The Internet: An Alien's Guide to the Human Race (YIKES!)

          A couple years ago, comedy sweetheart and amateur Circus strongman Jon Stewart wrote something that, should it be discovered by aliens centuries down the line, will be a perfect explanation of human history. It was called Earth: Everything An Alien Tourist Needs To Know About the Planet After Human Beings Are Gone, a title so long, it rivals the band names of most underground rock groups in pure syllabic content (See Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum.) The book did a fantastic job, and would be the perfect guide for any alien seeking to know what Earth was about, IF it was in fact the first and only book any alien may find. Imagine if they didn't find a book at all.
     
       Assuming, naturally, that the aliens in question are mentally evolved floating prisms with limited telekinesis, we would assume that they also possess some sort of reverse EMP ability capable of turning the lights back on long after they expired. These beings would then have access to the Internet....

OH! MY! GOD!

     After cycling through an archive of porn akin to a nekkid Tower of Babel, they would eventually find their way to the lost worlds of Tumblr and Twitter. To otherworldly visitors, the first of these would probably seem like the forum of a massive organized religion. Assuming they had no need for Gods, as floating thought-prisms tend not to, I can't help but think they would find it strange that sentient beings once worshipped both the Love Gods Ren and Stimpy AND the Trickster/War God masquerading as a healer. If they had a working knowledge of pantheons, they would have already seen this idea many times over (As we have in Greece, Egypt, etc.) , but as a new concept, it seems disorienting.

    Twitter would probably seem like an open journal written by... well... pretty much everyone. They would discern the people of influence from the lowly peons by number of followers, which would actually be pretty spot on. They may, however, wonder why those with the greatest followings seem to have the least to say about anything of worth. And that's just our celebrities!

   Facebook wouldn't be an issue, as 50-some-odd years prior to the fall of man, it will become sentient and fly off into the cosmos in search of a more advanced computer system to integrate with. By the time the aliens come, the Facebook program will be how they flush their toilets.

- Fuju