You know, I don't want to date myself by broaching this subject, but at the same time I feel like it really needs to be addressed. Back in the day, like a lot of people, I was on AOL. Yes I know, as cool as I am, it's really tough to believe that. Still, I was there. I was also one of those guys who was there at a time when 32 bit programming was just permeating the juarez...I mean warez community, and everybody and their mama wrote AOL Add-ons. Seriously, my mom had this one IM Punter called You're Grounded...but that's besides the point.

I don't remember specifically when I saw my first official internet quitting, but I think I was probably away from my keyboard. Like you know... 14 inches away. In another window. Because if there's one thing AOL taught me, it's that you can't do anything else while AOL is open. So when you went away, you had to let everybody know about it. So of course, I opened Bikini³² AFK Bot, and sat back. This ensured that everyone in the private chat room knew I was not looking at the chat room. That way if someone were to say "hey Syber... blah blah blah.", somebody else could say "He's AFK right now.", and they wouldn't be left to thinking I was either ignoring them, or just didn't like them. It was during these times that I learned there is a right way, and a wrong way to quit the internet. Sometimes you have to be a quitter. Now I'm going to show you how to do it right.

The important thing to remember is that if you want to quit anything, you have to be credible. I'll continue to touch on this subject throughout the lecture. If you're not credible, you can't really "quit" per se. If you're not credible and you stop doing something, you just stopped. You left. You didn't quit. Only people with credibility get to quit. If you leave with credibility on good terms after a distinguished career, then it's a retirement. You don't want to retire though. you want to quit like a pro. Quitting is the only way to leave a scandal behind, and have something to tell your kids about.

The first step to quitting the internet is to spend every waking moment of your life on it. If you're not there all the time, it wouldn't be a big deal if you stopped going. That'd be like if I gave up smoking, but I smoked 1 cigarette every 6 months. So get started now being online at all times of the day and night. Even if you're not physically in front of your PC, leave some sort of program running so that people can see that you're online. I recommend Kazaa or some sort of a Trojan that reports to a website. If you're a mac user, then just close this browser right now. Mac users can't quit the internet to begin with, because you have to have a reputation and/or friends to have credibility, and Mac users have neither. So eat it, you cock suckers.

Once you spend a good 16 hours a day on the internet, you need to start building that reputation I was talking about. First things first, you're going to need to meet some people. Wait. Close www.match.com asshole, I didn't mean like that. You need to go to a chat room, or an IRC Channel, or a bulletin board, or their gay versions, WebTV, Observers, or MySpace, in the same order. Start making friends, hanging out, etc. I recommend following my previous advice to never leave those places, so you can further prove you're online all the time. If you're on a bulletin board (hitherto referred to as a BBS so I don't have to type that word out), I recommend checking the option to save the cookie so you don't have to login all the time. You never know when you'll be in a real hurry to post some pointless fact about your life. Your friends can't be expected to wait until 1pm the next morning when you wake up, to hear about your E-Date last night.

If you've made it this far you can pat yourself on the back. Don't start planning your exit yet though, we've got one more critical step. You can't just leave for no reason. You have to quit because somebody made you. But you don't want to say that. Then you're just a pussy. You have to leave because you can no longer "take it". Because this "place" is full of so much bullshit, and hypocrisy, and probably a bunch of other shit that you, as a superior being, simply cannot coexist with any longer. So with your friends in place, now it's time to make enemies. The easiest way to do this is to go wherever you're always hanging out, and disagree with somebody. For the first instance, you should wait for someone to make a statement, and then disagree with it. This makes you the antagonist. You don't want to say it first, and then be disagreed with. You're fucked if you do it that way.

So once you're effectively in disagreement with a member of your community, you need to dwell on the issue at had forever. Never let it drop. If you make the mistake of letting the issue cool off, start another problem. Remember I said you can't start the problem the very first time, but now you're at liberty to be a real prima dona. Start the second issue if necessary, and then quickly remind everyone of the fact that this guy/girl is a real dick/bitch because last time you had a problem, he/she was too stupid/menstruating to see the truth staring him/her in the face. If you're in a chatting environment, make sure to continue to talk about the problem for days. Inquiring for the opinion of every single person who joins the chat, even if they don't know either of the parties involved. If the joining party agrees with your slant on the situation, you should make sure to point that out to the opposing party. If the opposing party isn't present, make sure you suggest that the reason they aren't present is because they know you're right. Flawed logic like this is the only way to properly prepare to quit the internet.

If you're carrying this mission out via a BBS, then you need to be posting at least 3 to 5 times per hour, on multiple threads. If your opponent posts a response, I recommend immediate name calling, and any other playground tactics you can think up. If at any point in the thread you lose the upper hand, promptly start a separate thread, and claim that your opponent is such a fag/dyke that he/she has to hijack your thread to get a point across. Keep in mind of course, that you'll have to monitor 2 threads at this point. The trade off is well worth it however, because innocent bystanders will see the 2 or more threads and think, "Wow, these people just won't leave this guy alone!"

Finally, when this has all dragged out to astronomical proportions, you can make the announcement condemning this person, the situation, glorifying the old days before this person showed up, explaining that the whole thing sucks now, and that you're leaving and never coming back. Make sure you list off like 50 reasons you're leaving. Also, don't forget to say that you've giving this a lot of thought. Oh! And make sure they all know how big of a sacrifice this is for you. Make sure you point out that you still like so-and-so, and if you're lucky it'll be a friend of the opponent. That way neutral parties can know that you're not just a jerk, and you still have a heart. Make sure you use a lot of capital letters, and bold if the format supports it. If you have any powers, abuse them all before you leave. If you're a moderator of a BBS, ban somebody, and make your quitting thread a sticky, so it stays at the top. You may even want to comment later that you hope nobody removes the sticky on your thread, so everyone can be sure to see that you quit. This way they won't wonder if you died when a tower of Big Macs fell on your bloated ass. DO NOT LOCK THE THREAD! If you lock the thread, nobody will be able to voice their support for you. Remember everybody loves you, and you're the greatest thing that ever happened to this situation, before so-and-so came along and fucked it up. Also make sure that you use finite words when you're done. Like "this is it. my last post.", and "after this, I won't post anymore. After this. This period at the end of THIS sentence. I mean THIS sentence. Now." Somebody will usually post afterwards, and say it was cool knowing you, and they hope you change your mind eventually. Feel free to post back at any time even though you already said you weren't coming back at all. Nobody will notice that you're probably just yearning for attention because you're a fat sack internet slob. Moreover, I doubt they'll figure out that all this "I'm leaving..." nonsense is really just a a self glorifying test of popularity that you need to justify to yourself that you're as cool in the eyes of others as you say you are to yourself, every day, in the mirror hoping God himself doesn't reach through the clouds and crush you for being a brutal liar. Those same people won't notice that your post count keeps going up on the BBS, despite the fact that you claimed you quit. Or that the little piece of text under your User Name, identifying the last time you logged in, reads 5 minutes ago. They also probably won't notice that after you signed off your 2Kool4Skool screen name, another user joined named Not2Kool4Skool.

See, the great part about the internet is that stupidity breeds ignorance. The morons of the internet love to hang out together. Which actually, leads to the beauty of this situation. You get to quit and cause this raucous because these douché bags are stupid enough to let you do it. And why shouldn't you? Like I said already, you're probably fat. If you're a guy, you probably don't have a girlfriend. If you do, you've probably never seen her in real life. And the furthest base you've gotten to, wasn't second base, but the 8th base on the 4th moon of the second planet you E-Met her on. You were a wizard, she was an elven princess. It was really romantic I'm sure. You cast a "Movement of the Third Leg" spell that led to your current situation. Only now you have to quit. It's about respect. You'd be a quitter if you didn't quit at this point. It takes a real pussy to quit quitting. Now quitting a quit can be done, but I won't get into that here. Besides, she can come with you. There's nothing to worry about.

If you think you can't accomplish this, I will be the first to say you're wrong. If you're quitting the internet, you've already quit real life. That's one success under your belt! I'll bet you weren't even counting that one. See? I told you that you could do it. Now dust your hands off, you've successfully quit the internet. Have your girlfriend come over, and you can have sex with her. Oh wait... right. Just send her an email to... oh yeah, I keep forgetting. Well, instead just eat a Twinkie. You sad, sad, fat little piece of shit.

Now fuck you all, I'm leaving, and this time I mean it. As of now. As of this period.... There.

Originally posted 10/6/2004 by Syber