It’s late at night, you’re up late, you should be doing your homework, but of course you’ve ended up on Facebook or Youtube watching irrelevant videos. That’s when you finally find the actual entertainment: the comments below.
Starting with Facebook: someone posts a status that makes light of a popular and controversial issue. It’s so predictable I can tell you exactly what follows. First, someone is going to make an equally semi-sarcastic opposing comment. Next, someone else will jump in (who’s not actually friends with the person who posted the status or comment) taking the post way too seriously and even beginning to be insulting.
There will be a short, awkward argument between them. Then a third person will comment with an opinion that is not only factually wrong, but usually just generally offensive, making everyone feel uncomfortable, especially the person on whose wall the post appears. Finally a fourth person will comment just for the sake of commenting on a post that already has ten other comments. The situation I just described would look something like this, where the first post would be the status update:
People aren’t as hesitant about being offensive online as they are in person. | dannysullivan/ Flickr.com
Jennifer: “Obama is the worst President ever! Ughh!”
Mike: “You’re the worst President ever!”
Ben: “Actually Jen, if you paid attention, ever since he came into office the stock market has slowly been rising, he’s put together numerous stimulus packages to boost the economy, and he also worked on a little thing called healthcare reform so maybe you should get your facts straight before you make a stupid comment like that.”
Jennifer: “Wow. Ok? Way to take something way too seriously, I’m allowed to have an opinion on something. If I wanted yours I would’ve asked. By the way I don’t think we’ve ever talked in real life, who are you?”
Ben: “Well if you’re going to make a stupid comment you should expect to get a response. And I sit next to you in two classes, so thanks.”
Danny: “Obama is a Muslim anyway…”
Chester: “Mad commentz party yallz!! Lololol! Smh! Lls!”
However, any awkward series of Facebook comments can’t come anywhere near how ridiculous the comments on a Youtube video can be.
The fact that nobody’s true identity is ever revealed changes everything. Not only do people get to be wildly inappropriate or offensive, but most of the time what they’re saying has nothing at all to do with what the video is about. For every comment that’s relevant there’s usually four that aren’t. It will start out with someone who makes an actual relevant comment to the video.
Then someone will say something racist. Then people will argue for pages at a time about said racist comment.
Finally throughout the endless comment pages there will be numerous spam messages with links leading to “ripped abs” or “local girls waiting for you” amongst comments so random you are forced to think about what must have been going through that person’s head. It’s that ridiculous; you can’t even imagine their motive for posting. To give you a better example (complete with sadly accurate screen names), this is an example of what the comments would look like:
jonnyG89: “Does anyone know when this video was filmed?”
fingrblastr88: “First a–holes! FTW! S my D!”
ibangdurmom: “you’re not even first you stupid butt f—er.”
nintendo69yum: “Jewish people caused all the wars.”
DBLrainbowOMG: “HEY NINTENDO, S— MY D—”
kittiekatxxx: “I’m so lonely right now… any hot guys wanna hang out, click this link to see my webcam. www.totallylegithotgirls.com”
Rambone: “why don’t you seeeee, you belong to meeeeee” <3 TAYLOR SWIFT!!”
notsohappymeal: “Guys! I just got my free ipod from this website, www.stealmyidentity.com, and they’re only giving them away for the next two days so make sure to get yours! I got mine!”
fluffymuffins: “sometimes I get hungry but I don’t eat. LOL!”
2paclivs: “you all realize you’re leaving these comments under Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video… what the hell is wrong with you people?”
With pages of comments like that, you can spend hours reading through them without even watching the video they’re under to be entertained.
Although it’s horrible that people continuously have the urge to voice their racist, offensive, stupid and overall random opinions online with no consequences, there’s really nothing better than reading four pages of two random people’s heated argument over the question of “Who would win in a fight, Russell Crowe from Gladiator, or Russell Crowe from Robin Hood?”
John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@spartans.ut.edu.
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