Internets

"Internets" is the wrong plural form of "internet," repeated on national television by President George W. Bush and immediately seized on as proof that the sitting commander in chief did not really know what the internet was1. The word is used two ways online. First, as a direct Bush impression, usually stapled to the phrase "rumors on the internets" lifted straight from his 2004 debate answer1. Second, as a generic self-deprecating tag people slap on posts to signal they are being goofy or old, as in "lol internets," a usage Urban Dictionary flagged the same night Bush said it2.

The humor sits alongside Ted Stevens' "series of tubes" line as one of the go-to references for out-of-touch politicians talking about the web3. Because the joke is a single mispronounced word, it travels easily across image macros, T-shirts, and YTMND pages without needing much setup4.

People typically drop "internets" (plural) into a sentence to mock either their own tech cluelessness or somebody else's, often paired with the full "rumors on the internets" line to make the Bush reference explicit2. A common convention is the throwaway tag "lol internets" appended to a screenshot of something absurd online2.