WELL, FOLKS, it's finally happened. I'm not proud of this, but I must report that I've finally seen something on the Net that offended me all the way from my dandruff down to my Odor-Eaters.
Oh, sure, I thought I'd experienced it all in almost a decade of using the Internet and 15 years of modeming in general. I've looked in on political forums that addressed the problems of modern government by suggesting solutions that were, depending on how you looked at them, either eye-opening reassessments of Hamiltonian doctrines or just plain old-fashioned Class B federal offenses. In my quest to plumb the depths of the Net, I've hit the newsgroups and Web sites of religious groups; conspiracy theorists; radicals of every stripe, fabric, and texture... and yes, one time it was late at night and my hunger for entertainment couldn't be sated by the real-estate infomercials on TV at 4 a.m., and so out of curiosity, I checked out the alt.sex.oh-great-gravy-sir-dont-tell-me-this-actually-does-something-for-you.pictures newsgroup. "How wonderful that the Internet has blossomed as the premier medium for the free expression of ideas," I said to myself afterward, while in the shower frantically scrubbing my brain with a wire brush to drive the image out of my head. Through it all, the Letter-to-the-Editor-writing part of my personality was slumbering.
Slumbering, perhaps, but its Star Wars R2D2 Talking Alarm Clock was set for late December. That's when I logged onto AOL and attempted to create some new screen names for myself; AndyI did and does serve me well, but after four years, it was time for some variety. My MacUser handle (for use in official conferences) was processed without a hitch, my two supersecret IDs as well. But then I tried to register my "public" secret ID, the one that is more or less common knowledge: FlyBy. I use it when I want just a little anonymity. As with the rest, I typed it into AOL's on-screen form, hit Enter, and picked up my soda while I waited for either confirmation or the news that it was already taken.
Instead, after a little bit of dialogue between my AOL software and the host, I was informed that use of that word was Restricted.
The Duck Comes Down
I stared at the screen. Had I accidentally typed a dirty word? Hey, maybe restricted just meant that FlyBy was a reserved System-level account or something. To test the first possibility, I requested a rather popular and authoritatively offensive four-letter word for a screen name.
AOL responded with the exact same petulant rejection. Restricted.
This, of course, was good for almost two solid hours of speculation. I got a pen and wrote out FlyBy on a sheet of paper. I said it out loud, over and over again. I said it backward. I sifted my memory of past years at school and summer camp, but the only dirty joke that even came close to using FlyBy was the one that ended with "Oh, well, that's when I turned off the radar." Stumped, I sent an e-mail message to AOL's offices. "Sir or Madam: Fearing severe beatings, I always stayed away from the smoking section of my elementary-school playground. Now I'm kicking myself, because I think Bobby Mayer was just the sort of kid who could have told me what's so smutty about the term FlyBy. Explain, please."
While waiting for a reply, I did some empirical investigation: If FlyBy was too dirty for AOL's delicate sensibilities -- remember, this was the same outfit that hastily expelled the word breast from its data banks, inadvertently making it impossible for breast-cancer support groups to function -- then what wasn't? Winkle must have passed the purity test at some point -- it was already taken, as were Semprini, Mountie, Eject, and even Waldo. All of these words were OK by AOL, as were Gashuffer, Freebaser, PotJunkie, and CrackHead... not the least bit offensive to AOL's computers. Same for... for... OK, I've just gotten off the phone with my editor, and after I read him the list and waited patiently for his assistant to bring him back around with vigorous slaps to the head, he assured me that I cannot print any of the rest. Let's just put it this way: They are all current AOL screen names that have passed AOL's strict code for God, Country, and healthy breakfasts. George Carlin wasn't permitted to say (mumble-somethinger) in his act, but he's welcome to introduce himself as such in public forums.
But that's not what offended me. Oh, sure, those names are all phenomenally tacky, but they serve a valuable social purpose: After all, much like eyebrow piercing and those clever Coed Naked Sports T-shirts, they make the morons of America easier to spot (perhaps Captain ButtPincher is not the person to approach about the merits of Cherubini's Requiem Mass, for instance). No, what got me hopping mad was AOL's official response. It seems that FlyBy wasn't banned; it was just being kept out of circulation in case the previous user of that name had second thoughts about canceling his AOL account. I'm offended because, for no reason, I went ahead and thought up a patently offensive practice (involving a parachute harness) that could well be called FlyBy, and now I've got to go and floss between my synapses.
