Note: This story appeared in our April Fools Distorter issue and is for comedic value only.

How I Intend to Save the World from Total Intellectual and Cultural Darkness

My friends, I have caught a glimpse of the future, a monumental vision for the next great plateau of man’s dominance over the known universe. Compared to the coming technological innovation, the moon landing will be a mere passing footnote in history, an insignificant flea on the back of a mighty dog.

In order to better frame the power of my genius, I offer the following thesis: Web 2.0 is slowly but surely smothering the American dream, as more and more citizens fall prey to its inanity and senselessness. The rallying cries were heartening at first: Finally, we shall bring democracy to the Internet! declared the arbiters of Better Times, and the Internet thus marched on to supposed glory.

The effects were disastrous and immediate. Darkness descended upon mankind as user generated content blocked the sun with its excess. One fateful day, when Facebook allowed its users to craft unsubstantiated rants in the form of Notes, a cataclysmic blow was struck to the minds of men, and society was forced to limp along as a hollow lobotomized shell of its former self. Millions were lost in the chaos.

Fellow denizens of the Information Age, it is time for another fundamental change to the computing sphere, one that will usher in a new era of prosperity and elation. You see, smaller-minded being, up until now, the focus of the Internet has been wrong. Web 2.0 represents a sophomoric step backwards precisely because it transfers focus and importance to you, the unwashed and faceless masses of the world. If the crux of technology is built upon an imperfect being, that technology too will be imperfect, stunted by the admittedly impressive magnitude of its own stupidity.

We must find a new focus on which to train our technology. And, my fans and followers, I have found such a crux, a stable, beautiful, and intelligent center on which to ground the future of communication and, indeed, the future of humanity: Jen Loomis. That’s right, RIT. The future is me.

Welcome to Web 3.0.

Picture a network on which all of the content is about me. Entire forums will be dedicated to diverse discussion topics, ranging from how wonderful Jen Loomis’ collection of ties is to how amazing Jen Loomis’ hair looks on a daily basis. Hot women will confess their undying love for me on YouTube, and scholars will dissect my vast volume of genius writing via LexisNexis.

In many cases, the structure of the World Wide Web will remain unchanged. In the angelic landscape of Web 3.0, only the content will need modification. For example, the basic structure of lolcats can remain the same, in that there will be a place for hilarious pictures with captions. Merely substitute the cats with photos of my ex-girlfriends looking fat and/or ugly, and tweak the captions a tad (“I can haz cheezburger” can remain untouched) and we’re well on our way to a better tomorrow.

In order to keep the integrity of this new Internet utopia intact, Google’s search engine spiders will be altered to seek and destroy any content that isn’t at least tangentially related to my personal life and wellbeing. My Facebook profile will be continuously scanned to gather appropriate tags, and only those websites/blog posts/videos/forum threads that deal favorably with those tagged topics shall remain. The rest shall be deleted with extreme prejudice, as they obviously serve no real purpose in this exciting new heaven on Earth.