Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Summary

The website content is a call to digital nomads to join a new online community, with the author humorously introducing themselves as a seasoned internet veteran.

Abstract

The author of the web content, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, invites "digital refugees" and "gypsies" of the internet to a new community, reminiscing about the rise and fall of various internet platforms. They declare themselves a prophet born during a hurricane, with a lineage of a mountain lion and a grizzly bear, and boast about their extensive experience with early internet culture, gaming, and online communities. The author self-proclaims as an "Internet tough guy" and "uber troll," and announces their candidacy for the position of Tribune of the Plebeians on the new platform, Medium, suggesting an election be held the following day. The text is a mix of satire and nostalgia, with a strong undercurrent of skepticism towards the commercialization and eventual decline of online spaces.

Opinions

The author views the internet as a transient landscape where communities rise and fall, often due to monetization and subsequent decline in quality.
They position themselves as a quintessential internet pioneer, with a humorous exaggeration of their digital exploits and a satirical take on their online persona.
The author expresses a desire for a fresh start on Medium, while also acknowledging the cyclical nature of online communities.
There is an underlying critique of the loss of the internet's wild and untamed nature, as seen in the author's lament over the sale of LiveJournal and the transformation of other platforms.
The author seems to mock the seriousness of online credentials and achievements, poking fun at the culture of online superiority and trolling.

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

So here we go, and there you are.

“zimzim urallala zimzim urallala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam”

— The party motto

Come you digital refugees. Gather here those of you bored by Gawker, annoyed by the seriousness of Reddit’s sudden respectability, and cast out by HuffPo. If you have walked the internet’s halls of flame, watched the Well sink, mourned the sale of LiveJournal, wept for Digg, abandoned Fark, and remember the Portal of Evil, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and Suck, then perhaps you are one of the digital gypsies still looking for the promised land.

We now know that there is no promised land. We come, we colonize, they monetize us, the site starts to suck, and we move on.

Here is fresh sod. I think we should start by introducing ourselves to each other.

The Yelp of Gutbloom

I was born during a hurricane. My mama was a mountain lion and my daddy was a grizzly bear. I came out backwards with my eyes open and they knew I was going to be a prophet. I can drink more whiskey and chew more tobacco than any man alive. I once ate a whole cow.

I was on ARAPNET; I soldered together two tin cans, a transistor from a radio, and four feet of fishing leaders, then made an anarchie search on a Tandy 1000. Before there was digital porn I used to grok images translated from the Sears catalog into machine code. I know moar than you. I was bolo champion of my office, I played Daleks on the first MacIntoshes, I orc rushed your village in the original Warcraft, I solved Myst in, like, four minutes, I crashed your fleet in O-game, I bullied you in Kingdom’s Live on a prototype iPhone, I wrote “My dick is made of cheddar cheese” in daffodils on Farmville while you were still trying to meet people at the farmer’s market. I am, you see, a romping, stomping, 230 pound, Internet tough guy. A mouth breathing, window-licking, you-don’t-want-to-see-my-real-picture-but-I-want-to-see-yours, uber troll.

I was the mayor of LiveJournal.

I am, as of this post, declaring my candidacy for the position of Tribune of the Plebeians here at Medium, and I think the election should be held tomorrow.

Here is the sod, there are the digits. We can plant the funny in this earth, until they ruin the thing. What say you, ye nomads of the Internets?