Much like the invocation of 9-11, the superlative obliges of us discretion in its employ, lest its power be unduly cheapened. After all, can we really have that many "-ests" in our lives? Sure, Ed Wood and Fuck Start Your Face easily qualify for "worst" within their respective genres. But what of a man, who, in his own words, is guilty only of "listing [my] accomplishments and telling a girl that [I] think there's a problem because she has six pictures of her head" on Match.com?

Such is the question of one John Fitzgerald Page—Atlanta resident, part-time actor, and full-time Gawker patsy. His saga began on October 11, when the popular Manhattan gossip blog posted a preposterous exchange between Page and a woman he had met online. Brief as it was, the conversation—coupled with Page's personal website—presented a mouthwatering cache of material for Gawker and its fans. Here's part of Page's remarks:

So next time you meet a guy of my caliber, instead of trying to turn it around, just get to the gym! I will even give you one free training session, so you don't blow it with the next 8.9 on Hot or Not, Ivy League grad, Mensa member, can bench/squat/leg press over 1200 lbs., has had lunch with the secretary of defense, has an MBA from the top school in the country, lives in a Buckhead high rise, drives a Beemer convertible, has been in 14 major motion pictures, was in Jezebel's Best dressed, etc. Oh, that is right, there aren't any more of those!

By the end of the day, over 1,000 people had commented on the post; currently that number stands at 2,023. The "Worst Person in the World" was located.

Page's notoriety hasn't stopped with Gawker, and his story has since appeared on CNN, The Early Show, MySpace Video, and in the New York Daily News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Creative Loafing. (To say nothing of the blogosphere reaction; FARK had to shut down its forum on Page.)

As ham-handed as Page's remarks on Match.com may have been, it seems unlikely that the holier-than-thou members of the online community who have responded to him (like this woman) are truly less worthy of our contempt. Fascinating, too, that moral superiority is automatically appropriated by the internet commenter, a species often defined by venality and self-aggrandizement. Michael Kinsley explored this last year, writing in Slate: "There is something about the Web that brings out the ego monster in everybody. It's not just the well-established tendency to be nasty. When you write for the Web, you open yourself up to breathtakingly vicious vitriol." The whole spectacle registers like a modern Freudian role-play. And maybe Page and other web casualties destroyed by their own caricature-like arrogance (see Vayner, Aleksey) can take solace in this, wherever they're sequestered.

Still, Page has made the decision to play his hand. "There're two schools of thought on this," he tells Gelf. "I could have changed my phone number, changed my email address, run and hid, taken my website down. I'm not John Mark Karr, I didn't fess up to killing JonBenet … I'm just trying to have a little fun with this. If people abuse you, you might as well enjoy it or jump out the window."

Exploiting your status as an infamous internet celebrity often means venturing offline into a whole new—but curiously similar—genre: reality TV (see Tequila, Tila). Page claims he is currently in negotiations for his own show. "If this is what the public wants, if I'm the white Omarosa, then this is what I have to run with," he tells Gelf. "If not, then I just get trashed. If everyone's like 'this guy sucks,' but they're paying me $20,000 a week and I'm living in a mansion dating a bunch of girls, then what do I care what you think of me?"

What he just can't get over, however, is being considered the utmost example of human iniquity—given the modern context of despots and criminals. A day or two after the Gawker piece, Page posted the following on his website (which, no doubt, was finally receiving the amount of traffic he had hoped for when he first posted multiple semi-nude body shots on it):

Stalin. Hitler. Bin Laden. John Fitzgerald Page. Somehow, I am ranked at #1. My crime—murder? treason? pedophilia? rape? No, worse. A woman winked at me on the internet. I sent her an introductory email. She tried to rescind her initial wink by saying we weren't a "personality" match. She ascertained that from my first email without ever speaking to me. Here is my crime. Instead of just letting her float away, I let her know that I feel that if you approach me, you should meet my standards and listed facts about myself.

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