My first website was essentially an act of sedition.

As a teen in the mid-90s I set up an AOL user homepage devoted to the new country I had established with a friend. We decided to secede from the U.S. to escape the tyranny of our parents, and declare our bedrooms sovereign territory. We solicited others to join through a form on the website (no one ever did). I seem to recall the background picture on the site was a donkey farting a green cloud with the words “JOIN NOW!” in it. Yes, I have always been classy.

There was no universal search engine (i.e. Google) back then. The web wasn’t quite connected enough for things to go “viral” (unless maybe it got sent around in a chain email).

While I don’t think that the American government would really go after a teenager for a joke website (we thought we were so clever at the time), I wouldn’t want it to pop up in some embarrassing way later on. I shut it down sometime around the turn of the century, realizing this truth, and it seems to be forever and permanently gone from the web. Except for this comment now. Crap.

FBI disclaimer: Everything I have stated above is false.

Expletives are common part of the English language, thoughtful use for emphasis (like at the beginning of my comment – to catch people attention) is fine, overuse just shows low class and an inability to articulate oneself.