This is just a really special moment for humanity. We take you to the website for Fox 101.9, a radio station in Melbourne, Australia, where "Web Guy Josh" has published a peppy, harmless instructional post for the making of an "Amazing Rainbow Tie-Dye Number Surprise Cake."
Under almost any other set of circumstances, the most noteworthy thing about this internet post would be the "Amazing Rainbow Tie-Dye Number Surprise Cake" itself. Look at that goddamn thing! It's a brick-shaped cake, sheathed in rainbow-colored fondant, with a kaleidoscopic number baked into the middle of it.
That is one wild-ass baked good, friends. If some lady made that cake on Ultimate Cake Massacre or whatever the latest cable-TV baked-good game show is, you'd be all, go home, baker-lady, you're drunk.
Give internet user "Baked it before" some credit, then: Not only for treating this thing like a serious baked good, but for having made at least a couple of good-faith efforts at figuring out the best way to bake it. "Baked it before" has a suggestion, down in the comments:
Got that? Assemble the cake partway, freeze it, then proceed. Good tip! That is a good, constructive internet conversation right there. Good job, everybody.
But wait! How frozen do the numbers need to be? Firmed-up, or, like, frozen-frozen? Irene wants to know:
Ha, thanks peb. I mean, there may be a hint of snark, there, but I think the message comes across. Frozen-frozen. Got it.
I know, right? I mean, that's not exactly what "rhetorical" means, but, OK. Maybe definitions swirl the other way in the Southern Hemisphere. Point is, it was a mildly humorous little internet moment. Ask a silly question, et cetera. Good for a chuc—
"If you were a real baker."
Guys. Let's reel it back in here.
Getting a little worked-up here, folks. It's rainbow cake. Can't we just be happy that we've learned to freeze our numbers first?
... "Facebook balls"?
The infinite regress: It begins!
Yes, lmaooooooo indeed, but you're not really helping things, guys.
Gavrilo Pincip: [shoots Archduke Ferdinand]
Archduke Ferdinand: [dies]
Jeanette Daniels Benziger: "I enjoy this motorcade and will recommend it to my niece."
I'm sorry, Jeanette, but it's far too late for this kind of sentiment.
Because you wouldn't want to ... uh ... get any, uh ... curse words ... on your, uh ... food.
Hmm.
Yeah! Damn those idiots!
Wait. Which ones are the idiots.
Wait.
Wait!
"I MYSELF? AM VERY GREATFUL"
[dying]
Listen, Denise, this is a fine sentiment, but I want to know more about the etymology of the word "liberal." Help us out, Dan.
Oh for sure man.
Hey, does your dictionary have the word "homonym" in it? Oh, no particular reason.
Correct.
This is an article about a rainbow cake with numbers in it.
"For expert geopolitical analysis, we'll now turn to the comments under an Australian radio station's rainbow-cake recipe."
Rainbow cake. Numbers.
If only you could, Pam. If only you could.
Chaos reigns. My favorite comment here is from TheOhiosVoices. Oh ho HO, but it seems that it is YOU who are the rude one! "Lemme just drive past this flaming bus accident to chide this weenie doing 56 on a motor-scooter for being The Real Bad Driver."
Listen. Something incredible is happening here. These two people haven't even read the whole communists-versus-fascists fracas. They're responding to the interaction wayyyyy back up at the top, when Irene asked how frozen your numbers need to be, and peb gave a mildly snarky reply. And they're starting an entirely new culture-war fight, over an entirely different topic, in the same thread. That is incredible.
[speechless]
Hey! Quit with the meta-commentary, assholes! That's my job.
Fuckin' white people. SMH at your stupidity.
"What'd you do today, hon?"
"Oh, nothing. Just defended our entire way of life to a stranger in the comments under a rainbow-cake-with-numbers-on-it recipe on an Australian radio station's website."
...
"Run that by me again?"
So you're saying this whole thing might have begun with an innocent misunderstanding? Huh. That seems reasonable. Maybe we can get a straight answer to this question, now that we have some clarity. A cessation of hostilities! An end to the madness! Thanks, "me." History will remember you as a great deliverer of sense and peace.
[long, fading scream]
Image by Sam Woolley.
h/t Paul Ford