Help, NSA! I Need My Old WebTV Emails!

Honest to God, I got the shakes a little at the sight of this goddamn thing again

I hope that got the proper attention! So here’s the thing, NSA, I saw a story today about how some of your employees dating back like 14 years used their hammer-of-God surveillance powers to snoop on their sex partners and future ex-spouses. And goddammit, I admire that sort of forthrightness and go-getter ingenuity when it comes to spying on the rotten cheaters in your lives. The story did not cough up details about who turned out to be doing what with whom, which is in turn dry and unsatisfying, but come on, you had an inkling that back alley shenanigans were taking place, so undoubtedly you being intelligence operatives were correct and just needed that little bit of intel to verify. Bully for you, watchdogs!

So here’s what I’m asking. Once upon a time, I had a WebTV account. You might need to look up what this was, as it sounds like a modern Smart TV device, but think again, Brainiac. It was antiquated, Atari-style technology that hooked up to your TV and allowed you to surf the pre-Facebook internet. It had no memory, and no distinct purpose besides keeping you from watching Suddenly Susan while writing on fan boards at the same time (ah, 2000!). I had that goddamn millstone around my cyberneck for like three years, and as you can probably tell from glancing around this masterwork Knowingly Undersold site, that email account is unquestionably chock full of genius level comedy and more toast-based recipes than I could ever remember.

Like this, but funnier!

I NEED THESE EMAILS, GUYS! WebTV went wholly tits up like ten years ago, and I got out while the getting was good (like two days before it exploded), but as there was no USB port and no storage on that piece of shit, all the great boner jokes and Gladiator parodies are now lost to the ages. Or so I thought.

But if you conniving wunderkids were tracking every sorry meme and Friendster request as far back as the ’90s, then shit, somewhere in the annals of your BRILLIANTLY FUNNY WEBTV EMAILS catalog, you’ve got all my business! You’ve undoubtedly been forwarding my old missives about crackpot lawyers and one-man show ideas around the office for years!

I don’t care if you’re monitoring my internet history (I apologize for how much I Google celebrities with stage 4 cancer), or reading my emails, or horseshit chat conversations. National security or whatever, I’m an open book, have fun. But you’re in the unique position to return to me (and thus, the world) all my accumulated mental pyrotechnics from ages 20 to 23, back before I really started drinking, and thus lost all the good brain cells. Can you imagine what I was like back in those days? Oh man, I was like a comet crashing into the sun and showering the cosmos with funny. Ask anyone! Okay, not anyone I would’ve been writing to in those emails – I swap out groups of acquaintances every few years (more like they swap me out, and for good reason) – but anyone else!

I have no idea what my passwords or anything were. Hell, I’m not positive what my address was. Goatius@webtv.net? Something like that. Please zip that shit and send to my current address in imminent danger of being cancelled – Goatius1@hotmail.com! (Is hotmail still a thing? I haven’t been there in a while)

Imagine my crippling disappointment

Oh, and while we’re at it, I’ve got half a dozen AOL addresses from the late ’90s that might have a chuckle or two in ’em. Can you dig that up as well? Schleppo21@aol, Exapnomapcase@aol, and I think javert213@aol. I was a dorky theater kid, okay? No judging! Thanks in advance! And keep up the good, terrifying work, America!