Guide To Writing A Guide On The Internet
Know something about a random activity and/or thing more than anyone else? Do you feel the burning – NO – FIERY need to tell everyone else on Earth how to do it better because everyone in your eyes is a giant suck machine? Do you have the ability to type things down in the form of words that most people that can understand without having to consult linguists? Then sit down kiddo, I think I can tell you your calling in life…
No doubt that if you’ve been coming to this site regularly at all within the last 50 or so years it’s seemingly been up, then you may have noticed that we have written an indescribable amount of absolutely useless guides, all of which try to inform you, the reader, how to perform said activity in guide better. Why do we do this? I guess it’s mostly the “not having anything better to write about,” since I remember fellow writers throwing up their hands in disgust and anger after I rolled out the OMGJ Guide To Breathing Through Your Mouth. So I was eventually forced into writing other things, but this doesn’t mean I can’t tell you, the hideous mutations that are our audience, how to go about this for yourself! Did I mention I have nothing better to write about? Awesome!
Here we see the OMGJ Staff Research Team tirelessly working on discovering newer, lazier ways to help you write
So today, I’m going to be focusing on the finer points of how to write your own guide, because we all know if you’re ever thinking about getting into the humor writing thing on the Internet, then you’re going to need (it’s a law now, folks) some type of guide on some random shit subject that everyone already knows how to do anyway. And since I figure that we pretty much perfected this sort of writing since it was all we did for about six straight months, this would be the perfect way to set the rest of you up, should you ever feel the need to write extremely generic and predictable humor. Which you will at some point in time. Everyone does. So let’s see what you’re gonna need to get you by…
Pick A Subject. Any Subject. I Couldn’t Give A Fuck What Subject Just Pick One
First you’re going to need a subject for your guide. This is a must, unless you decide to write a guide on absolutely nothing, which amazingly enough, I have considered a few times myself. Anyway, your guide may need a bit more substance, so figure out something you know a fair amount about, and there you go. It doesn’t matter what subject you pick, as long as you genuinely think you can keep interest in it long enough to write a few disjointed paragraphs about it. Like eating brownies? That’s fucking gold! How about how you think your driveway is really cool? Holy shit man you could make 3 guides out of that! It really doesn’t matter. If your audience calls you lazy for this and mocks your laziness, call them all fags and constantly remind them that you are superior to them. They don’t know what entertains them, only you do. Once you have your subject, it’s time to move on to the next step:
Gather A Few Worthless Facts About Your Topic
You don’t want to look like a complete ass in your guide, so you should at least “act” like you know a few things about it before you start telling everyone else how to be better at it. So let’s gather a few facts about what you want to talk about, and your ultimate goal with writing this guide:
Subject: Brownies
Main Goal Of Article: To explain why brownies are so good, and how people can be better at eating brownies
Facts About Brownies:
- They are usually brown, hence the clever name
- They are made of a chocolaty batter
- I eat a lot of brownies
- They taste good
Delicious dessert or writing project? How about both
Excellent, now that you’ve got your facts straight, don’t be afraid to trumpet this in the article by announcing you spent hours researching brownies, and the various facts about brownies, tracing all the way back to the stone age when dinosaurs ate brownies. Don’t worry, they won’t know any better, that’s why you’re writing this and they suck. Now that you have this much, you’re going to need more to hopefully pad your article some, so you’re obviously going to have to:
Make Everything Else Up
Fuck facts. Facts are for fat people, and you’re not fat are you? NO, you’re just chubby. And chubby people don’t need facts. So any facts you know about your subject, throw them out immediately and replace them with things so absolutely outlandish that your audience will have no choice but to laugh at your unpredictable zany comedy that makes absolutely no goddamn sense at all. Let’s take a look at an example, using the brownie from earlier. First, let’s look at your average guide on brownies:
I Like Brownies: A Guide On Why Brownies Are Good
Brownies are so good. I like them a lot.
See, that’s not exactly going to pull your audience in. It’s full of gay facts. Everyone knows brownies are good, you’re just telling them shit they’ve known for years. No, what you need to do is alter this so that it becomes “humorous.” And by humorous I mean completely stupid and unreadable:
I Like Brownies: A Guide On Why Brownies Are Good
Brownies are like planes on fire with eyes popping out of people’s heads and I’m like omg they are so good and then my cock blew off.
WOW! Informative AND humorous! Plus, not one single fact that will ultimately bore your audience. And all you had to do was make it so completely unreadable and senseless that no one on Earth would ever understand it besides yourself. But wait, we’re not done yet. Even though we’ve taken the facts out, we can still make it funnier by adding everyone’s best friends: Caps lock, swearing, and racial slurs
I LIKE BROWNIES: A GUIDE ON WHY BROWNIES ARE SO FUCKING GOOD
\BROWNIES ARE LIKE PLANES ON FIRE WITH EYES POPPING OUT OF PEOPLES HEADS AND I’M LIKE OMG YOU FUCKING CHINK THEY ARE SO GOOD AND THEN MY FUCKING BLACK COCK BLEW OFF
See? It’s so much more sort of kind of funny! Now that you can pad what little actual shit you know about your subject, you’re going to need a lot more before you can pass it off as a real guide. So what’s a hapless writer to do? Why you should obviously:
Forget Your Topic Entirely And Ramble On About Your Childhood
Face it, your topic is boring anyway. Who the fuck wants to learn shit from the Internet anyway. So just mention only when you have to, and then simply go off onto a huge rambling story about how you passed gas into your girlfriend’s mouth one night when she was asleep. OR, funny childhood stories are always a good idea too, since everyone wants to feel better about themselves anyway. So right in the middle of your guide, feel free to just talk about when you fell off a porch or vomited on yourself in Church. Everyone loves that shit. Working it in though can be a bit hard to do, since you don’t want to seem like you’re just throwing shit in to needlessly make your guide longer, which you are, so you have to try and act like it should be in the guide itself. Here’s an example on how you might do this:
Brownies are kinda hot when you take them out of the oven, like this one time when I was 9 and I walked to school by myself and got lost. My Dad had to come find me and when he did he pinned me against the wall and burned me with his cigarette lighter until I passed out from the pain. Then I ate brownies.
You and your Dad, right before he tried to bite into your cranium
Oh shit, son, you’re one smooth customer! Now keep doing that every other paragraph and you’ll have an A+++ guide in no time. Now you just need a few more things before you’re finished…
Make Some Sort Of Stupid Assed Graph
No guide is complete without some sort of picture showing off random numbers and figures that may or may not exist in this plane of reality. You should already know by now that your graph is only as accurate as you make it, and everything you make is going to 100% accurate, even if it could only happen if several parts of human history are completely voided out. Who cares though, you’re not doing this for yourself, you’re doing this to make everyone else think you’re better than them. Real graphs that make sense are for those guys behind desks with jobs, and they try to avoid you just as much as you try to avoid them and that whole “job” thing.
Now, your graph, it’s gonna need two things:
- Lines
- Numbers
Also maybe the third optional requirement if things need spiced up a bit:
- A World War II German Tiger Tank
Why use a tank? Because it makes no sense, plus it has comedic value for being so OFF THE WALL that surely everyone will shit themselves when they see just how big a swerve you threw straight at them. You may need to use some sort of bright colors too just in case you think your readers have forgotten that they should be looking at your article. Let’s look at an example:
Perfect
You can plainly see that this is where the facts all come together to blind your readers to the point where they HAVE to believe you. Besides, you would never take the time to make a graph if it wasn’t real, would you? Of course you would. But your readers don’t know how sad you are, so it works out. Meanwhile, you’ve got your audience in the palm of your hand as you cackle from your stained computer chair, endlessly choking down cookie dough and vanilla ice cream. So what’s next? Well we are reaching the dredges of stuff to use now, so that must mean it’s time to go for the homerun in the ninth-inning and:
Refer To Your Balls As Being Monstrously Huge At Some Point
You know those guys in High School that were always talking about their genitalia like it was something more akin to a giant swollen basketball-sized tumor hanging from their crotch? Remember how totally and amazingly annoying they were? Now it’s your turn to be just like them! Everyone knows that referring to your balls as huge will always put your guide right back on top of the funny meter. Running low on humorous anecdotes since you already used 60 in the previous paragraph? Don’t worry, just remind your audience how large your testicles are. They’ve always wanted to know anyway. Let’s look at a few examples:
- My balls are so huge
- You know my balls? They are huge
- This one time, I looked at my balls. They were so huge.
- When I put my testicles in my mouth I cannot help but think how huge they are
Feel free to use this throughout the guide, just in case you get bored, which you will almost constantly.
HOLY SHIT in case you haven’t noticed, or just completely blacked out, we’ve almost got a finished guide! So that means:
IT’S TIME TO FORMAT
Finally, the last step in making your guide is formatting it so that it seems just a tad bit less random than it all actually is. You’re going to want to format your guide in a way that somehow tries to make sense to your horrible writing skills. The best thing to do is to arrange it per these instructions:
- Opening Paragraph: Your opening paragraph should accurately describe, in as few words as possible, what exactly the entire guide is about. It should be a very brief summary of the entire guide, written in a way that your audience will get a sound idea as to what they will be reading over the next several thousand words. This will not only draw your audience in, but also make sense instead of just typing shit that leads absolutely nowhere.
- The Rest: Who the fuck cares. You just spent half a day trying to write a fifty word opening paragraph that will do all the shit mentioned above. Who has the effort to really care about the rest? Your audience will read it anyway, so just throw everything else under subheadings and various numbered points. Besides, it’ll all make sense if they read it enough. And if it doesn’t, just throw in some MS Paint pic that you drew. MS Paint is funny.
Poor slime monster is running away
Congratulations! You’ve got a full-fledged Guide now! Pat yourself on the back and finally realize just how easy our jobs can be sometimes. Now that you have one finished guide, why should you stop there? There’s an ENDLESS amount of guides you can do. “But Jeremy, if they’re basically the same thing every time just with several key words interchanged, won’t people notice?” HAHA! That’s funny. Nobody gets tired of the same thing over and over again. If it worked the first time, then don’t think it won’t work the 50th or 100th time down the road. Just remember to keep your guides fresh by sometimes focusing on a current hot news topic to draw in your reader’s hideous made-for-TV brains. This will surely hold them over long enough for you to devise your next guide.
I hope I’ve been able to help all you aspiring guide writers out there today. Hopefully with this knowledge at your side, you will be able to fully take advantage of this tireless writing form that can entertain dozens of people every day and maybe a few of your family members that feel sorry for you. But in all honesty, it’s not for them. It never is. No, you’re doing this for you, because if there’s anyone out there that needs to feel superior over someone, it’s you. You sad, sad loser thing. But hey, if you can make other people believe it, then the illusion is complete.
Just don’t forget I’m better than you at it.
