Sam Linton’s Myths of the Internet, Vol. II
The Psalm of the Dancing Baby
By Sam Linton
Posted February 4th, 2007
It has occurred to me, a month after my first entry in this project of mythologizing the storied past of our internet, that I may have begun too soon, jumping in the middle without respect for the past. Like all things in this world, the internet (and, by extension, the memes and memories therein) had its infancy, just as worthy of the mythic treatment as the rest of its storied history.
In this spirit, I present this, the second installment of my "Myths of the Internet," one of the earliest stories of that fabled realm, “The Myth of the Dancing Baby”. From this, I hope, the children of our post-apocalyptic near future can learn not only what the internet was like, but how it grew.
Episode 2: The Psalm of the Dancing Baby
In the early days of the Internet, she still struggled to express herself from under the shadows of her parents, Television and Phone. Internet’s first efforts in this attempt at expression were mostly unnoticed, or if they were, they still in some way reflected her parental influence. For example, Internet’s attempt at person-to-person expression, email, was seen as a pale reflection of her parent Phone and more of a throwback to the days of her grandparent, Regular Mail. Similarly, Internet was notorious in her early days for her fixation on the achievements of her other parent, Television. Star Trek, X-Files, Happy Days: Internet wouldn’t shut up about them.
But Internet persisted in her endeavors at creativity until finally she created something truly, uniquely her own: an animated GIF of a grotesque dancing baby.
And it was good, apparently. But Television grew jealous of its offspring’s creation and one night, as Internet slept, stole the squirming infant to present to the public as its own. Television chose one of its greatest champions, a wee slip of a girl named Ally, to showcase the child as a testament to the power of television on the consciousness of the public. And the public was amused.
When Internet awoke, she was furious at her father’s treachery, but realized that she was still too small to challenge him on his claim, and was forced to remain silent. But Internet’s jealously at her father’s pretensions was to be a short-lived one, for almost as soon as the baby was presented to the public did their joy turn to revulsion. Though the initial gyrations of the infant were seen to be pleasing, the people soon noticed how bizarrely featureless was his body, how obnoxiously repetitive were his movements and how generally disturbing he was on a whole.
This, combined with the child’s massive overexposure by Television’s selfish machinations, was cause for a massive public backlash. The backlash was great, and as the imp had been presented by Television’s champion, Ally, it was she who would have to face it. Ally was cast into the ash heap of history, neither spoken of nor remembered from that day forward. The child itself would forever after be remembered as Television’s folly, for although after the backlash Television tried to reposition the grotesquerie as a creation of the Internet, it was Television who popularized it, and Television who bore its shame. Thus was Internet saved from her own folly by the piggish greed of her father medium.
The moral of this tale is simply one of leaving credit where credit is due, and not being a glory hog. Just as Television saw his fame turn sour on him, so too could a man of the future, having brought down a stray horse to feed his bunker for a week, find his comrades’ cheers turn to jeers as the horse is found to host “the phage,” a degenerative radioactive nanobacteria which reanimates the dead into a form of life-hating cyber-zombie.
What is wheat today could turn to chaff tomorrow, so it’s always best not to brag and leave the accomplishments of others to themselves. After all, we’re all in this hellish, day-to-day struggle for survival together.,/p>
As before, be sure to print this article off so future generations may share in its wisdom after the collapse of society.