ASCII by Jason Scott

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Koalas Are Little Bitches —

Entry written on August 8th.

For years the most popular textfile on textfiles.com was the dependable and old-school ASCII Middle Finger. It definitely continues to reign as the most searched-for phrase that leads people to the site. There’s over a dozen files scattered throughout the directories that would answer the call for a text-based flip-off, so a bunch of them share the load as far as serving up the most requests. I consider them a group to be counted together, for the sake of accuracy. This has been the case for pretty much the whole life of the site.

But we have a new winner these days: Koalas are Little Bitches.

I was sent this file a couple of years ago. I talked to the uploader at length and can attest that it has been presented to me that this file is really what it says it was; an as-accurate-as-possible transcription of an 8th-grade student’s essay. The person I spoke with got it from the student’s teacher. I will not give more details than that, as it doesn’t ultimately matter if the thing is real or not, because it’s pretty damn funny. But as far as I know, this is a the real deal.

I’ve been in this kid’s position, which is why it resonates with me (and probably with the thousands of readers a month who get sent to it). A stupid, fill-in-the-idea essay where you’re tossed a dog of a writing assignment, and made to come back with the necessary 200 words to make the teacher happy. Every once in a while, that same frustrated outlook on life bubbles over and you toss a grenade over the fence, going for absolute broke. Start with an insane position, toss in a little profanity, dash off some insults, and boom, a nice little blow-off of energy before going back to TV.

Koalas aren’t hard they some little bitches. They start climbing up the tree soon as they see a deer from like 50feet away. They stupid as hell they should put their brain in their pouch and put the kid in they ten they’re be able to think better. They try to be in the fucking kangaroo family. They weak as hell, talking bout they got a pouch a kangaroo so they their cousins and shit. Kangaroo’s have some big ass legs and whot do a koala got? Some little ass legs, they tails is little and weak as fuck kangaroo’s got a big ass long tail that can kill a fucking koala.

Faced with describing why he should save a species, he instead blows out into an all-out turf war among animals, revealing what we all knew: Kangaroos are the shit.

This is a long way from BBS textfiles in some fashion, if for no other reason than this is from 2004, but in other ways it fits right in. Compare the all-koalas-must-die writing style with this collection of sadistic ideas from exactly 20 years earlier (1984) and you see how they sort of come from the same place; a kid writing crazy-ass stuff to blow off some steam. Generations apart, they’re indications this isn’t an aberration or a kid in need of a mass of drugs, but someone who decided to have a little fun in his writing.

And really, the kid’s right. Koalas are little bitches.


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3 Comments

  1. fuzz says:

    When I was really small, I used to love koalas. (well, we’re all young once).
    Then a couple of years ago I got to go out to aus and see a koala up close, and believe me, this kid ain’t wrong.
    Small, grey, incontinent teddy bears pretty much sums them up.

    Oh, and kangaroos are the shit, but crocs are TEH BOMB

    😉

  2. Steve Lawson says:

    My favorite thing about that essay is the notation “Draft 2” at the top. I have to wonder what “Draft 1” would have been like. At least the kid is working on his craft.

  3. bayard says:

    I like turtles