Tag, You’re Lame

Okay, here’s another thing that bothers us about the Internet no end. As strollers around Al Gore’s World-Wide Web undoubtedly know, many “weblogs” allow their readers the opportunity to compose “comments” in response to particular “posts.” This, as can be easily attested, offers the opportunity for countless dribbling morons to present functionally and culturally illiterate musings on all and sundry.

It’s for this reason, dear reader, that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t accept “comments” on this humble “website.” Although our audience is surely more learned than that of the average “weblog,” we still think a few rotten eggs would sully it for all of us.

But horrid reader “comments”—as noxious as they are—aren’t the focus of today’s demolition. Rather, we’re taking aim at those irksome tag lines that follow so many “comments.” We think you know what we’re talking about: After proffering a grammatically-challenged sentiment about George Allen’s foolishness, a given “commenter” will end his bit with some stupid quote from a famous person.

You know, like:

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” -Thomas Paine

Or:

“We must become the change we want to see." –Gandhi

Man, do these arch little quotations irritate us. Although the “commenter” wants to offer the impression that he’s an expert on, say, Thomas Paine or, say, Gandhi, it should be painfully obvious that he’s merely culled the quotation from some handy list of inspiring sayings. The dolt.

For this reason, one often sees liberal “commenters” unknowingly employing quotes from Victorian imperialists, or radical feminists picking sayings from anti-suffragettes. Or, for that matter, lefties choosing Thomas Paine, whose politics in many ways don’t fit those of the contemporary liberal. Nothing quite makes a left-winger look like a nitwit like using a Harold Macmillan quote as a tag line.

Naturally, then, the question presents itself: How to rid the e-world of these odious quotations? We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t know for sure, but we think we have an idea that could well help.

Actually, it’s pretty simple: You have to offer even more idiotic tag lines in an attempt to demonstrate how foolish this whole business is. And, if you ask us, there are a few easy ways to do this, which we’ll prove through recourse to one text: Albert Camus’ novel The Fall.

Camus, as one of the 20th century’s leading intellectuals and a man of conscience, is a perfect choice for the ostentatious tag-line enthusiast. The Fall is also a great text, since it’s a work of fiction, and thus the attribution of its lines to its author is already highly dubious. So perhaps a few ill-chosen quotes from this work will make these e-quotations seem all the more ridiculous. We suggest the following:

“I was even seen in a hotel dedicated to what is called sin, living simultaneously with a mature prostitute and an unmarried girl of the best society” – Albert Camus

That ought to confuse a few folks. Or how about this:

“You are probably right” – Albert Camus

We can already imagine the first thoughts of those happening upon this tag line: “Huh?”