On Being “Extremely Online”

I have a confession to make. I know this may hurt my reputation as a sane and normal guy, but I can’t keep this to myself anymore: I am Extremely Online. First off, I want to apologize to my parents and my girlfriend and my dog Sophie. I can’t imagine how annoying this all must have been, but I promise, I’m on the road to recovery.

For those of you that are lucky enough to not be Extremely Online, you may be wondering: “What is Extremely Online? I have an AOL email account and often peruse the New York Times website…could I be Extremely Online?” Well fear not, if you have to ask yourself the question then you are at little to no risk of being Extremely Online! 

Wikipedia (eat my shorts high school teachers, Wikipedia is the best and and I trust it with my life) defines being Extremely Online as, “being closely engaged with Internet Culture. People who are extremely online often believe that posts online are very important.” But Will, you may be saying, what does being Extremely Online actually look like in practical terms? Ah, an astute question and one I’m very glad you asked! If you or your loved one constantly post, or show you, the newest, freshest memes, you might be Extremely Online. If you are always up to date on the latest trending topics that seemingly never last more than 24 hours (hello, Josh Fight), you might be Extremely Online. If anytime your dad tries to send you a cool, funny, or cute video, your response is “I saw that months ago,” then you might be Extremely Online (also, sorry Dad). 

“Will, all the things you said in the previous paragraph seem kinda sick. Is being Extremely Online a good thing?” Another brilliant question, dear reader! Well there’s actually a couple types of Extremely Online beings, some good, some very bad (and treasonous). There’s a goodhearted type of Extremely Online that seek to mock the very platforms they exist on. There are types that are simply too obsessed with news and culture and jokes. There are types that just have a lot of free time (and who hasn’t in the last year?).

Then there are the bad types. Those who are Extremely online out of hatred, anger, ignorance, and prejudice. These are the types that spend their time plumbing the depths of 4chan, right-wing extremist YouTube channels, and Parlor. They might be your weird incel neighbor, or that old lady down the street who tweets Tucker Carlson links filled with veiled racism (or not so veiled recently, man that guy is losing his mind!), or that person on Facebook who everybody swears is your cousin but nobody really knows how they’re related, but they keep posting links to blogs about how Barak Obama is actually a secret Muslim Lizard-Person who founded the Illuminati.

It's mostly funny to make fun of the bad type of Extremely Online person but if we can be serious for a second, if you really do know someone who’s like that, maybe reach out to them. It might not be too late to bring them back to the light side of being Extremely Online! We have all the fun stuff and none of the Storming the Capital and then going to jail for committing felonies! 

So, are you, or is someone you know, Extremely Online?