5 Because No One Will Believe You

There's this thing about the Internet that you may have heard before, so if you think you know everything, feel free to skip this point. Because we're all behind computers, everyone on the Internet is highly anonymous; our online personae don't have to in any way be tied to our real world figures. An example: You might think of me as Chris Bucholz, your trusted Internet guide and all around gentleman, but how much do you really know about me? Did you know I'm actually a team of 53 Vietnamese sweatshop comedians and one thesaurus? I'm not, but dammit, now that you think about it, I probably could be. Because we're separated by keyboards and glowing wires and I guess RAM, you can't read my expression or touch my face to tell if I'm lying.

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Also, about half the Internet are typing dogs.

And the same thing holds for any claim made by anyone on the Internet, especially in a place with a low barrier to posting, like basically everywhere you hang out. Anything could be a lie, and there's often no way to prove otherwise. Text is all obviously bullshit, and even screenshots and pictures can easily have their pixels repixelated. That's why, when someone makes a bold claim about themselves on the Internet, the default response of everyone else who's been on the Internet for more than a day is to say "OK," and then they go on not believing a thing. It only takes one cybersex session with a typing dog before we get shy about believing anything about anything online.