So many awesome tributes today.

The last thing Scumbag Style wants to do is get all serious and misty-eyed, so we´ll keep this brief.

Christopher Hitchens – author, philosopher, great thinker, one of the most important primates to walk this Earth in the past century – has finally succumbed to esophageal cancer. He´s an inspiration to many of the writers here, his thoughts crudely replayed across our pages for the sake of intelligent dick jokes. The world will miss his influence, his humor, his articles and books, and his “Hitchslaps” greatly… if not now, then very soon, as he predicted.

Also, proving Hitchens entirely correct, the ugliness of your average Christian (that´s right, I said it) reared its celebratory head the moment Vanity Fair broke the news. Seriously, go check out hashtag #godisnotgreat on Twitter right now. I will wait (here´s a few for you impatients):

via @jes3ica

What a tribute! Scrumptious irony packaged in a flaky crust of pure, violent ignorance. Whilst threatening horrific violence to all who retweeted #GodIsNotGreat, Christians across the globe had no clue that God Is Not Great is the title of Hitchens´ famous book linking religion with violence and ignorance (ignorance like not knowing one of the most important books of your lifetime). Its all over Facebook and junk, too, and these are just some of the funniest, not the really creatively violent ones. Believing in God may also include the awesomeness of Hell Sandwiches and slug guns, but it definitely does not include grammar lessons in the basic package. And my goodness do the Godly like their elipses (that´s the “dot dot dot” for you religious minded).

Say, you know how atheists are always sending death threats to Christians for expressing their views? Exactly, and that´s what Hitchens was getting at. There are good men and there are dickheads, but it takes religion to make a good man be a dick on the internet.

Word

This has since been disproved, however it does reveal something startling. The way Twitter trending works, the phrase or hashtag has to evolve due to user content. It uses an algorithm that determines this, to make sure trends are kept fresh and exciting. So, while a flesh-and-blood person did not sensor #godisnotgreat (Gizmodo), the body of Twitter users actually did, by coming up with more fresh new reasons to beat your girlfriend than things to say about a venerated author and orator. Smell that? That´s the low tide of your faith in humanity, and it smells like win for one deceased hero.