When did all this nonsense first start?

When did all this nonsense first start? Well, you would have to go back to this writer's heyday several centuries ago. Back to the 14th century, when the world was eagerly awaiting the next season of The Canterbury Tales, and Lady Greensleeves was the new power ballad surging up the pop charts. In a time plagued by plagues, a dewy-eyed scribe tried to entertain an audience that was perpetually "sheltered in place":

Huzzah! Huzzah! Deaths by misadventure ebbed last week as the coroner's ledger only contains one entry : Thomas of Swinford was poleaxed by a Lollard after a wordy strife by the marl pit.

Alas, trouble does loom. Not content with conquering the world of condiments with their tasty sauce, the fearsome Tartars will be back to pillaging and plundering as they please next week. Fear not peasants, local celebrity psychic Nostradamus assures me that they will soon depart this country for unknown lands to the west, where they will found a center of learning that will offer a quality education at an affordable price in an urban setting, thus allowing their name to live on in perpetuity - or at least until 1999.
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Well, that didn't seem very light, but then again I don't remember many belly laughs in Dante's Divine Comedy either, so maybe humor was different back then. Also, who knew that they had hyperlinks in the Middle Ages?