Interneter of the Week: Casey Heynes

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.

Interneter: Blake “Scumbag Steve” Boston

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

Interneter: Pankun

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.

Interneter(s): Cats, Fucking Cats

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.

Interneter of the Week: Ted “Golden Voice” Williams

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