PEORIA, Ill. — Local claims adjuster Steve Hurnsman announced that he successfully completed downloading a file from the peer-to-peer file sharing program Limewire in a Facebook post that sent shockwaves through the social media landscape.
“I just never thought this day would come,” said Hurnsman. “After I left for college and my mom switched to DSL, I just figured it was a lost cause. I mean, the download paused for three and a half years at one point. But I guess if you just keep the faith and don’t give up, good things happen.”
The news comes 16 years, 3 months, 19 days, 6 hours, and 22 minutes after he started the process of downloading “Outcast- Stankoniia FULL ALBUM UNCENSORED” to the Compaq computer in his parents living room.
“I’m not super into this stuff anymore, but I’m still pretty excited to check it out,” said Hurnsman while searching for a blank CD to burn the album onto. “I remember that one song about carnivals or whatever being pretty good.”
Hurnsman posted the eight-word status, simply stating “Nice-Just nabbed that Outkast album off Limewire,” around 7 p.m. last night. By morning the post went viral, with over four million shares and 200 comments from other users offering congratulations.
“Patience is a virtue,” said Reddit user Drugz4Sale420. “At any point he could have bought that record used from Amazon for less than a dollar, but instead he showed those greedy musicians that we aren’t going to pay for their hard work.”
Erstwhile Limewire users from around the internet seemed to enter a state of shock upon hearing the news.
“I didn’t even think that could happen,” claimed Mark Gorton, former Limewire CEO. “Every test we ran at the office, the download just got really close and then canceled for no apparent reason. That was really all that anyone expected back then.”
However, the excitement generated by the event was unfortunately short lived; after opening the file, Hurnsman discovered two tracks were missing from the album, one track was in fact censored — despite the name of the file — and his mother’s computer now has a virus that will corrupt the hard drive within the hour.
As of press time, Hurnsman intended to “just stream it later” in response to the oversight.