This weekend, the Times TV section broke the news: "Sidelined by the Strike, Comedy Goes Online." The paper then pointed to several good comedy sites that, during the writers' strike, have continued to publish the same stream of comedy that they published before the strike, except now with Fred Armisen. The SNL star surely bolsters public opinion of online comedy by telling the paper it's "kind-of comedy" (so what did he think SNL was?). Armisen also shares the burden of keeping track of all the online entertainment, after being overloaded with fifteen e-mails. But to be fair, there are also quotes from web-based comedians that explain real benefits of the strike for original web comedy.

Popular internet gossip weblogger Mario "Perez" Hilton-Lavandeira 's late endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton in the California primary might have been the deciding factor, according to venerable ABC journalist Sam Donaldson, who was trotted out by terrorists of some kind and forced to interview Lavandeira by phone, to his utter befuddlement. Donaldson explains that he knew Perez's grandfather Conrad, he wonders why there was "this hugely pregnant woman" on Ms. Hilton's internet site, then he promises to watch Perez Hilton's website every day. Buzz buzz! [ABCNews]

On this, the eve of the first state primary in years where the outcome is not already a horrifically boring given, rest assured the fate of the country is finally in the hands of the wise and wonderful people who search for stuff on the Internets. Some of the hottest Google search terms today?

Is this generation of teens the first to grow up completely online? Hardly. Highbrow TV critic Virginia Heffernan was a MySpace teen before Myspace teens even existed, she reveals in this week's NYT mag. The year was 1983. The nascent online world: "primitive computer network" XCaliber.

"The Rough-and-Tumble Online Universe Traversed by Young Cybernauts" is not the most promising headline for a NY Times trend piece. Nor is the lede, which reads like rejected copy for Season 1 of "To Catch a Predator." The Times is reporting on a documentary on PBS's Frontline, which dregs up the fears about the Internet that have floated around since the 90s. The Times grossly misrepresented the documentary; updates below. Problem is, these fears are unfounded, and the Internet is practically safer for kids than their own homes. I shall now demonstrate this with a truckload of stats, logic, and some admittedly unfair anecdotal evidence.

There's a hot new "video game" on the internet that all the kids are talking about in which you play as a presidential candidate and shoot the other presidential candidates! With paint-ball guns. It seems to have upset Drudge? Will Kucinich sue to be included in the assassination game? [TSG, Wonkette]

Tom Cruise has personally, PERSONALLY, been pwned. This weekend, an anonymous Internet group (named Anonymous — these are not masters of subtlety) started a war with the Church of Scientology by hammering the group's web site; Scientology.org is down after a brief traffic spike. This isn't the only group of Internet users unafraid of the intimidating cult; a whole range of sites has turned the Church into a mockery by doing what mainstream celebrity-coverage outlets wouldn't dare. Here's a guide to the war (and a creepy manifesto made by The Internet!).

Kids! They know how to use computers! Actually no. Young students are as likely as older users to enter plain-English phrases as search terms, according to a study by the British Library (summarized here). They're also more likely to make research mistakes (like ignoring relevant information because it doesn't fit certain keywords), as luddites and librarians have feared, but not because of the Internet: Pre-web studies showed the same poor research skills among younger children, indicating that, well, children are less educated than adults. The study also produced the awesomest photo illustration of "research" ever.

As I've mentioned, LOLcats is just a cuter version of Caturday, an old forum tradition of posting cat pictures with captions in broken English on Saturdays. Caturday itself is just a more formal version of the image macros that have floated around ever since the Internet found pictures. Every popular Internet meme is in fact a lamer version of a more obscure one, including Lazy Sunday, the Rickroll, Badger Badger Badger, Hot or Not, Ask a Ninja, and Chuck Norris Facts. I've traced them back to their edgier ancestors.

Jessica Coen has a tumblr! [Untitled, Previously, Related]

Time was, a camgirl had to turn on a 24-hour webcam to get some attention and maybe some gifts from her Amazon wishlist. Now this adorable little Japanese-American (or white girl who speaks fluent Japanese?) girl (woman? She lists herself as 21) named MRirian gets hundreds of thousands of viewers for each of her one-minute YouTube videos. Sometimes she speaks in Japanese, sometimes she even moves around, but mostly she just stares at the camera with her cute-overload face. Like so:

"Please run a post explaining 4chan, /b/, the Encyclopedia Dramatica, etc.," asks reader Gabe Roth. "I just have no idea what that stuff is about, and it makes me feel old." While Gawker commenters know every obscure web site or at least can fake it, regular readers may want an explanation of some of the Internet's most strangely influential sites, an explanation shorter than Wikipedia's 2200-word article about 4chan. So I'll define Encyclopedia Dramatica, 4chan, /b/, Something Awful, and YTMND.

Christine Griffin is 26, lives in New York, and works at Cosmopolitan magazine—every girl's dream! But living said dream is not all it's cracked up to be, even if you are working for the publication that pioneered a sex position called the Wanton Wheelbarrow. In fact, she thinks she might actually be "going on 36."

The New Yorker has a new daily "cultural happenings" blog, Goings On. Today includes: Amy Winehouse news, something about author Henry Roth and Hollywood, and a post that begins, "Lunch in Midtown tends to extremes."
[Goings On]

Much like bloggers, Stalin "rewrote history, made anonymous accusations, hired and elevated hacks and phonies, ruined reputations at will, and airbrushed suddenly unwanted associates out of documents and photographs," explains New Republic editor Lee Siegel. And that's only one choice bit from the Times' review of his book, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. For his part, Siegel refers to his praiseful anono-commenting on his very own essays as "my rollicking misadventures in the online world." Now that's re-writing history! (Click for the work of Siegel's former anonymous avatar, "Sprezzatura.")

The Internet has a successor to the classic Fensler Film G.I. Joe parodies. "Fatal Farm," creators of the series of remixed TV theme videos that got kinda popular last year, have finally produced a winner. It's Lasagna Cat, a series of live reenactments of Garfield cartoon strips with canned laughter followed by head-throbbing dance videos. The whole thing feels like it's out of Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (or the last act of "Shrooms"), and I just wanted you to be among the first to see it before it takes the Internet by storm. Well, the part of the Internet not already watching Tom Cruise and the kid whose glasses are famous. In fact I'll make a bet.

Hasbro and Mattel, co-owners of Scrabble, asked Facebook to remove its one good app, "Scrabulous." So far the online game's method of distinguishing itself from the board game with the exact same rules (which has its own free web version) has been a disclaimer on the app saying that it's not Scrabble. (Which reminds me it's time to plug the RSS from Gawker into my new site, "Gawkifier.com.") Unless Scrabulous drastically changes its rules or sells to Scrabble, Hasbro and Mattel will most certainly win the battle and Facebook will be that much less fun for the 600 thousand people who played Scrabulous each day.

Lately I've been watching Web Drifter, an online show that takes the Daily Show's practice of interviewing yokels and crackpots with a straight face, and applies it to the weirdest people on the Internet. Host Martin Sargent visits people like the infamous Peter Pan cosplayer, Hollow Earth believers, and a wizard. There's little of the cloying deadpan voice-over that weakened some Daily Show segments; the show just relies on the subjects' relentless weirdness. By not wrapping up the show in flashy gimmicks, Web Drifter deeply satisfies my need for a freak show. Below, Sargent interviews a man who plans to sail to the North Pole into the Hollow Earth.

"There needs to be a [late, influential New Yorker film critic] Pauline Kael of the Internet. People need to write critically about this thing," says New Republic editor Lee Siegel. (As you might remember, he was once suspended for a little stunt where he commented anonymously on his own essays, via the Internet). He's basically unimpressed by the entire Web and wrote a book, Against the Machine, on this topic. "What the Internet's doing is professionalizing everyone's amateuristic impulses. Everybody wants to jump into the big time and be recognized ... they're not taking the time to just have fun." Is this true? Discuss! Also, if anybody would like to apply for the new position of "Pauline Kael of the Internet," please send your resume our way! [NY Mag]

Seriously, does everybody in the world have to be blogging? Pulitzer-winning playwright David Mamet will blog as the character from his latest play, November, for the duration of its run. Charles H.P. Smith is played by Nathan Lane and is a president in danger of not getting re-elected. So far, he has blogged exactly three Andy Rooney-ish observations such as, "The best that [stem cell] research could accomplish would be to prolong the lives of people who were going to die anyway. Is it worth the aggravation?" One might ask the same question of this promotional blog. [NYT]