Oh god, Choire actually read the Vanity Fair "oral history of the internet." Why? Why did Vanity Fair take it upon themselves to do this? Mostly so that they could interview self-aggrandizing fools, apparently. DID YOU KNOW that Jann Wenner saw the world's very first "hyper-link"? Seriously, this is what he claims!

Jann Wenner: Jim [Clark] and Marc [Andreessen] set up a demonstration. I'd never seen a hyperlink before. I don't think anybody had. And it was kind of drop-dead amazing. That you could click on this blue, highlighted, underlined word and then, bam, go to a whole new level of information was dazzling.

There's so much more. Including the day the founder of Earthlink tried to call information to get the number for the internet, when Microsoft tried to indemnify itself against Michael Kinsley's many, many lies, and Cindy Margolis claiming to have invented the beloved term "cyberbuddies." Also Elizabeth Spiers reveals that in addition to Spy Gawker is a total rip-off of Mark Twain.

How the Web Was Won [VF via Radar]