Area Man Shocked To Discover Different Points Of View On The Internet
After managing to go through eight years of casual internet usage without ever encountering someone with a different sense of humor or political viewpoint than himself, Philadelphia native Paul Klugman was "horrified" to learn that there are, in fact, over three million perspectives online that differ significantly from his own.
Klugman recalls entering the humor section of a popular messageboard last week to get a few laughs. What he got instead, he says, was "sheer terror".
"Somebody posted a picture of something or other that was obviously not funny at all," he said, "but to my surprise, many people who commented seemed to like it! In fact, some even used an animated laughing emoticon, which shows that they thought it was 'laughing-out-loud' funny! I just...I just couldn't fucking believe it."
After spending several hours trying to determine whether or not the approving comments were sarcastic, Klugman says he realized he had no choice but to try and demonstrate how unfunny the picture actually was.
"I began posting over and over, 'NOT FUNNY, STUPID' in hopes that most of the other people would think, 'Hey, this guy's right. This picture is not funny at all. Why did I ever even like it?' But those idiots kept on laughing and laughing, even as I got more and more infuriated and started to throw things."
Eventually, Klugman was banned from the messageboard after comparing both the website and its moderators to Nazi Germany. But he says the experience taught him an important lesson.
"The internet has some fucking crazy people on it," he said, shaking his head. "Running into people who think something so dumb is funny -- I can't think of anything worse to see online."
Experts say that the internet, by giving an equal voice to both everyone who agrees with you and everyone who is obviously fucking retarded, can be very frustrating to people like Klugman.
"One of the hardest things most of us will ever have to face is to see other people say things that make us uncomfortable," said Dr. Landon Albright, professor of sociology at Berkeley College. "Fortunately, Mr. Klugman's reaction -- to try as hard as possible to yell at people in the hope that they will change their mind forever -- was the most appropriate one."
The internet had no comment, although it did display several pictures that were alternately disgusting and hilarious.
