There Are Two Types of People on the Internet, or: 69 Versus 420
The Internet is a place of inherent contradiction and duality; its very language is premised on a binary system. (It, like, literally is the binary code. So.) And beyond that, the Internet is a place within which there flourishes the stance and the anti-stance, the take and the Slate-take; everything is yes or no, Trump or Hillary, bad or good. The Internet is all about pitting people against each other, making us choose sides, allowing us to understand where it is we actually belong, who it is we actually are. And there is no better way of categorizing ourselves according to this specific logic than by seeing who falls on which side of the most important dividing line of our time: 69 versus 420.
Yesterday, on 6/9 (nice), New York magazine’s Select All vertical published a very important look at the most important (and the “coolest“) number of our time: 69. Writer Brian Feldman made it clear as early as the headline that the reason 69 is so cool is because of exactly the reason you’d think: sex. Sex is cool. Sex is nice. Or “nice,” in Internet parlance. And if there’s one thing the Internet loves, it’s being cool and nice. And also sex. As Feldman writes: “The thing about the internet is that everyone on it is horny. Everyone on the internet is horny all the time. Selfies are thirst traps; faves and likes are one-click methods of saying, ‘I’m thirsty.’ This is not that different from the real world, where, thanks to the magic of biology, everyone is in a perpetual state of ‘horned up and ready to go.’ But on the internet, sex manifests itself in unexpected ways.”
And those ways include being very appreciative of the number 69, in whichever form it manifests, including even IRL. (Case in point: The photo above, which I took in Denmark in a “BroTaxi,” when I saw that the fare had reached 69 kroners. Nice!)
But there’s another number out there which has its own acolytes, one which Feldman touches upon at the end of his excellent foray into the importance of 69. And that number? Is 420.
420 is as easy a marker with which to understand its users’ interests as is 69. And much like with 69, which everyone on the Internet agrees is both cool and nice, when a person uses 420, they are also usually recognized with a “nice.” Because weed is nice. And it is cool. In fact, on the surface, weed and sex, and those people who use 420 and 69 do not seem so different at all; perhaps this dichotomy is a false one? Perhaps it is possible to like both weed AND sex?
Perhaps! But I don’t think so. I can’t think so. I think there is a fundamental difference between the type of people who really, really, really want you to know they think sex is nice and that they’ve had it and those who really, really, really want you to know they think weed is nice and that they’ve had it. (That’s what you do with weed, right? Have it? Right. Nice.) And in case you aren’t really sure which one you are, think of it this way: Donald Trump is the kind of person who wants you to know that he’s had sex and it’s nice. And Donald Trump has never smoked weed. And then read this very excellent piece about weed by Mary H.K. Choi and make your decision about who you are. What else are you doing today? Nothing, right? Cool. Happy Friday!
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