invasion to the establishment of a relief fund for victims of the Chilean earthquake.

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