Upon Stan’s death, there was a small window in time in which the race of paper geniuses could have been wiped out, thus ending the horrible saga of Merkocziwitz forever. However, the void that he left behind him on the forums of the schools and churches that he had frequented was just too tempting for some, and was soon enough filled by not one, but two more paper geniuses.

The profile for these two disciples was very similar, in that both were of an average intelligence, possessed an unremarkable physical appearance, and longed for some sort of recognition, IE: an escape from their glaring personal normality. The first, whose name was lost in the great forum crash of 1994, was a sixteen year-old choir boy, who was always placed in the far back row, and told to hum along because his voice was rather piercing and high. The second was an aspiring pro-baseball player by the name of Mark Fhourr, who had never played any position but right field, and at the age of eighteen was still playing at the Babe Ruth level.

Though neither of these boys knew each other, it is widely believed that if they had that they would have become fast friends. Perhaps in a different time continuum than ours, their friendship provided the recognition that they both required, and the internet was never stained by the ever-present taint of the paper genius.

However, in the world that we live in today, those two aspiring geniuses brought about one of the single most regretful incidences that the online world has ever known. The date was March 14th, 1992. That night, thousands of unassuming people logged onto the internet, to surf, to upload or download, or to read and post on their favorite forums. Little did they know that they were soon to become a part of what is now referred to as the deflowering of the then infantile internet’s youthful innocence. The idea that the internet was a place for new ideas, new technology, and anonymous participation, while previously blemished by Stan, was annihilated once and for all by Mark and his forgotten accomplice. That night, the sky was stained blood red, by the very first Flame War.

Its origin is unknown, as is the actual topic that spawned it. However, what first began on the forums of the First Christian Church soon sent ripples throughout the entire internet, and pulled thousands of people who would have otherwise been ignorant to the dark side of the internet directly into a fray which would last two weeks, and sully the personal lives of uncounted individuals. Mark and his fellow Merkocziwitz disciple, who had been at ground zero, were burned to a crisp by the thousands that were prompted to pour out their hate by the two boy’s online spat, and were found by their parents three days later, as two identical cones of ash. It is unfortunate that their fate, which was to be swept up into twin ketchup-stained dustpans and then subsequently flushed down the toilet, was not shared by all of the paper geniuses that were spawned by their Flame War.

Today, the internet is a cess-pool of paper geniuses, and has changed irrevocably from the unassuming internet of Stan and Mark’s time. Now, no one can post any sort of idea without knowing first that he or she will be the subject of at least one paper genius’s flame. In fact, it has become so commonplace that it is not even remarked upon anymore. The paper genius is a part of the landscape now, to be stepped over or walked around just like any other piece of feces. However, unlike real-world excreted matter, the paper genius does not appreciate being avoided, and does everything in its power to draw attention to itself, and to wipe its grime upon everyone that enters its sphere of influence. It is truly a sad state of affairs.

The mark of a paper genius is of course an all-knowing, irreproachable genius who could write thirty best-selling novels if they deigned to, but instead would rather correct the English of everyone on the internet, in a noble crusade to cleanse the taint of the people that put forth their ideas without wrapping them with perfection first. They feel that their policing service is required to maintain order in the chaos that is cyber space, and without them the internet would surely degenerate into some sort of free exchange of ideas and opinions, which would be the end of every rigid, small-minded paper genius.

That, of course, would be a great tragedy, and so they take it upon themselves to censor or attack everyone who does not have a perfect command of the English language, in an attempt to hold back the ideas of the unwashed masses. The real tragedy, of course, is that the people who do not have perfect sentence structure or diction are often the people with the most revolutionary ideas or the most heartfelt opinions, and that by causing them to feel ashamed of themselves the paper geniuses are limiting the very world in which they call home, the internet or cyber space.

If the reader has been so lucky as to have never encountered a paper genius, then he must consider himself infinitely lucky. However, his charmed existence is unfortunately doomed to end, as the sheer number of paper geniuses that frequent the internet today render avoiding them forever an impossible task. To that end, I feel that some of the attributes of the typical paper genius should be listed, so that the few unassuming men and women who have yet to be needlessly flamed can at least recognize that the insults are coming from the lowest form of life on the internet, and in doing so at least take some comfort from that fact.

What follows is a partial list of the Paper Genius Phenomena:

1. A paper genius takes no greater pleasure than flaming someone that has no defenses against them, IE: someone who was just submitting their idea or opinion while having little to no real knowledge of the English language. These type of people include foreigners, young children, old folks, and the cognitively challenged. While it is obvious to most that these people should be respected and praised for having an original idea, the paper genius views them as a particularly juicy steak, and will leave no stone unturned in their search for their literary mistakes.

2. A paper genius is a person who is so sure of their omnipotence that they often feel that they do not need to read the entire article or submission in order to judge it. This is because, as a paper genius, they have all of the knowledge that is available to know in this world, and therefore they already know what is going to be said before the author does.

3. A paper genius will never admit to being wrong when it comes to the English language, and will battle unceasingly even in the face of obvious defeat. This is because, to admit fallibility, the paper genius must relegate himself to the ranks of the unwashed masses, and forever lose his illusion of perfection.

4. A paper genius is blind to the fact that many people know much more about English than they exhibit in their internet posts or submissions. This leads to situations in which the paper genius is shown up badly by the person that they initially flamed. However, the paper genius will always return to the original post, and claim that the person who is making them look so foolish is in fact a fool himself, because his or her first post was so full of errors. Once again, this is because a paper genius must always remain infallible in his own eyes, in able to prevent his bulbous head from shrinking.

5. A paper genius, more often than not, has little to no real-world experiences, and therefore they will often perceive other people’s experiences as lies, because they cannot imagine such things happening to themselves. This is because a paper genius perceives himself as extraordinary, when in fact they are almost always extremely ordinary. This generally leads to the paper genius looking at himself and, upon realizing that such a situation would not happen to a person even as incomprehensibly gifted as he obviously is, the paper genius denounces the poster as a debased liar who is only out to gain attention. This hypocrisy always goes unnoticed by the paper genius, of course.

6. A paper genius always perceives himself to be a man of morals, and therefore even in the face of perfect English, he can usually find something to flame or deride. This is because he believes himself to be as perfect morally as he is in his knowledge of English, and therefore even someone who doesn’t blatantly exhibit their debauchery must be at least in some way inferior.

This is of course a very limited list, as there are in actually hundreds of unique paper genius traits. A person who believes himself to be singularly gifted and morally correct will of course have many identifying personality quirks, but unfortunately this particular author does not have the time nor the inclination to list them all.

In the final segment of this article, we will look at a few possible futures, and the side-effects that the extinction of the race of paper geniuses would have on the internet and cyber space. Until then, please remember to ignore the paper-geniuses, as their diet consists of recognition and falsely-placed respect. Without it they will surely shrivel up and die, leaving the rest of us free to misspell and run-on with impunity.

Only You Can Prevent Forum Fires.