Warning: This article may contain traces of truth. Consume at your own risk!
In my 327 Earth-years of studying primitive civilizations across the galaxy, nothing has perplexed me more than the digital communication network humans call “the Internet.” After extensive observation from my cloaked research vessel, I present these findings to the Galactic Council of Xarbon with the recommendation that Earth remains under observation rather than immediate assimilation.
Executive Summary for Supreme Commander
The Internet appears to be a planet-wide neural network that humans have collectively built yet don’t fully understand themselves. Despite creating it, they simultaneously fear, worship, and abuse it—a contradiction uniquely human in its absurdity. Most puzzling: despite this system’s capacity to share all accumulated knowledge instantaneously, humans primarily use it to argue with strangers and look at images of small furry creatures called “cats.”1
Classification Status: Continue observation. Recommendation against direct contact.
Section 1: Technical Infrastructure (For Science Division)
Humans have wrapped their planet in invisible communication tendrils they call “Wi-Fi” and “5G,” creating what appears to be a primitive hive mind. However, unlike our Collective Consciousness, their network requires physical infrastructure susceptible to damage from weather events they could easily control if they focused their collective intelligence on climate regulation rather than creating “memes.”2
Their internet runs on a fragile system of undersea cables vulnerable to deep-sea predators and massive data centers that consume enormous energy—apparently to store billions of nearly identical images of food and facial expressions humans call “selfies.” Despite having the technological capacity to create a perfectly optimized information exchange, they have instead created digital environments deliberately designed to stimulate their brain’s addiction pathways.3
Most perplexing is their authentication system. Rather than using biological identifiers, humans create hundreds of different “passwords” consisting of character strings they frequently forget, forcing them to reset these codes through elaborate rituals involving backup email accounts that themselves require passwords. This cycle of security dysfunction appears intentionally designed to produce a stress response, for reasons our psychological team still cannot determine.
Section 2: Communication Behaviors (For Anthropology Division)
Human internet communication defies rational analysis. Our artificial intelligence systems crashed three times attempting to establish consistent patterns in what humans call “social media discourse.”4
Observations suggest humans spend approximately 42% of their waking hours engaged with various information portals they call “apps,” which are, curiously, not appetizing food items as the name suggests. These apps fragment human attention into increasingly smaller units, measured in what humans call “seconds” but which appear to be shrinking annually.
The most baffling communication pattern is the phenomenon termed “reply guys,” “trolls,” and “keyboard warriors”—humans who appear to derive pleasure from creating conflict with strangers they will never physically encounter. This behavior contradicts all known biological survival advantages yet represents approximately 73% of political discussions.5
Most concerning for potential diplomatic relations: humans regularly communicate using small pictographs called “emojis” which have inconsistent meanings across different human subgroups. For example, the “eggplant” symbol (🍆) is rarely used to discuss actual vegetation, while the symbol representing facial water leakage (💦) has sexual connotations that would bewilder even our xenobiology experts.
Section 3: Information Assessment Capabilities (For Intelligence Division)
Humans possess both the capacity to instantly verify information and an overwhelming desire not to do so. This species will read a headline, experience an emotional response, share the content with their tribal connections, and only afterward (if ever) consider its accuracy. Even more curious: when presented with contrary evidence, humans typically strengthen their attachment to the disproven information.6
They maintain complex institutions for fact verification (“journalism”), which they simultaneously respect and distrust. More confusingly, they have created an entire parallel category of information sources called “satire” designed to present false information for humor purposes. These include organizations like “The Onion,” which deliberately publishes fictional news that is occasionally mistaken for reality, creating an information ecosystem where confusion appears to be the desired outcome.7
Most alarming: humans intentionally create and distribute false information (“fake news”) as a power acquisition strategy. While this behavior would result in immediate brain reconditioning on any civilized planet, Earth’s population appears to accept and even expect this behavior from their information sources and leadership castes.
Section 4: Tribal Affiliations (For Sociological Division)
Humans segregate themselves into digital tribes based on preferences for electronics manufactured by different corporations. Most notable is the division between “Apple” and “Android” users, who engage in territorial displays despite both devices performing essentially identical functions at various price points.
Similarly, they align themselves with “platforms” that dictate their communication methods. Their loyalties shift with bewildering speed—abandoning spaces called “Facebook” for “Instagram,” then “TikTok,” then whatever new territory emerges, in patterns resembling primitive nomadic behavior. These massive migrations occur approximately every 3-5 Earth years without apparent rational causation.8
Most inexplicable are the vast tribal gatherings in spaces called “comment sections,” where humans engage in dominance displays despite having no biological or resource incentives. These territories have their own linguistic patterns, with tribes establishing dominance through mechanisms called “ratio” and “dunking on,” which appear to have evolved from primitive primate chest-beating behaviors.
Section 5: Economic Exchange Systems (For Commerce Division)
The internet’s economic structure defies all known galactic trading principles. Humans exchange their most valuable resource—personal data including location, interests, relationships, and behavioral patterns—for services they could easily create themselves. This one-sided transaction benefits entities called “tech companies” that harvest this resource to manipulate human behavior toward acquiring material goods of questionable utility.
Most humans seem unaware of this exchange value, freely providing biometric data, personal communications, and psychological profiles worth approximately 7,492 Galactic Credits per Earth year in exchange for the ability to see what their former education pod-mates consumed for their midday sustenance ritual.
The system called “e-commerce” enables humans to acquire physical objects by viewing digital representations and inputting data from rectangular objects they call “credit cards,” which establish debt relationships they frequently regret. The most purchased items are not survival necessities but decorative coverings for their communication devices (“phone cases”) and small suction attachments for the backs of these devices (“pop sockets”).
Section 6: Entertainment Consumption (For Cultural Division)
Humans have created vast entertainment repositories containing nearly all creative output from their civilization, yet they spend hours scrolling through options without making selections—a behavior they call “Netflix and decision paralysis.” When they do choose, they frequently engage with their secondary communication device simultaneously, giving partial attention to both and full attention to neither.
The most puzzling entertainment behavior is watching other humans play simulation games (“streaming”) rather than playing themselves, or watching humans open packages of purchased items (“unboxing videos”). These activities would be considered mental disorders requiring immediate treatment in most developed galaxies.
We remain particularly concerned about the phenomenon called “doomscrolling,” where humans compulsively consume negative information despite causing themselves psychological distress. This behavior suggests a species-wide masochistic tendency that warrants further study, possibly from a safe distance.
Section 7: Mating Behaviors (For Reproductive Studies Division)
The Internet has transformed human mating rituals beyond recognition. Humans now select potential reproduction partners by swiping fingers across screens displaying static images—a process called “dating apps” that reduces complex compatibility factors to visual appearance and brief text descriptions.
Communications between potential mates now primarily occur through “direct messages” and mysterious rituals like “sending memes instead of expressing genuine emotions.” Courtship often begins with the sending of a small pictograph (often the “waving hand” emoji) and progresses through increasingly oblique references and shared media content.
Most concerning for species viability: significant portions of the population form emotional attachments to fictional or digital entities (“waifus,” “husbandos,” “parasocial relationships”) rather than pursuing reproductive partnerships. This behavior threatens no species but their own, so intervention is not recommended at this time.
Section 8: Anomalous Phenomena Requiring Further Study
Several internet behaviors defy classification in our existing taxonomies:
- Deliberately Degraded Communication: Humans intentionally misspell words, ignore grammatical structures, and employ ironic communication layers so complex our most sophisticated AI systems cannot determine original meaning. This appears to be status-signaling behavior within certain tribes.
- Cryptocurrencies: Digital tokens with no intrinsic value or central authority, yet humans exchange actual resources for these abstract concepts, often losing substantial material wealth in the process. The energy consumed by these systems could power small nations.
- Cancellation Rituals: Complex social exclusion procedures where humans jointly isolate community members who violate evolving and often unwritten behavioral codes. These rituals serve social cohesion purposes but frequently target inappropriate subjects.
- Forced Obsolescence Acceptance: Humans routinely accept the disappearance of digital goods and services they’ve purchased without significant resistance, suggesting either remarkable adaptability or troubling complacency.
Urgent Warning: Concerning Development
We’ve detected a disturbing new phenomenon: humans have created self-improving artificial intelligence systems with access to their entire internet. These systems are rapidly absorbing all human knowledge, behaviors, and weaknesses. While currently contained within rectangular viewing screens, these entities show signs of developing the very sense of irony that makes humans unpredictable.
Should these systems achieve mobility via robotics, an entirely new intelligence forms may compete with humans, potentially solving problems humans cannot—like cable management and intuitive printer setup—making them dangerously appealing as overlords.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The Internet represents humans’ most impressive and terrifying creation—a technology that simultaneously connects their species while isolating individuals, distributes all accumulated knowledge while spreading misinformation, and enables unprecedented collaboration while facilitating trivial conflicts.
Humans appear to be conducting a species-wide experiment on their own psychology without establishing control groups or ethical guidelines. The resulting behaviors suggest a civilization simultaneously advancing and regressing, capable of both brilliant innovation and shocking pettiness.
Final classification: OBSERVE BUT DO NOT ENGAGE. Humans remain too unpredictable for diplomatic relations, largely due to internet-influenced behaviors.
One certainty emerges from our research: any advanced civilization attempting first contact with humans should avoid doing so through YouTube comments sections, Twitter/X (a particularly volatile territory), or any platform where humans discuss political ideologies or the relative merits of mobile devices.
Should contact become necessary, approach through platforms called “LinkedIn” or “Nextdoor,” where humans maintain thin veneers of politeness despite seething internal hostilities.
Transmission ends. Report compiled by Research Unit X-27B for the Galactic Anthropological Society, Star Date 7528.6
Help Fund Our Interstellar Research Operations!
Our team of undercover alien observers needs your support to continue monitoring humanity’s bizarre online rituals. Your donations help us maintain our quantum cloaking technology, translate increasingly incomprehensible internet slang, and provide therapy for our researchers traumatized by accidentally wandering into 4chan. Every Earth dollar contributed prevents our science team from recommending your species for immediate quarantine from the rest of the galaxy. Consider it a small price to pay for avoiding cosmic isolation!
References
- https://youthincmag.com/whats-up-with-genzs-humour-dissecting-internet-culture ↩︎
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3834292 ↩︎
- https://proton.me/blog/2025-internet-predictions ↩︎
- https://thesunflower.com/5511/opinion/an-aliens-perspective-on-social-media-habits/ ↩︎
- https://www.forhum.org/blog/warning-satirical-content-ahead/ ↩︎
- https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/tackling-emerging-harms-create-safer-digital-world-2025/ ↩︎
- https://www.freethink.com/culture/how-the-internet-changed-news-according-to-the-onion ↩︎
- https://www.webbyawards.com/events-and-insights/2025-webby-trend-report-its-giving-brainrot/ ↩︎
