Baby’s First Internet
Text by Kevin Fanning
Not sure how to explain the internet to your young ones? Presenting a series of nursery rhymes to teach children how to comport themselves on the online.
* * *
Do not stop to think or edit:
You must be the first who said it.
You heard a brand-new band? What luck!
You’ll be the first to say they suck.
In order to increase renown,
add “bacon” to most any noun.
It’s not your job to right a wrong,
just mark it FAIL and move along.
Rather than felicitations,
send your friend an application.
To be an expert’s no great tax:
Write common sense and call it “hacks.”
Your friends won’t like it, on the real,
but you must Flickr every meal.
In disagreements, all your readers
must be branded Nazi leaders.
It doesn’t matter what you say,
just publish it twelve times per day.
* * *
Kean Soo is a cartoonist and the creator of
Jellaby, a graphic novel that was first serialized as a web comic at
The Secret Friend Society. An assistant editor and regular contributor to the
Flight series of anthologies, he occasionally daydreams about updating
his personal web site with something meaningful.
Kevin Fanning has been a TMN Contributing Writer since 2002. He is constantly starting new projects that never get finished. His favorite season is fall, but according to his color chart he is a winter. He keeps a strict account of his various websites and internet-based miscellanea at
kevinfanning.com. He symbolizes hope.
» More by Kevin Fanning
TODAY’S FEATURE
Sitting at our new surveys desk,
MIKE DERI SMITH rounds up the recent trends in global corruption, from Berlusconi to
Jersey Shore, to New Yorkers paying rent to the Shah of Iran.
OUR MAN IN BOSTON
How far back must one go to find an American act of national decency? Seventy years, it turns out.
TMN MERCH
Sanguine and adhesive, our bumper sticker makes a swell gift for anyone who’s swearing off excuses in the new year.
» ORDER NOW
TMN TALKS
Star Black is a poet, photographer, and collage artist living and working in New York City. She’s released five books of poems, has taught...
