Internets

About

“Internets” is the erroneous pluralization of the word “Internet” popularized by former U.S. president George W. Bush during his 2000 election campaign. While the word internet may be pluralized in rare occasions in the context of joining together many smaller intranets, this incorrect use of the plural form became the target of many jokes and parodies on the web. See also: Series of Tubes

Origin

The word “Internets” was first uttered during the third round of Bush-Gore presidential debate held at Washington University in St. Louis on October 17th, 2000, according to Wikipedia.^[1] In response to a question asked by an audience member regarding the state of morality in the American media and popular culture, Bush replied:

BUSH: …We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent. There ought to be filters in public libraries and filters in public schools so if kids get on the Internet, there is not going to be pornography or violence coming in.

However, this incident of remark was largely overlooked and he corrected himself in the following sentence. The term actually didn’t gain viral momentum until the same blunder was reiterated during the 2004 presidential debate. The video was uploaded via YouTube^[2] on February 10th, 2006:

“I hear there’s rumors on the, uh, Internets [pause] that we’re going to have a draft. We’re not going to have a draft, period.”

Spread

The first Urban Dictionary^[3] entry for “Internets” was posted on October 8th, 2004:

The term, Internets, is used only when referring to the uber-secret internet used only by Government and Bush cronies, thus plural.

Saturday Night Live^[4] quickly created a sketch spoofing the incident, which aired on the following day of the debate. In the weeks following the incident, several news personalities like Keith Olberman, Stephen Colbert and many more factitiously used the term “Internets” in reference to Bush’s statement.

Throughout 2004, a variety of tributes and remixes based on the original audio clip emerged on YTMND ^[5] and subsequently spread virally on the Internet. The clip was also posted on several video-sharing sites including YouTube^[6] and AlbinoBlackSheep^[7], not to mention that the phrase “I hear there’s rumors on the Internets” became used as a catchall title or topical tag in discussion threads and blog articles in 2005. There are numerous websites and personal blogs using the term “Internets” for the domain names, such as Tumblr blog Rumors on the Internets^[8], online humor blog I Can Has Internets^[9] and RumorsontheInternet.org.^[10] In addition, there is a Facebook page^[11] titled “Rumors on the Internets” with a moderate following of over 200 users.

Search Interest

Google Insights graph reveals that the rise to popularity of the term “Internets” coincided with the peak in search queries for the keyword “Bushism,” a neologism used to refer to a number of folksy colloquialisms attributed to George W. Bush.

External References