This article is from the archive of our partner .
At yesterday's launch event for Airtime, Sean Parker noted the Internet has gotten boring, repeating a variation on the same SoMoLo (Silicon Valley speak for social, mobile, local) theme over and over and over again — and then he launched something that looks like the rest of the Internet. At this point, things have gotten so mind-numbing that we can't tell the difference between parody and reality and "innovations" spoofing this predictable cycle get taken seriously, The Wall Street Journal Geoffrey A. Fowler and Amir Efrati note. We're living in some sort of bizarro Internet world, where newer adaptations of the same old thing often sound as absurd as a joke, and the jokes sound real enough to get taken seriously. The spoofs aren't even funny anymore.
Take Jotly, for example, the first app Fowler and Efrati mention in their piece. It started as a play on the burgeoning app-rating trend. Take a look at the original promotional video, the app rates playground slides and beer bottles in sketchy lots -- it's a total joke.
But Silicon Valley read the joke as a good idea. Jotly now has legitimate Silicon Valley backers and the app was released on iTunes last December.