David Thorne is the Australian humourist who gained global fame with his attempt to settle an outstanding bill with a drawing of a seven-legged spider. He went on to super-troll neighbours, employers, Blockbuster Video and, eventually, the entire Internet with his website, 27slashb6. It’s funny stuff. I like it. But I never had the urge to order his book, The Internet Is A Playground, because I sort of suspected it was part of a larger trolling.
And it was.
We’re hearing more and more that people who sent money to Thorne, via PayPal in particular, never actually received a copy of the book. For all I know, the book does not exist. Maybe it does. Perhaps there really is a problem with some kind of Australian book distribution hub. But really, people, why are you sending money to a man whose avowed mission is to fuck with you via the Internet? This should not come as a surprise.
It brings to mind an old fable. A rattlesnake wants to cross the river, but can’t swim. So he asks a beaver to carry him across.”No way,” says the beaver. “You’ll bite me.” The rattlesnake shrugs, in that snakey way, and says “No, I swear, I won’t bite you.” So the snake slithers onto the beaver’s back, and the beaver swims across the river, and when they reach the opposite shore, the rattlesnake promptly bites the beaver on the neck. “What the fuck?” asks the beaver. “You said you wouldn’t bite me!” To which the snake replies “Hey, you knew I was a rattlesnake when you met me.”
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