Image: LiveLeak.com

This week’s interneter is the 15-year-old juggernaut, Casey Heynes. Casey’s story, really a heroes journey condensed into a brief video clip, has taken the internet like a body slam into pavement.

Casey’s problems in life echo those many of us interneters have faced. He was bullied since childhood, and things kept going in high school. Casey reports having names like “fatty” being tossed at him along with random acts of violence.

It’s Casey’s solution to those issues that make him stand out. One day, Casey had had enough. A smaller boy, Ritchard Gale, was punching and poking at Casey repeatedly when Casey finally decided to use his size to his advantage. The legend heaved Ritchard up, and upside down, then slammed him forcefully onto the hard walkway.

Since the incident, Casey has received an outpouring of positive attention from the internet and local media, but he’s been left alone at school.

Casey Heynes, ShufflingDead salutes you on behalf of the internet and all of nerdom, for you have precisely expressed our frustrated desires.

He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

This week’s Interneter is Blake Boston, better known as Scumbag Steve. You can see him pictured in all his glory to the right.

Folks across the internet (well, mostly Reddit) have been enjoying sticking text implying that Steve is a bit of a, well, scumbag on that particular picture. The idea is that Steve likes to poke his head around the corner, ask to borrow your stuff, get you to pay for things, and especially acquire weed from you whenever he can. All favours which he never returns.

As with most/all of the ridiculous images of people which circle the internet, Scumbag Steve exists in reality, but as Blake Boston. It’s an exclusive club filled by the likes of Tron Guy, and the fellow who dresses up as Peter Pan. In Blake’s case, he is a MySpace rapper and highly legitimate.

“Weezy B.” as he is sometimes known has had a bumpy ride on the meme train. His Twitter feed is filled with drama associated with his entry into entirely deserved super-stardom with gems like the following. I don’t really know what it means, but it sounds angry.

REDDIT IMA COMIN FOR YOU DONT LET ME DOWN FUKERS REALFUKINTALK DAPS 4 CHAN?SUCK MY DICK.

Blake seems to have mostly come around to his notoriety by this point, as his Twitter description tells us:

Im Blake Boston.Im from Boston. I guess Im also a meme (whatever the f*ck that is). scumbag steve. whatever. FUCK YA IM SCUMBAG STEVE.DEAL

Image: Cuddly Dominion.

Continuing with animal-themed Interneters, this week’s champion is Pankun, the famous Japanese chimpanzee.

Pankun earned his fame in Japan on television, starring in “Tensai! Shimura Dobutsuen” and “Dobutsu Kiso Tengai!” These programs, of the “people looking at videos and shouting out their random reactions” genre (which represents about half of all Japanese programming), featured Pankun performing various human tasks with stunning coordination and intelligence.

Pankun often shares his adventures with his bulldog life partner, James. I’m not sure James serves any purpose in completing Pankun’s tasks, but close-ups of his face frequently add to the absurdity.

Pankun came to the west when clips of his TV appearances began circulating the internet. With obsessed copyright-violation hawks now circling, it has gotten harder to find choice Pankun clips online, although many are still out there. Here, you can see my all-time favourite Pankun clip, of the chimpanzee putting together a noodle dish. More clips can be seen here.

Image: Adapted from G0321 by Piez under a CC-BY license.

After trawling Reddit for a few minutes looking for an Interneter to discuss today, I realized I was looking at pictures of cats, again. After 10 years on the internet I think the number of cat pictures I’ve seen is finally catching up to the number of booby pictures I’ve seen.

The incredible part of that statement? I don’t really like pets, and I really like breasts.

Reflecting on that 10 year period reminds me of something. Back in 2001, the internet didn’t seem too focused on cats, except where the word related to All Your Base. We had image macros back then, oh yes we did, but few contained cats. There was no such thing as Caturday, or lolcats, or icanhascheezburger. Those were simpler times.

I suppose the invasion was inevitable. Nerdlingers, basement dwellers, and neckbeards love their cats, and they don’t even mind looking at the cats of others. With self-produced cat photos, these people found an unlimited source of free internet love. They became their own funny picture resource after using up Tron guy and his ilk.

It could be worse, I suppose. We could be looking at pictures of dogs.

Image: The Columbus Dispatch.

This week’s Interneter is an obvious one. It’s Ted Williams, of course. The man who, just a few days ago, was panhandling on the streets of Columbus, Ohio and is now doing voice-overs for Kraft commercials and is employed by MSNBC.

Williams gained the broad attention of the internet some small but incalculable number of days ago when a video featuring him was ripped from The Columbus Dispatch’s website and posted to YouTube. That video, which has since been removed for copyright violation, managed 13 million views in its first two days. You can still see the clip sitting inside of news reports like this one.

Williams had voice work in the early 90s, but fell into crack addiction and alcoholism, leading to homelessness. Williams has led a life of sobriety since 2008.

It’s not all good news. It seems inevitable that there will be a run on the homeless, every person with a camera will be scouring the streets for talent.

Nevertheless, Ted Williams, ShufflingDead salutes you for finding fame on YouTube. We’ve gotten nowhere cranking out videos for years, but you give us hope!

Source: Wikipedia

Mother Carrie Goldman has discovered that bullying begins in first grade. (There are people who think otherwise? Hrrrunng. Come talk to me about that one, humanity.) It seems her daughter, Katie Goldman, is a huge Star Wars fan, and she decided to express this by picking up Star Wars themed paraphernalia. Specifically, a Star Wars backpack and water bottle to take to school.

After a few months of enjoying these items and using them daily, Katie tried to convince her mother that she wanted to switch to a pink water bottle. After pursuing the matter with the girl, Carrie Goldman discovered that her daughter was being teased by the boys at school. Katie’s classmates attacked her verbally for using a Star Wars water bottle, because, you see, Star Wars is for boys.

At one point in telling this story online, Carrie exclaimed: “Is this how it starts? Do kids find someone who does something differently and start to beat it out of her, first with words and sneers? Must my daughter conform to be accepted?” The answer to all of these questions is, of course, yes. Children, much like adults, are terrible people. Generally, their minds are occupied by hate, ignorance, and fear. The boys who teased Katie have already internalized the unwritten rules of the gender normativity.

Carrie expressed her frustrations online and has garnered much attention. She requested the ladies of the internet add comments expressing their appreciation of Star Wars in support of Katie, and thousands of comments have been received thus far. As the movement has grown, some 30,000 have confirmed on Facebook that they will wear Star Wars clothing on December 10th as a show of support, and the Goldman family has asked participants to donate Star Wars toys to charities this Christmas.

To Katie Goldman, our Interneter of the Week, Shufflingdead salutes you for your ongoing commitment to Star Wars, a fine piece of intellectual property for both ladies and gentlemen to enjoy.

Sources: Chicago Now, CNN
Image: Star Wars The Clone Wars. Copyright Lucasfilm.

This week’s Interneter is InsaneGuyofDOOM, the infamous Red Shirt Guy who stood up at Blizzcon 2010′s “Quests and Lore” Q&A to ask a very important question. It would seem there was a discrepancy between a WoW novel and the game regarding the character of Falstad Wildhammer, and Mr. Red Shirt wanted to know what was up with that.

Now, Blizzard has rewarded this proud Interneter for his bravery and attention to detail with his own NPC, Wildhammer Fact Checker, along with correcting the issue raised. Well, maybe. Obsessed fact checkers are claiming the screenshot to the right is fake as well.

InsaneGuyofDOOM has also taken the time to explain his somewhat strange voice during the conference. Red Shirt has confessed to having the internet’s favourite malady, Asperger’s syndrome. His nervousness combined with this led him to take on the well-known monotone-complaining-nerd voice.

Red Shirt Guy, for your grace under pressure, your depth of World of Warcraft knowledge, and your humble reaction to internet stardom, Shufflingdead salutes you.

Image: Imgur. Blizzard Entertainment.

This week’s Internter is MourningStar72, one desperate GameFAQer. Mr. 72 hopped aboard the GameFAQs.com SimAnt message board to ask an embarrassing question that most people would have probably tried to figure out on their own.

On April 9, 2010, MourningStar72 pled to the seemingly empty board “If anyone is here please help,” and followed it up by admitting a rather shameful secret “I don’t know how to mate.”

Well kid, I’ve got a little experience in this field and I think I can help. The truth is, the yellow ant can’t mate with the queen. To get more ants, you’ll need to move around some of the unhatched ants and make sure they’re not all sitting on top of each other. You can also adjust the behaviour of your ants to nurse, and they’ll take care of it for you. Ramp up the number of Breeder ants your queen produces if you find she’s not laying enough eggs.

Hope this helps.

[source]

This week’s Interneter is MissHannahMinx, a YouTube celebrity on the rise. She’s only been producing videos for about a year, but already has over 80 000 subscribers. Her biggest video has over a million views.

In her Cats n’ Racks video, Minxy famously and profoundly stated “Cats, neko… very powerful on the internet. Racks… also very powerful.” Her frank recognition of what works on the internet is clearly represented in Minxy’s output. Her videos consistently include the wearing of cat-ear headbands and her own gargantuan breasts, along with other internet tent-poles like giant eyes, slightly, I don’t know, “alt” makeup, fetishization of Japanese culture, and the speaking of Japanese in a ridiculously cutesy fashion.

Much of the amusement I get from MHM’s videos comes from the comments she receives. The unbridled passion which YouTube commenters speak with is concentrated sexual obsession when it comes to Minxy’s viewers. A quick read through the comments on one of her latest videos includes such illuminating insights as:

“BEEG AMERIKKKAN TEETEES!!” – TenchiHawkwing

“For fucks sake…Your tits are so massive that they will eventually collapse into themselves like Neutron Stars.” – billyboyjennings

“wow wee she is got some babylons!!!!!!” – miscreantV0n

“titss very goud” – lkykrc

“lets take turns jerking off on her face” – dx7im

“I would be glad to give you a fuck !” – billonis

Stay classy, internet.

MissHannahMinx, Shufflingdead salutes you for exploiting the general stupidity of the internet’s population.

Image: Hannah Minx Facebook page.

This week’s Interneter is the radically prolific movie reviewer Roger Ebert. You may think of Ebert as a TV personality, but in recent years he has become a juggernaut of internet usage. Sure, Ebert insists that video games are not art, but I have to appreciate what this man does online.

He’s lost his jaw to cancer, his nourishment comes through a tube, and he has surely been wealthy enough to retire for many years, yet the man cranks out copy like no one else. This includes continuously adding to his site, which already boasts over 10 000 movie reviews. He also finds the time to frequently spar with commenters on his blog, and he Tweets with an unheard-of culmination of quality and quantity.

The sheer volume of text the man produces is insurmountable and awe-inspiring. The fact that he is also a writer of true quality is astonishing, and fairly embarrassing to dedicated web-writers like myself.

Roger Ebert, Shufflingdead salutes you for making us look bad.

This week’s Interneter is Sadie, a once minor YouTube celebrity who operated the channel UltraNeko. She has disappeared, or rather, her internet presence has, including her videos, blog, and Twitter account. When she was active on YouTube, I considered her one of my favourites. She’d play games, swear at them, and generally be really hot.

I wrote Sadie an open letter nearly a year ago now, complaining about the mysterious video-producing hiatus she had gone on. It turns out that she never paid any heed to my words, and only came back to close her once mighty YouTube account.

Reading others discuss this issue (all of whom seemed to prefer white text on black backgrounds, much to the detriment of my eyes), it seems Sadie decided to leave the internet for good in order to concentrate on her schoolwork. She was probably never pregnant, despite the rumours, and her now ex-boyfriend probably had a lot to do with the production of her videos. In fact, she probably didn’t like video games all that much. There is a lot of inferring going on here, a fake Twitter account and a deleted blog make fact checking difficult.

I have to take serious issue with what Sadie has done for two reasons. Firstly, building up a large fanbase and then abandoning those people with no explanation demonstrates a lack of appreciation for those fans, which offends me as someone in search of that kind of following. Secondly, that no one can go back and look at her past work demonstrates the strange frailty published material now lives with on the internet. In the past, a person could write a book, and people who ended up buying and enjoying it could theoretically enjoy it almost indefinitely. Now, published work can be readily un-published by its author on a whim. That has to be a serious concern for fans of all digital media, as well as future historians.

Sadie, Shufflingdead salutes you for causing us to reflect deeply on what we’re doing here on the internet.

This week’s Interneter is Twihard mayte[heart], whose post happened to be sitting at the top of mylifeistwilight.com when I visited the site a few minutes ago. Please note that her proper name is “mayte” followed by a heart, but I can’t be bothered to make the character display properly. Here is her post for your amusement:

Today my friend and I were in my moms car and we saw a silver volvo pass right next to us. The first thing we said was follow that car cause Edward might be driving around Dallas. The weirdest thing was that it actually was cloudy and raining- MLIT-

mayte[heart] is not technically pictured to the right, but the image is probably not a bad guess at what such an enormous Twilight fan would look like. mayte[heart]‘s internet celebrity skyrocketed, I’m guessing, with her post to mylifeistwilight.com, and will certainly climb ever higher, provided she continue to confuse reality with a series of poorly written children’s novels and then talk about it online.

mayte[heart], Shufflingdead salutes you for making us feel better about ourselves.

[source]

Seriously folks, I’m almost done talking about Tiger Woods. No, really, you won’t have to endure this much longer.

Unlike previous entries in this series, this week’s Interneter didn’t launch a succesful career through the internet, and he hasn’t found the web all that beneficial in any obvious ways. In fact, this Interneter didn’t even post his own material for others to enjoy, it was done for him by adult actress Joslyn James, pictured to the right. This week’s Interneter is Tiger Woods.

Veronica Siwik-Daniels, as she is known in reality, just set up a new website called “sextingjoslynjames.com” (it’s quite NSFW, which is why I’m not linking to it directly) where she has helped Tiger get started in the exciting world of online content production!

Tiger’s first contribution consists of a long list of texts he sent Joslyn over the course of their affair, and it truly does amuse. Some highlights include:

Tiger:Sent: 04″02 PM 08/29/2009:
I want to treat you rough. Throw you around, spank and slap you

Tiger:Sent: 04:06 PM 08/29/2009:
Slap your face. Treat you like a dirty little whore. Put my cock in your ass and then shove it down your throat

Tiger:Sent: 04:07 PM 08/29/2009:
You are my fucking whore

Tiger:Sent: 04:08 PM 08/29/2009:
Hold you down while i choke you and Fuck that ass that i own

and:

Tiger:Sent: 01:28 PM 09/08/2009:
Have you ever had a golden shower done to you

Tiger:Sent: 01:29 PM 09/08/2009:
Just morbid curiosity

Tiger:Sent: 01:30 PM 09/08/2009:
Really. You. You have done just about everything havent you

Tiger:Sent: 01:32 PM 09/08/2009:
Never done it. I think i would get stage freight

Tiger Woods, Shufflingdead salutes you for making the internet even more horrifying than it already was.

[source]

This week’s Interneter is Brandon “ArtieTSMITW” Hardesty, whose YouTube videos are some of the finest things available on the internet. Brandon rose to fame re-creating famous scenes from movies, performing all roles himself. Like a lot of people, I first discovered Brandon when someone created a thread about him on the Something Awful forums. Brandon has since repeatedly thanked the SA community for foisting him to internet super-stardom.

I can think of no one more deserving than Brandon Hardesty of internet celebrity. I’ve followed his career as he’s gone from Geico commercials and appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to roles in major motion pictures, and he has exhibited nothing but pure kindness and humour throughout.

Brandon’s latest work is embedded above. The video actually out-does much of his previous work, which is saying a lot. In this latest production, Hardesty recreates a classic scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as though it starred Jack Nicholson and Christopher Walken. It’s truly something to behold.

Brandon Hardesty, Shufflingdead salutes you for making the internet not suck.

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.

Last week’s Interneter was LisaNova, a YouTube celebrity who parlayed her early start in vlogging into a successful internet career, far surpassing anything I’ve ever done. This week’s Interneter is her buddy and compatriot in being better than me, Philip DeFranco.

Philly D’s path to wealth and stardom kicked off in 2006 with the birth of his first YouTube channel, sxephil. I’ve never understood that name, is he straight edge or something? Well anyway, he quickly started churning out celebrity-gossip and stupid-news rant videos, and has now amassed over 900 000 subscribers. Phil has used the success of that channel to branch out into additional channels, including joining and then leaving that “TheStation” thing all the cool kids on YouTube are or were a part of.

DeFranco’s power knows no bounds, he now brags that his internet income exceeds $250 000 a year, and was voted Wired’s Sexiest Geek of 2008 by his loyal minions. I was a regular viewer of his show for awhile, but got sick of his shtick about the time he snuck in a little “blame the victim” commentary during the Rihanna-Chris Brown fiasco.

Philip DeFranco, Shufflingdead salutes you for filling us with hateful jealousy.

This week’s Interneter is YouTube superstar Lisa “LisaNova” Donovan. She came to prominence in the early days of YouTube when all you had to do was exhibit the smallest modicum of talent to become a giant internet celebrity. Shufflingdead actually began on YouTube about the same time as LisaNova, but lacked effort, talent, and passion. She’s parlayed that lucky start using her incredible promotional talents into a wildly successful career which spans both internet and real life stardom.

The LisaNova channel on YouTube has nearly 400 000 subscribers, and features mildly amusing clips of Lisa parodying celebrities like Sarah Palin and Keira Knightley, and performing skits featuring original characters like “Affirmation Girl.” She also participates in videos on other YouTube channels like TheStation, which increases her visibility and what I imagine to be sprawling personal wealth. The various participants of TheStation channel form a core of YouTube celebrities who like to think they are cool and judge others for their coolness, preventing those who are independent, and thus most cool, from ever achieving success and popularity.

Lisa has garnered such great attention that she even managed a short stint on MADtv but quickly disappeared from the show after four appearances. It’s still more than I’ve managed to achieve in my woeful internet life.

LisaNova, Shufflingdead salutes you for giving us something to be jealous and spiteful of.

The Interneter of the Week is Matt Casamassina. He’s the former Editor-in-Chief of the Nintendo channel over at IGN.com, who recently betrayed Nintendo and switched over to being “Editor-at-Large” for the site.

Ass-amassina started out as editor of N64.com in 1997, which quickly became the N64 section of IGN. Back then, Matt had a passionate love for Nintendo, the kind of love the company deserves, and he maintained those feelings for many years. His ties to the company grew strong indeed, and culminated with his face winding up on a character in Perfect Dark. He also stalked (now former) Nintendo Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan, and developed a bizarre, slightly sexual, relationship with the woman.

As the years wore on, and friendly faces like Kaplan left the company, Matt began to feel his love for Nintendo wane. Despite the masses continually mocking the absence of games present on the N64 and GameCube, their words only got to him with their attacks on the Wii. Matt was converted to the angry masculinity of HD consoles and became Editor at Large for IGN in 2009.

Before he went crazy, I regarded Matt as one of my writing heroes. He was someone who turned writing for a fansite into a career, invented fun characters like Ed the rumour mongering Janitor, and always maintained his Nintendo cred.

Matt Casamassina, Shufflingdead salutes you for occasionally making the internet a more inspiring place.

The Interneter of the Week is Ulillillia, the man with the greatest handle in the history of the internet. Aside from inventing a screen name which I am forced to pronounce as an ululation, Ulillillia has created a vast internet empire spanning a highly successful YouTube channel, and an obsessively compiled personal website.

I first discovered the work of this master gamer when I was linked to his video “5 secrets of level 2 in Bubsy 3D.” Here, we see Ulillillia demonstrate five secrets he’s found in the course of playing a single level of Bubsy 3D for, get this, nearly 500 hours. And it’s not even a good game! I recommend exploring all of Ulillillia’s videos, they can be highly educational and quite interesting if you’re into, for example, hearing about how to power level in Final Fantasy VII.

Ulillillia’s gaming obsession has not been entirely positive; the addiction gave him a number of childhood fears. For example, the red and yellow “lava” of Metroid gave him a fear ketchup and mustard bottles. The frequently dangerous blue water of early video games also led him to fear, well, blue water.

Despite those examples of Ulillillia’s imagination getting the best of him, it should be remembered that it is that imagination which also brings us treasures like the man’s latest endeavour, a novel entitled The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters. Here, Nick “Ulillillia” Smith tells the tale of the wizard Knuckles and his quest to stop an evil force from capturing the elemental masters.

Ulillillia, Shufflingdead salutes you for making the internet a more fun and obsessively ordered place.

Meet Chris-Chan, the inaugural Interneter of the Week. He’s an established internet celebrity, known for a broad range of depressingly aspie endeavors, including his Sonic-Pikachu crossover character “Sonichu,” his YouTube videos in which he confesses to drinking his own ejaculate, and his many self-produced solo “adult” films.

Christian Weston Chandler is a well known furry artist, producing many erotic works revolving around the Rosechu character of his Sonichu universe (available for viewing after the jump). Despite being 27 and having the sort of time a single, unemployed, parent’s-home-living person has, his quality of drawing is at a level which would be expected of a grade schooler.

CWC has been kind enough to grace the world with intimate insights into his own sexuality. This includes confessing to gargling down his own cum for the sake of preserving his own reproductive potency. He’s also given us numerous erotic films, including him masturbating and violently savaging a blow-up doll.

Chris-Chan, Shufflingdead salutes you for making the internet a more disgusting and depressing place.