Unlike those infamous Online stalkers who plague the social media sites of fair e-maidens with rude and unsavory comments, I am a kinder, gentler creature dwelling beneath the bridges of the information superhighway. I like to think of myself as an Internet Droll rather than an Internet Troll.
My contributions to 'the discussion' are generally fanciful, pithy and inoffensive; at worst they are merely facetious. I venture to be witty when I can, although I'm well aware that one person's idea of wit is another person's fatuous remark. To paraphrase Baden-Powell, I hope to leave the Internet a little better than I found it.
Of course, such coolness at the keyboard, such equanimity in the face of complete and utter nonsense, can take St Anthony-ish powers of discipline and self control. The almost Stalinist copy-and-paste screeds of lay science fanatics, for example, are usually especially nonsensical. Hiding behind the clubbable, cosmopolitan figure of Neil deGrasse Tyson - someone they had never heard of until he appeared on television - they repeat reams and reams of facts and figures concerning all manner of subjects they don't actually understand.
Fortunately, what the Internet giveth the Internet can also demolisheth. I am not a fan of abbreviations, but I really do admire the shorthand notation "TL;DR" (too long, didn't read). Applied as a pithy response to some hulking, smug, waffle-filled paragraph about planetary radiation or quantum mechanics it can be very droll indeed.
Naturally, I invite my fellow Internet Drolls to type it into the comments section below, if you so desire.
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