There are an absurd number of people who are doing the internet wrong.  In an effort to help my tiny corner of the internet get its collective nonsense together, I’ve compiled a list of helpful tips as you wander around the interwebs.  Commit these strategies to memory, as they are guaranteed to simply your life and advance discourse in all the places you find yourself.

1. Assume that every conversation about every issue on the internet involves you, and that the original poster wanted to hear specifically from YOU. Post liberally all the wheres.

2. Attack anyone (best friends, casual acquaintances, random strangers) who disagrees with you without ever engaging anything they say. Ignore their personhood when you attack them, then deny that you’ve done it when they call you out on it.

3. Post a horrifically illogical meme which you think supports your point. If the meme propagates incorrect or ignorant prejudicial stereotypes, ignore that fact. If called on it, ignore the criticism, especially if ignoring it makes you feel superior.

4. USE CAPS LOCK AT ALL TIMES. (It is cruise control for awesome!)

5. Ignore facts that countermand your position. Trot out a never ending string of non sequitors in hopes that no one will notice the emperor has no clothes.

6. Assume that anything anyone who calls themselves an expert says is true. (The Institute for Cheap Degrees is a very prestigious school, right?) Eschew fact checking.  Make no distinctions between experts and novices–with Wikipedia, everyone can be an expert, right?

7. Read only things that agree with your viewpoint. Make no attempt to understand where anyone else is coming from.

8. Stop thinking in general before you post something.  If it comes through your mind, it MUST be correct, and the world must know. Now.  Likerightnow.

9. Call someone who has a legitimate argument against your position a hater, a bigot, or a [something]ist.  If you (and any potential spectators) can distract attention away from their valid point, you can maintain your delusion of enlightenment.

10. Adopt the idea that if everyone would just listen to you, and only you, the world would be a much better place.

11. Take a “pull quote” from someone whose work you’ve never read wildly out of context, then use it as ammunition for your argument.  Ignore entirely that the author makes the opposite point of the one you’re using their words for.

12.  Exaggerate.  Everything.  All of the times.  If you don’t, no one will ever take anything you take seriously EVAR again.

13.  Defriend/Unfollow anyone who disagrees with you.  There is no excuse for disagreement in today’s world.  All the information is right there at our fingertips (even though you never ready it unless it comes boiled down in a Buzzfeed post), and it all leads to your position.  Anyone who doesn’t immediately agree with you must be some sort of sociopath.

When you successfully follow these tips, everyone will clearly understand that you are an insufferable jerk of a human being, and you will end up screaming at a mirror and/or cats for the remainder of your life.  Then you WILL always be right!