It was the night of the second Orgo Prelim, a test even harder than the lap of a shopping mall Santa. In fact, it was so hard that they actually modeled Viagra off of the exam. I returned home after the test clutching my posterior, which was sore from the violent act of domination the test delivered to my ass.

When I arrived home, I decided to make my famous Bathtub Toast to help ease the pain. I was about to climb into the tub with the toaster when something that sounded like a goat giving birth stopped me. After all, I couldn’t go to the big Carbon Atom in the sky while listening to what seemed to be the dying squeals of a pig in a slaughterhouse. I went down the hall to investigate.

Lo and behold, the cacophony was coming from Caroline’s room, who was watching a YouTube video of an amorphously shaped girl awkwardly gyrating and violently flailing her arms to the unaccompanied music of her hideous voice. The song was unrecognizable, but the website claimed she was singing Britney’s “Gimme More.” “Did William Hung overdose on estrogen pills?” I disgustedly asked. “It’s Tina Chen! She’s the best of both worlds,” Caroline explained.

Pausing only to pretend that I didn’t hear her say that, I set out to learn all I could about this Tina Chen. According to her Myspace, Tina Chen gained “millions of fans all over the globe” after she covered High School Musical 2’s “Bet On It” and circulated the video on Youtube. She “would also love to visit London one day to see how famous she is in England.” When she is not singing, she is busy working on three books, which puzzles me because she has a barely passable command of the English language.

Following in the footsteps of fellow celebrities Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson, she even has her own video scandal. She “seductively” exposes part of her poorly toned body in one of her videos, and then proceeds to have an emotional breakdown and apologize relentlessly for her transgression. After all, she is “Jesus [sic] biggest fan.”

The Tina Chen phenomenon is a symptom of a larger disease plaguing our generation today: a culture of undeserved self-congratulation. This culture is a pathological combination of laziness, incompetence and egomania. It’s the idea that any tone-deaf jackass with a camera and an Internet connection not only can but deserves to be famous, regardless of talent, effort, practice or perseverance. The fact that the “Bet On It” video has 926,854 hits means that a sizable chunk of you people support and encourage this culture.

We were brainwashed with this ridiculous idea from a very young age. Teachers told us that everyone is special. Coaches gave trophies to both the winning and losing teams, if the teams were even allowed to win or lose at all. Nothing had to be earned, and what is earned is cheapened because the kid who ate glue got the same thing. By making everyone special, the word lost all meaning.

Then, in 2006, Time slapped a tacky tin foil mirror on a magazine cover and recognized You as the Person of the Year. Although they probably threw together this cop-out of an idea at the last minute because they were too hung over to think of a real Person of the Year, Time unknowingly opened up Pandora’s box, and boy did it smell bad.

Like the queef heard ’round the world, this article signaled to all people still living with their parents that they are, as Rick Ross so eloquently put it, The Boss: VIPs whose opinions are the word of God and whose Facebook statuses are breaking news. If you think our planet is polluted, you should check out the Internet: millions upon millions of barely coherent blogs, unwatchable YouTube videos and now, thanks to Twitter, real time updates of who is at the grocery store buying Vagisil.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most of you are failures or will soon become failures. You fritter away your painfully boring lives and I sincerely doubt that any of you will contribute anything to society. At best, you are average, but that doesn’t change the fact that the universe will barely be able to register your fleeting presence. There’s nothing wrong with being drab and dreary, I just don’t want to be constantly bombarded with your desperate pleas for attention.

If you love to do something, take lessons to hone your skill. With luck, the fame you deserve will come naturally. If you are a worthless Internet whore, don’t shove your bullshit down my throat and expect a pat on the back. Because you’ll get a tornado kick to the gut. You can bet on it.