That’s a meme created and spread by pseudo-journalist Declan McCullagh specifically to tar Al Gore in the lead-up to the 2000 election.
Specifically, Gore said in an interview that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet” by introducing the bill to allow commercial traffic on ARPAnet, which McCullagh twisted in an article to “Al Gote claimed he invented the Internet” in order to to smear him.
Given how close that election turned out to be, this smear campaign likely changed the presidency, and given George WMD Bush's actions, changed the course of the world for the worse in many ways. (For those who were too young or not yet born at the time, these jokes were MASSIVE to the extent that became largely Al Gore was known for, for years after. So it's not much of an exaggeration to say they had a material impact on his perception and hence the votes.)
Al Gore understood technology, the internet, was a champion for the environment, and it's unbelievable today that he came that close to presidency (and then lost). When people say "we live in the bad timeline", one of the closest good timelines is probably one where this election went differently.
> Al Gore, a strong and knowledgeable proponent of the Internet, promoted legislation that resulted in President George H.W Bush signing the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. This Act allocated $600 million
> In the early 1990s the Internet was big news ... In the fall of 1990, there were just 313,000 computers on the Internet; by 1996, there were close to 10 million. The networking idea became politicized during the 1992 Clinton–Gore election campaign, where the rhetoric of the information highway captured the public imagination.
Your parent comment is either joining in on the ridicule side or at least in misquoting:
> Gore became the subject of controversy and ridicule when his statement, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet", was widely quoted out of context. It was often misquoted by comedians and figures in American popular media who framed this statement as a claim that Gore believed he had personally invented the Internet.[54] Gore's actual words were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President."
