Who among you is bold enough to aggregate my empire?
You, who are blissfully unaware of the struggles of aggregating fresh comedy. Who have never suffered through agonizing minutes of aggregator’s block. Who know nothing of the hard work and dedication that go into refreshing Patton Oswalt’s Twitter feed, clicking through the front page of Reddit, and Googling the phrase “original content” for the eighth time today.
Do you think this is easy? Gathering original humor and reproducing it? Consuming the freshest morsels off the plates of starving comedians, and regurgitating their product onto my own Twitter and Instagram accounts?
I’ve aggregated memes you people wouldn’t believe.
Obscure screenshots of ’90s sitcoms off the 23rd page of Google Image results; I’ve watched Russian cat videos glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser firewall. I’ve walked across the surface of the Deep Web, scouring for dick jokes so tiny and so fast that they hardly can be said to have occurred at all.
Are you at work right now? Here is a photo of Al Bundy. Read the text adjacent: “MFW the alarm goes off.” Never mind why the photo’s source was removed. Simply allow my accompanying comment’s sleepy face emoji to wash over you, and know true comedy eternal.
For I am a benevolent aggregator. I give the gift of original comedy and ask for nothing in return. Nothing but your gratitude, which you now deny me.
You call me a thief, you bite the hand that feeds you.
No matter. Soon I will gain access to your television airwaves. Your original programming. Perhaps not this pilot season, but the next, or the next. And I will be paid handsomely to produce episodic content.
After the success of my program, which will be 22 minutes of aggregated gifs from other successful television shows, I will tour your country. I will descend upon your major cities, your comedy clubs, documenting the very source of your popular culture, aggregating your original humor firsthand.
Once I aggregate enough comedy, I will leave this world. All of your Earth’s jokes will be harvested, pristine and preserved, and archived. Only then will I depart to aggregate the next system in your galaxy.
While you weep for my return, I will offer one last glimmer of hope. No longer will my fresh comedy be shared for free via Instagram or Twitter. I shall release my own app, FatJokester. For $1.99 all will download it, as this will be the only way to receive original content from the freshest comedy aggregator on the Internet!
And that, you see, will be my greatest joke of all.
Behold my legacy. I am forever. I am legion. I have no original thought and I must laugh.