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So, you've finally had enough of

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Windows. The pop-up ads, the buggy updates, the constant OneDrive sign-in

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prompts, the Copilot button in Notepad, Copilot in Paint, Copilot in the

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taskbar, Copilot as a dedicated app, Copilot inside Edge, the Office app

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being renamed to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

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>> [gasps] [sighs] >> Now, you decide to install Linux and

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you're greeted with over 600 different versions to choose from. Ubuntu, Fedora,

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Arch, Mint, Zorin, Gentoo,

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and Puppy. And then you go to Reddit where everyone's telling you to use

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something different and that picking the wrong version could mean hours of

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troubleshooting, broken drivers, AND INDECIPHERABLE CONFIG FILES. WHAT'S A

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Windows refugee to do? Hey, don't worry.

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We're here to help you decide which version is right for you. Let's break it

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down. It's going to be okay. Now, first, all of these versions are

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called Linux distributions or distros for short. So-called because they

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distribute the various components of the operating system as a self-contained

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bundle. You see, Linux by itself is what's called a kernel, the code in the

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middle of the distro that talks to your hardware. You can think of a full distro

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like some kind of glorious egg roll.

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Linux is just the filling. A distro takes that kernel and wraps everything

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else around it into one delicious package you can actually eat. I

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I mean, use. Specifically, that wrapper includes a desktop environment, the

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graphical interface you can see and click things on, a package manager, how

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you install new software and keep everything updated, and in a way, it

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also includes the philosophy about how all of those things should work

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together. Now, as we said, there are over 600 of these tasty little egg

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rolls, I mean, I mean, distros. We shouldn't have shot this before lunch.

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But we've picked nine of the most widely used ones to help you figure out which

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is right for you. Here's how we're breaking it down. We got five for people

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fleeing Windows who just want their computer to work. Got three for people

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who want to game on Linux, including one distro you might already be running, and

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another for the tinkerers out there. Again, there are hundreds more you can

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go explore, but these are the ones that'll cover almost everyone watching

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this. So, let's start simple here. Linux

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is the single most recommended distro for people leaving Windows. It looks

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like Windows. It feels like Windows. It comes with media codecs and drivers

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already configured out of the box, and its entire philosophy is stop bothering

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the user. They've had a very hard day. If your reaction to this video so far

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is, "Please, just tell me what to install and get me out of here." It's

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Mint. But if you're still watching, then good because it gets a lot more

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interesting. Zorin OS is like Mint's cooler sibling. It has a feature called

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Zorin Appearance that lets you make the desktop look like Windows or macOS,

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depending on which operating system you're fleeing. It's arguably the most

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polished switching experience out there. There's a paid Pro tier with extra

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layouts and software, but the free version has everything most people will

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ever need. Now, Ubuntu is the most

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popular Linux distro, period. It has the biggest community. It's available

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pre-installed on some Dell and Lenovo hardware. And if you Google literally

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any Linux problem, the first result is almost certainly a solution written for

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Ubuntu. That community alone makes it the safe pick, especially for beginners.

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And then there's Pop!_OS, made by System76, a company that actually builds

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Linux laptops and desktops in Denver, Colorado. It's for the person who wants

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more control than Mint, but doesn't want to go anywhere near a config file.

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Everything lives in a nice, neat settings panel, perfectly designed for

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your dumb brain. It also has the best NVIDIA graphics card support of any

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distro, which matters a lot because Linux and NVIDIA have historically

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gotten along about as well as a cat and a bathtub. We talked to System76

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co-founder Carl Richell about what people end up loving about Pop!_OS. If

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you're into personalization, if you're into um kind of refining your workflow,

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a really good, especially if you're keyboard driven, it's a fantastic uh

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experience. There's the keyboard shortcuts are amazing. You know, tile

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one workspace and not the others, you can have mixed floating and tiling

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experience, but all without it feeling overwhelming. Our philosophy was that

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with with very careful and thoughtful design,

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we could build a desktop experience um

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that didn't have to compromise on what the user how the user wanted to use

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their computer. That's kind of the whole pitch of Pop!_OS. It gives you the depth

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and flexibility that makes Linux worth switching to in the first place, but

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that depth is surfaced through menus and toggles that feel familiar if you're

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coming from Windows or Mac. You're not unlocking new power by learning a new

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language, you're clicking around in a settings panel that was made for a

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normal human being. Which brings us to Fedora. It's backed by Red Hat, one of

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the biggest names in Linux, which means it's usually one of the first distros to

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ship new Linux technology. Most distros make you choose between stable and

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current releases. You either get software that's been tested for a year

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or software that just shipped this morning and might break your system.

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Fedora doesn't really make you choose. It ships tools like Wayland, PipeWire,

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and BTRFS first, but still goes through a proper release cycle before they reach

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you. You get to be ahead of the curve without being the person who finds out

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something is broken. Now, those five cover probably 80% of people watching

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this video. But what if you're not just trying to escape Windows? What if you're

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trying to game on Linux? We'll get into

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the distros that are making Linux gaming arguably better than Windows right after

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description. Okay, so Linux gaming, a phrase that only a few years ago was

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basically a punchline in itself. Now, it's genuinely competitive, largely

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thanks to Valve and CodeWeavers building a compatibility layer called Proton that

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lets you run most Windows games on Linux without doing anything weird. And a

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handful of distros have built their entire identity around making that

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experience as painless as possible. Bazzite is one of the most talked about

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gaming distros in recent years. It was built specifically to bring the Steam

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OS-style gaming experience to hardware Valve never officially supported. Your

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ROG Ally, your Legion Go, your gaming PC, running on Fedora under the hood

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rather than Steam OS itself, but looking and feeling almost identical. Bazzite is

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a distro that's classified as immutable, meaning the base system is read-only and

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nearly impossible to break. Think of it like a gaming console. It updates

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itself, it supports HDR, it works on handheld gaming devices like the Steam

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Deck and the ROG Ally, and if you somehow mess something up, you can just

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roll back to the previous version. It also comes with everything a gaming PC

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actually needs already configured. GPU drivers, Proton, controller support,

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codecs, none of which you have to hunt down yourself. On a general-purpose

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distro, getting all of that working is an afternoon project at least. On

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Bazzite, it's just done. Next, Nobara.

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It's built by a Red Hat engineer who goes by Glorious Eggroll online.

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Oh, that explains it. I'm not hungry, I

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just love gaming. And I'm hungry.

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Anyway, Mr. Eggroll got tired of Fedora not being gaming ready out of the box,

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so he took Fedora, stripped out everything that wasn't pulling its weight, and preloaded it with everything

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a gamer actually needs. Steam, open-source game manager Lutris, NVIDIA

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drivers, multimedia codecs, all configured and ready to go. There are

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five editions of this distro, including one built specifically for handheld

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devices. And speaking of handhelds, if you own a Steam Deck, congratulations.

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You're already running Linux. Steam OS is itself a fully functional Linux

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distro. The Steam Deck has two modes, the gaming interface you actually use,

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which looks and feels like a console, and a full Linux desktop running

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underneath it you can switch into anytime. But most Steam Deck owners

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never touch the desktop mode, and they have a perfectly fine time.

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Now, for the power users, the tinkerers,

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the people who decided that installing an operating system should be a journey

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of self-discovery. Arch Linux is the legendary do-it-yourself distro. If you

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spend any time in Linux circles, you've heard the joke.

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I use Arch, by the way. It's a meme about insufferable people

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who won't shut up about their operating system. They're the vegans of the tech

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world. But the reason Arch users are like that is actually kind of earned.

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Arch Linux is also a rolling release distro, which means there's no Arch

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version 2024 or whatever. You just keep updating continuously, and you're always

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running the latest version of everything. Then, there's the AUR, the

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Arch User Repository, a massive community-maintained library of software

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available to all Arch users, including stuff that would never make it in to

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Ubuntu's official repositories, those prudes. The tradeoff? A lot of this

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software hasn't been formally vetted, so it could be broken or worse. Ubuntu

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wouldn't even know what to do with any of this. But for Arch users, that's kind

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of the point. Arch also has a wiki, and it is genuinely the single best

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technical resource on the internet. The trade-off for that, you better enjoy

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reading documentation. But, on the other side of that learning curve is a machine

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that does exactly what you want, nothing you don't, running exactly how you

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configured it. And that's what they're also smug about. At the end of the day

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though, here's the thing that nobody tells you about picking a Linux distro.

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For most people, it barely matters. Seriously, every

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major distro can browse the web, run LibreOffice, play games through Steam,

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and handle 95% of what you do on your computer every day. The real differences

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are in update philosophy, how much hand-holding you get, and how much you

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want to tinker under the hood. And the people actually building these things,

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they'll tell you the same thing. I think you can come to Linux and just be a

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user. And that is absolutely awesome. You can also know that coming to Linux

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and being a user means that you're helping support the ability for everyone else to go as

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far as they want to with an operating system.

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>> you're paralyzed by choice, install Linux Mint. Use it for a week, if you

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love it, you're done. If you want more control, try Fedora. If you want all the

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control, try Arch. If you want a polished desktop with tiling built-in,

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and the company that makes your laptop also makes your OS, try Pop!_OS. If

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you're a gamer, try Bazzite. The beautiful thing about Linux is you can

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always reinstall, and it takes about 10 minutes, not the 45 that Windows needs,

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plus three Copilot installations you did not ask for. And if you're still on

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Windows 10, and you don't want to move to the never-ending revolving door of

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buggy updates and malware masquerading as AI, your clock is ticking.

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Microsoft's extended security updates for Windows 10 end October 13th, 2026,

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which means no more patches after that. So, I don't know, maybe don't overthink

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this one. If you want to learn how to actually install Linux step-by-step,

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we've got a video about that over on LTT. As for me, I'm going to go mass

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downvote everyone on r/Linux who doesn't use my distro, RileyOS. The whole thing

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is just cat memes from 2003 and Homestar Runner videos. Somehow, it works.