Web standards wank!
SCENE

A small coffee shop in San Francisco, lit by tasteful lamps and the glow of a dozen laptops. At one table sits Jeffrey Zeldman in his trademark blue beanie, musing at an article about adaptive web design. Across the shop sits Paul Irish, reading code commits and updating his blog. People linger around them, slowly absorbing knowledge of how to build a better-designed website and contemplating how to dispose of Internet Explorer 6 forever.

IRISH: We gather here today to launch Move the Web Forward, to advance our community and elevate the web platform.

The crowd oohs.

IRISH: I thank all of you who contributed—especially Dimitri, whose twittered words gave this project life, my co-conspirator Divya, and Mat, who put his blood and tears into this project.

There is a round of appreciative back-slaps and toasts.

IRISH: We're launching on Blue Beanie Day, the day of celebrating web standards. I am sad to say that Jeffrey Zeldman, whose blue beanie we all admire, didn't mention anything about us at all in his eulogy of blue beanie merchandise.

Crowd boos.

ZELDMAN: (gets up) I talked about this project all over the place, despite the ill-written website that lacked information on who was behind it. I cannot believe you would sink to this kind of whiny character assassination. You did the same thing with my magazine when we've reached out to you again and again. I suppose you must have a grudge against me. F— off.

DIVYA MANION: Please stop the drama. Drama is not a part of web standards.

BYSTANDER: We barely survived the browser wars, please don't start a web standards war. Ian Hickson is already about to start web standards war!

IRISH: Actually, you didn't link to Move the Web Forward. At all. Please stop using such negative language.

BYSTANDER 2: I have the internet! And the internet says you only posted this to Facebook! Not to Twitter or Google the Plus!

MANION: The web has been rotting, stagnant for a decade. What has anyone else managed to do? We're going to change that.

ZELDMAN: Paul, I've reached out to you again and again, and you just continue publicly trash-talking me. Whatever. Let's steer clear of each other but don't bring me up in your blog again. Also Divya, I totally like like this project but, seriously, I hate Paul.

A man enters the coffeeshop. Close inspection reveals him to be Jonathan Hoefler, purveyor of fonts.

HOEFLER: (tugs down his scarf) In the screenplay version of this conversation, we'd now answer the knock at the door to find a smiling, hapless fellow distributing religious pamphlets. He'd say something conciliatory and serene, and we'd yell at him to fuck off, slamming the door. Then we'd take stock of the situation, and share a good belly laugh.

Hoefler buys a coffee, and exits the shop.

BYSTANDER 3: Are we internet famous yet?

COFFEESHOP OWNER: We're closed.

*

Background: Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded the Web Standards Project and A List Apart, an online magazine about web development that is now publishing books and hosting conferences. Paul Irish co-created HTML5 Boilerplate, the new web development playground tool; contributes to jQuery, on most reputable websites and many ill-reputable ones; and works for Google. Jonathan Hoefler is responsible for many famous fonts.

Discussion paraphrased from Paul Irish's blog. Twitter has been replete with head-shaking and popcorn gifs.