But wait, let me explain. I've got a couple of teens on my Master Planning Board, Matt and Tammy. Good kids. Mischief-makers; you know the type. A month ago they tracked me down with an innovative proposal. "Mr. Clark? For the last 40 years the George Clark Publishing Empire has been using the expedient of Print Media as the primary tool in fulfilling your life's mission: ridiculing teens." "Go on." Tammy: "Problem: although the rest of the world fully appreciates your efforts, teens themselves have cleverly remained above the fray by being unable to read." "Today's teens ... don't read? Even you two?" Matt: "In the last eight years I myself have not had occasion to read anything more consequential than the subtitles on Japanese cartoons." The Japanese. Hmm. "Solution?" Chorus: "The Internet." The Internet? "I've heard of that." Tammy: "The advantages of The Internet are two-fold. Firstly: teens reject your racist, sexist, homophobic publications for ethical reasons because they're made of paper and harm trees." Sigh. "Maybe if you had read one of them, dear," I said with a wink, "you would know what everyone else does: George Clark Publications don't harm trees because trees don't have nerve endings." And here I smoothly tapped in a 12-footer. Matt: "Also, modern high-speed transfer protocols take advantage of the fact that today's teens have an average attention span of only 6 seconds." I mulled this over. "So what you're saying ... is that today's average teen ... has an attention span of only 3 seconds?" "That's what I'm saying, yes." I fired them and spent the weekend shopping for a computer and mastering HTML, the crude language favored by devotees of the World Wide Web. I then formed an Aeronautics Division and designed a Home Page for it to see what would happen. Interesting. By week's end I had sold scores of airliners, prop planes, and canisters of compressed oxygen to teens not only nationwide but globally. I soon identified the critical attractant: the point-and-click method. And now it seems so obvious. Via the miracle of The Internet, the computer-savvy teen of today can respond to colorful visual stimuli by using a non-verbal indication and spasmodic contraction of the hand. Allows the conscious mind to remain focused on other -- no doubt more important -- matters. Someday soon, God willing, all communication will occur via the point-and-click method. Perhaps you don't believe me. Alright, prove it to yourself. Go ahead, it's easy. Click ... here. You know, not every Behavior Management Service has the sort of staffers that will drop their pants when asked to and sometimes without having to be asked. I've obscured their faces because, well, that's not what you want to see. And please, teens, don't tie up the phone lines trying to communicate with sexy Inga, Stephanie, and the others, because I fired the lot of them because I will not be associated with such people. Because I value family above all else, I hired a slew of my grandkids to take their places. Don't know why I didn't do that in the first place. My grandkids are honest and use their time more efficiently because they don't spend all day fiddling around on the Internet like idiots. (If you'd like to see snapshots of them, click ... here!) Well, we rolled up our shirt-sleeves, put on our thinking caps, and two weeks later the Internet World of Ridicule was born ... I hope you like it, teens. A treasure trove of ridicule, trenchant and mean-spirited, in the classic style. As you course your way through these handsomely-formatted pages, pointing and clicking willy-nilly, occasionally chancing upon vivid moments of Internet Porn, Internet Child Porn, and even select snippets of innovative George Clark Internet Animal Porn, I will be busily forwarding your e-mail addresses to the FBI. |