The topical Whomorists were a comical lot
But The Grinch loathed every joke the merry bunch wrought.
The Grinch hated quipsters! Every topical quip!
He was sick of hipster bits before they were hip.
He considered the authors to be jocular vultures
Gnawing on the carcass of popular culture.
And the catalyst for his extreme prejudice
Against bits which begin, “Did you hear about this?”
(Which probably shouldn’t come as much of a shock)
Was that he literally lived under a rock.
And while he thought some were funny, nevertheless,
Every one made him long for the Pony Express.
“It’s already Christmas Eve!” He grinchily yelled,
“And that means that soon the watercooler from Hell,
Will be filled to the brim with NoeLOLs!
“For tomorrow, I know, come rain, snow, or sleet
I’ll be greeted with a fleet of TWEETS! TWEETS! TWEETS!
Each tweet depletes the likelihood of divinity.
It’s not the tweet, you see, it’s the stupidity.
“Then they’ll riffle and sift through millions of clips
And the pithiest snippets they’ll swiftly snip
Into Gifs! Not The GIFS! GIFS! GIFS! GIFS!
Few things get me miffed like stop-motion glyphs!
“And then, a platoon of buffoons will commune
And they’ll lampoon the lyrics to a familiar tune
And they’ll Croon! CROON! CROON! CROON!
The most antediluvian tune is still ‘too soon’!
“I simply cannot endure one more parody rag,
If only there were a gag rule on yule gags!”
Then he got an idea, an evil idea.
The grinch got a chaotic EVIL idea!
“I’ll hijack their high jinks! I’ll ransack their lip syncs!
Every little wisecrack, I’ll rapidly hoodwink!
Every set up and punch line I’ll subject to theft,
I’ll burgle burlesques ‘til there isn’t one left.
I’ll abduct every chuckle, yoink every yuck.
I’ll take and give not one single fuck!
“No more side-splitting slapstick, no more wry drollery
After ‘Operation Knee-Slapper Kidnapper Trolling Spree!’”
But then he realized he had only a little paper,
Or, rather, “‘Op Caper Caper.’”
Then he tried to access a Wi-Fi connection
But most neighbors’ networks had password protection.
So he scrolled and scrolled ‘til he finally eyed it:
A network with no padlock symbol beside it!
And masquerading as an administrator,
He infiltrated the content aggregator.
And when he found the content management system
The Jape Crusader raided each witticism.
“Ta-ta, ha-has! Bon voyage, bon mots!
Later days, repartees! Un broma? Adios!”
He extracted each bit, uprooted all goofs,
He snatched every skit and looted all spoofs
He embezzled each jest, annexed each sketch
Every farcical list, the farce larcenist fetched.
Anything mildly snarky, the Grinch swiftly filched
He pilfered all larks until there were zilch.
As he bid the last vestige of frivolity adieu
He got a GChat message from Cindy Lu Who
“My Whoogle Docs are bare,” said the little farceuse.
“Everything that was there has gone vamoose
And I have deduced, after perusing for clues
It’s you I should accuse for doing this ruse.”
Well The Grinch, he did hem, and the Grinch, he did haw,
Then replied, “I am not the guffaw scofflaw!
I’m not burglarious, nor am I nefarious.
Your claims are as hilarious as they are precarious.
I’m completely aloof as to why they went poof
And with no smoking pun, you have no proof!
Go go back to bed little Bratticus Finch.
Or better yet, drop dead. Best, The Grinch.”
Then he changed his status to invisible
And went back to capturing all things risible.
All mirth was heisted, all gaiety grifted
All silliness swiped and all levity lifted.
Every gag was snagged, every punch line was pinched
All your memes are now belong to the Grinch.
“They’re just waking up!” The Green Griefer hissed
“They’ll be utterly pissed! This cannot be missed!
As soon as the weight of what I’ve done registers
All the Who writers and all the Who editors
Will tweet their congressmen and DM their senators
To waste no expenditure to catch the pun predator.
They’ll be so full of hate, so totally morose
They wont think to create anything jocose.
But when peered at his screen, he was instantly flummoxed.
He appeared to be a little bit sick to his stomach.
For the very first thing that came into view
Was a Nativity manger Yelp review!
“Why aren’t they sniveling? Where are the whiners?
Why are they delivering more one-liners?
They aren’t throwing fits, why won’t they niggle?
They’re doing it for shits, they’re doing it for giggles!”
Then he thought and he thought, and he had an epiphany,
Which removed in his brain all his antipathy.
“Perhaps humor,” he thought, “isn’t about material
Perhaps it’s about something more ethereal.
And every second spent holding them in contempt
Was a second not spent making my own attempts.”
And what happened then? Well ask any Who
The Grinch gave ten fucks that day, plus two!
He no longer greeted topical witticism
With instant misanthropical cynicism.
No longer self-righteous, he promptly restored
Everything single riotous thing from his hoard.
And after bringing every joke to their rightful home,
The Grinch started thinking, “Well, when in Rome.”
And right then and there, right off the top of his dome,
The Grinch opened Word, and he wrote this very poem.