For the sake of marking a slightly unusual date in the calendar tomorrow, 09/09/09, there’s a campaign underway to rid the internet of cats for 24 hours.

If that doesn’t strike you as a perfectly sensible idea, you’re probably reading this on a dial-up connection. Cats are to the web what tomatoes are to Italian cooking. One online magazine said earlier this year declared the internet was made of kittens.

To a classically Catholic reaction of horror and amusement, I discovered this week there’s even a project underway to rewrite the Bible in kitteh, the imaginary moggie tongue which has some rigid conventions – “can I have” becomes “I can haz” and omnipotence comes in the form of “Ceiling Cat”, a meme stemming from photos of cats looking out of holes in the roof.

“In teh beginnin,” reads the opening line of Genesis, “Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs.” Verse three: “An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.”

Smart, but the worrying thing about this is the fanatics seem to be just cleaning-living cat-lovers. It isn’t inspired, as you might first expect, by lots and lots of drugs.

Anyway, Urlesque, the website leading the charge for a feline-free, has experienced a predictable backlash, with angry commenters threatening to unleash a wave of cat-related content tomorrow. “I’m gonna post so many f…kin’ cats that day,” said one.

But there are plenty of other daily occurrences on the web that hit you like forks in the eyes on a daily basis. Here’s my list of things that should also be banned for a day – just a day, though. It’s about getting a break from the tyranny.

Add your suggestions in the comments.

1. Facebook Wouldn’t it be great to have a day free of the guilt that comes from not responding when someone writes on your wall?
2. Bad spelling In fact, not just bad spelling but also cntrcted wds and that thing kids do with aLtErNaTiNg cApItAls.
3. Wikipedia Everyone could do their own research for a day and the facts recited about any particular news event or personality would be (gasp!) varied.
4. Flashing ads! Look, I know I’m not really the 1 millionth visitor. I’m not clicking on that fricking banner.
5. Social networking tips If only to slow the proliferation of mini-rule books written by digital marketing shysters on how to exploit social media
6. Pointless lists Enough said

Over to you.

37 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • elsie says:

      11:08am | 08/09/09

      CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!!!!

    • John B says:

      11:17am | 08/09/09

      Eric, iansand, “rationalist”,Socrates.

    • Chris says:

      11:29am | 08/09/09

      Social media experts….

    • Gibbot says:

      11:30am | 08/09/09

      hehe. You left out ‘LOL’ & ‘ROFPMSL’.

      A day without hearing about how bloody wonderful twitter is would be nice too.

      But seriously Paul, don’t be mocking ceiling cat.

    • charles says:

      11:50am | 08/09/09

      BLOGS

    • RT says:

      12:12pm | 08/09/09

      Piers Akerman, Andrew Bolt and the Blair guy, the one who was not British PM.

    • papachango says:

      12:19pm | 08/09/09

      Flashing ads are bad but those frickin’ splash ads are worse (i.e those that cover up the sites content until you shut them off.)
      What about sites with music that you can’t shut off?

    • Zeta says:

      12:20pm | 08/09/09

      911 Truthers clogging up abovetopsecret.com, when all I really want to read about is how the liberal elites are killing us with their flouride.

    • Adam says:

      12:26pm | 08/09/09

      Unfunny trolls, the racists that revel in anonymity, Janet Albrechtsen

    • Gibbot says:

      12:41pm | 08/09/09

      Chuckles @ Zeta.

    • iansand says:

      01:21pm | 08/09/09

      John B@11:17 Gosh.  I didn’t think you cared.

      My nomination is snarky comments by nonentities.

    • RT says:

      02:19pm | 08/09/09

      I’d like to keep iansand and his concise comments. We need more like him.

    • John says:

      02:46pm | 08/09/09

      newspaper media sites telling lies smile

    • Clover says:

      03:10pm | 08/09/09

      Bad news. Not bad as in poor quality (that’ll never happen), but bad as in depressing.

    • Haven Maven says:

      03:57pm | 08/09/09

      Politicians

    • Ash Simmonds says:

      03:59pm | 08/09/09

      Porn…  o_O

    • marley says:

      04:06pm | 08/09/09

      Conspiracy theories.  All of them.

    • JD says:

      04:22pm | 08/09/09

      World of Warcraft! Hah, see the cold sweats and the screams of agony from padded rooms in geek houses around the world as the addicts cry out for their next hit of digital crack.

    • mike j says:

      04:23pm | 08/09/09

      Stephen Conroy? Is that you?

    • Ban it says:

      04:23pm | 08/09/09

      Ahh yes Facebook, the attention seekers website for those that just love writing about themselves.

    • Tim says:

      04:28pm | 08/09/09

      Ash,
      Never!!
      You can pry my internet porn from my cold dead hand.

    • ashley says:

      04:53pm | 08/09/09

      praise the ceiling cat!

      Lets ban enter credit card details here…..

    • Billy Pilgrim says:

      06:08pm | 08/09/09

      Hyperbolic oneupmanship. You say you’re a size 28 armless single mother with three mortgages working 2 hours a week but still paid off your ten investment properties, have no credit cards and find time to exercise 40 hours a week because you’re so fit and healthy? That’s great, no-one cares but you.

    • KJ says:

      06:15pm | 08/09/09

      bloggers / journos / tweeters / facebookers posting old stuff as if its new…

      (ceiling cat came from 1 image and the lolcat bible has been round for almost as long as the real one - at least in internet years)

    • suze says:

      06:20pm | 08/09/09

      Myself! I can be very annoying.

    • Anon says:

      06:57pm | 08/09/09

      Whatever you do, don’t try to ban 4chan. Remember Rule #1 of the internet: you do NOT mess with 4chan!

    • The Member For __________ says:

      07:15pm | 08/09/09

      Let’s ban (on a permanent basis, not just for 24 hours, but forever):

      Silly articles like this
      Superstitious bullshit
      Silly traditions
      Silly crap over certain number combinations in dates
      Silly beliefs like “cats having 9 lives”
      Religion
      Christmas crap
      .....the list goes on…..

    • Arthur Potter says:

      08:05pm | 08/09/09

      I’d ban Andrew Bolt, and not just for one day

    • jim says:

      08:50pm | 08/09/09

      lists

    • Liz says:

      07:50am | 09/09/09

      Bad journalism.

    • Margaret says:

      08:03am | 09/09/09

      that horrible little Sandilands person - only let’s make it permanent

    • Andy Wilding says:

      09:00am | 09/09/09

      Canadian Pharmacy clogging my inbox

    • Scrub Nurse says:

      09:39am | 09/09/09

      I don’t understand what Twitter is, but I am so sick to death of hearing about it, so I’d like to see that gone. I’d also like to remove my ‘contacts’ from the net for a day. The same contacts that continue to send me virus warnings, other warnings, hoax emails in general, despite me repeatedly educating them about hoax emails. People amaze me, if I told someone to jump of the bridge, they’d tell me to get stuffed. An email tells them to forward it on and they can’t hit the forward button quick enough! So, remove bogan contacts that don’t get the message re hoax emails. I’d also like a footballer free day. I hate footballers.

    • Mystikan says:

      10:07am | 09/09/09

      Ban do-gooders, hand-wringers, wowsers, and all the other freedom-hating moralists who get offended at every little thing. Like Kyle Sandilands using the words “concentration camp” in a joke. FFS, I’m sick of hearing their continuous, specious, self-righteous whining, and I’m SICK of having my freedoms eroded away because these moralising busybodies on their high horses think they know best what I should be allowed to say, hear, read, see and think.

      If you are the kind of person who gets offended at things, go bury yourself in a hole. And don’t cross my path. I’m itching to tear the face off of one of these cretins.

    • Paul Colgan

      Paul Colgan says:

      10:12am | 09/09/09

      Scrub Nurse - you have clearly given this a lot of thought. What a terrific set of suggestions.

    • Chrissy says:

      11:59am | 09/09/09

      Those stupid emails that say if you don’t forward to ten friends immediately your life will be destroyed. Pleeease! Sheesh people can’t be that stupid can they?

    • Sera says:

      12:23pm | 09/09/09

      YES CHRISSY!  Those chain-letters in spam email form.  They irritate the XXXX outta me.

 

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