Welcome to You Are Dumb's first THEME WEEK. All this week, I will be highlighting five different examples of People Who Think They're Special Just Because They're On The Fucking Internet. Enjoy.

Memo to people creating and signing online petitions: YOU ARE DUMB.

Online petitions are predicated on the grassroots organizing power of the Internet. The idea being that you can quickly assemble a critical mass of people from all over the country to support your petition and let people in power know that there's a vast array of people behind you and they should stop smoking their fat ceegars and listen TO THE PEOPLE.

This is, of course, horribly deluded and wrong. Just ask Howard Dean. But let's look, shall we, at the ten most active petitions for Feb. 22 at petitionsonline.com, to see what pressing issues the people of the Internet are rallying around, shall we?

• A petition in Spanish to convince Alejandro Sanz to never sing again.
• A petition to send American Idol's William Hung to Hollywood.
• A petition to save the recently cancelled "Angel".
• A petition to send American Idol's William Hung to the White House. As president.
• A petition to save the recently cancelled "Angel".
• A petition for UPN to save the recently cancelled "Angel".
• A petition to end the hate.
• A petition in some Germanic language (but not German, at least not the German that Babelfish speaks), involving 200,000 Griekse honden.
• A petition in Spanish to prevent the pardoning of the attacker of one Cristina Fanjul.
• A petition to convince all major game manufacturers to translate their games into Hungarian.

Says it all right there, doesn't it? But wait, there's more! Because I haven't mentioned the NUMBERS.

For example, as of right now, 178,384 people think that ending the hate is a good idea, while only 89,730 people want to save Angel. From this, we can determine that, at a minimum, there are over two hundred and fifty thousand idiots on the Internet.

Companies don't care about online petitions, because, first of all, they can't be trusted. Nothing on the Internet can be trusted. Not voting, not polls, not schemes to make your dick bigger, not the goddamn Darwin Awards e-mails... none of it. So it certainly can't be trusted to provide an accurate portrayal of the demand for Hungarian copies of Simpson's Hit And Run.

And even if it could be trusted, nobody cares how many people are willing to click a link for a cause. There's no effort involved. I could get five hundred people to support raping puppies if I wanted to. That's how easy signing an online petition is. You want proof? Look at this.

"Dear MTV, Aaron Carter has just expolded all over the counrty. His single has been moving up the Billboard singles chart for the past six weeks, as of theis writing. His second album came out on September 26th, and that too is climbing the charts. What I want to know, and millions of other people who also watch MTV want to know, is whay don't you play any of his stuff on MTV? His songs have been playing all over the world for almost two years and you've only as much said his name a couple times. That doesn't make any sense to me what-so-ever. So could you please start playing his songs? I'm a devoted MTV fan and now your loosing me and tons of other devoted Aaron fans because of this. So, please play his songs."

I found that poking around the petitiononline site. Eight hundred and thirty four people signed it. An additional 99 people signed the other two "Get Aaron Carter On MTV" petitions.

So cut it out already. Stop making them, stop signing them. If your favorite show is going away, let it go. If they're not going to make any more He-Man toys, gaze proudly at the mint-on-card Samurai Armor Skeletor on your wall and move on. We may not end the hate. The 200,000 Grieken may remain honden. But we'll at least have tried to put a dent in the DUMB.