From the vault: I am the greatest messageboard poster ever

By Brandon Martin
Web dominator

I am a god, quite simply. Much like Rodney Carney is a physical freak, I am likewise a freak. Have you encountered me before? Have you felt my wrath? Have you met my tart tongue, my wily wit and my scintillating sarcasm? Have you been burned by my carefully researched points and my perfectly-constructed arguments?

If not, you are in for a treat. For I am BMart77, the greatest message board poster ever.

Sure, you may scoff at that claim. It's possible you've never seen my work -- though I bet you've heard of it. The infamous Jessica Simpson vs. Britney Spears argument on gorillamask.net. The 2004 NFL draft analysis on the scout.com boards. The Hee Seop Choi debate on nsbb.com. Those were all mine. The work of a living legend. Tears were shed, wrists were slit, children were conceived as a result of these epic spectacles.

I was schooled early in the Internet's existence. I honed my lethal tactics on the Alamak.com chat rooms, shooting down poseur theories and bucking conventional wisdom. I graduated from there to Yahoo! newsgroups, where I took on all comers. My skills were increasing at an alarming rate and the masses quickly learned my handle. So often, a thread would grow to several pages, with both sides bantering back and forth. Then I would appear, much like aurochs stampeding across the plains, devastating anything in their path, and end all possible debate.

You will never see me cheapen a post with emoticons. Each word is precious, and I do not need to accentuate my prose with such pithy symbols. If I see a poster use an emoticon, I make a mental note that they are weak, and I shall crush their will at a later date. God help your soul if I come across one of these things in your post. The ensuing evisceration will remove your will to live, I promise you that much.

Consider my carefully chosen handle: BMart77. It's simple -- my self-prescribed nickname and the year of my birth -- but it identifies me. It is not boring, yet it also is not silly, like so many other message board handles. If I see a name like TruffleShuffleMonster, I know you are a silly bitch who will one day be a target of my ire. And rest assured, that day is coming sooner rather than later.

I use the quote function of the message board flawlessly. Some posters fail to realize the value of brevity and allow themselves to quote six or seven posts that stack on top of one another. Please. How will the other posters know exactly which sentence you plan to blow apart in a blaze of bombastic glory? My secret is to quote each line individually, and painstakingly evaporate any notion of common sense from your stupid, banal attempts at debate one at a time.

Fools.

I am in my element in these portals. Whether you want to argue the latest movies, politics, hipster music (Wilco is the greatest band ever, bar none, no contest about it, end of story, shut up right now) or sports, I will win. It won't even be close.

Roger Clemens the best pitcher of this era? Please. I have spreadsheets that will prove you wrong. And I know the code to post them, with formatting still intact.

Best Jewish athlete ever? Give me Sandy Koufax and try to prove me wrong.

Best way to grill a steak? The Better Homes and Garden people know what happens when you bring up that topic.

Is Scarface better than Godfather? Obviously you know my answer, and if you think the Godfather is better, then you are just a troll. And I don't feed the trolls.

So if you feel like challenging me, step into the ring, punk. I'll take you on any time, on any board you can think of. Just look for the name BMart77, and the scores of weeping simpletons who have tried to overtake me, and were strewn aside like a single, solitary ant on a picnic table.

I'll be waiting for you.