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If you ever use the Internet (<smirk>), and read comments on pretty much any forum that allows comments, you have probably come to the same conclusion that I have. Namely, that we basically have a generation of people loose on the Internet that
Maybe it's an education thing. I don't know. I just know that most of MY friends (and of course, they're completely representative of my generation) seem to understand that a comment to a post/video/status should at least pertain to the original post in some way. It might dispute, support, or expand/expound on the subject of the post, video, or status.
But what people seem to be using them for mostly is inanities. These people read or view the content and then without a coherent thought involved, vomit out the first thing that occurs to them, whether or not it has anything to do with the subject matter at hand.
On top of that, most of them don't seem to grasp that the format of a comment is as important to communication as the content. Capital letters, punctuation, grammar, verb tense, and sentence structure are ignored completely. No editing is performed. It is more important to them that they immediately regurgitate their random thoughts and submit them than making it coherent. If they do use punctuation, it is almost entirely incorrectly, or they substitute 'lol' for every form of punctuation.
They also seem to think that their own opinion is so stupendously important that it never occurs to them to check the other replies to see if, just perhaps, someone else has already penned the exact same thing they're thinking (How could anyone else have the same universally profound mentation as me?).
A lesser characteristic, but one that I still see every single day, is that the comments on any piece of music or video--regardless of the source--are written as though the original artist has posted it out of the goodness of their hearts and are personally reading every malescribed comment as though their very livelihoods depended on it.
I used to regularly play a MUSH called TinyTIM. TinyTIM is (we believe) the oldest still-active MUSH on the Internet. A good number of my friends here on LiveJournal, on Facebook, on Twitter, and other social media met each other during TIM's heyday, which would have been 1990 to about 1998. (By that time, most of the people on it were in their mid-20s and dealing with real life.) On TIM, we could tell instantly if someone was going to "fit in" with us by how they interacted. We would see every single one of the characteristics I've described here. They'd come in and within five minutes, we'd know if they were someone we would deign to pay attention to or, as in many cases, ruthlessly hound them about their lack of intelligence until they left. That group was and still is one of the most literate randomly assembled groups of people I've ever had the honor to be associated with. (And I'm not saying this just because approximately 50% of my friends list is made up of these people. Well, technically I am because they wouldn't still be my friends if they weren't, but...I'm digressing.)
So, what prompted this diatribe? A number of straws added to the load pretty much every time I made the mistake of reading a comment posted to an article or video. But the one that finally broke this camel's back was...well, let me explain one thing further before I go on.
See, heh, I was trying to make a pithy reply to a friend of mine on a social networking site and to do this, I needed the exact lyrics of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana." Really. That's the only reason I was looking it up. Honestly. You believe me, right? Right?
So, anyway, I looked it up on Google and found one of the many lyrics sites that had the lyrics in question. This particular one allowed comments.
Now, keep in mind that this is one of kabillions of sites that host lyrics. Not music. Not a fan site for Mr. Manilow. So why are there comments? Who knows. But featured prominently near the top was this gem.
"That song is the best song I have every heard!" The only thing that stuns me is how grammatically correct this sentence is. I mean, there's only one exclamation point and "heard" is spelled with an 'a.' We'll ignore the "every" because that could simply be a typo. And if she (for I assume it was a female who posted this) had just stopped there, it would have been a perfectly cromulent comment. Inane, but cromulent.
"The sad part is when Tony dies and Lola loses her love." Oh. My. God. Is this the very first coherent thought that took diaphanous form in this poster's jam-packed cerebellum as the song played, and then she thought, "Oh! I simply must post this profundity before it abandons my mind!" The utter lack of a thought process evinced by this statement simply boggles my mind. I think this girl should start a movie blog. Really. Think of the scintillating, in-depth reviews that would spew forth from her brain, zing down to her fingers, out through her keyboard, and onto an Internet waiting with bated breath for her profundity.
"Thanks for the best song ever." It would seem that this young (again, I have to assume a certain naïveté) lady believes that Barry Manilow had nothing better to do with his copious spare time than troll the internet looking for random sites on which the lyrics or music to a song he might have written was posted, and stroke his ego that some little idiot actually got that "[t]he sad part is when Tony dies and Lola loses her love."
Perhaps she believes that Barry will respond. "Hi, Heather!2 I'm so glad you got the song! No one else in the history of ever has ever gotten that that was the sad part! Finally! My entire career as a song writer, singer, and performer is vindicated because of you! I can die, now!" (Which, of course, would be the sad part. And now that Heather has a forum to tell us these things, we don't have to wonder.)
And believe me, the irony of me posting this on LiveJournal where comments are encouraged and in which I'm making fun of the ego of people who think the world has nothing better to do than read their every random thought is very much not lost on me. :)
- can't compose a literate, coherent thought
- has never heard of the concept of self-editing
- thinks that instantly spewing their every unfiltered thought into the æther comprises 'social media'
- seems blissfully unaware that there are real people on the other end of other comments
Maybe it's an education thing. I don't know. I just know that most of MY friends (and of course, they're completely representative of my generation) seem to understand that a comment to a post/video/status should at least pertain to the original post in some way. It might dispute, support, or expand/expound on the subject of the post, video, or status.
But what people seem to be using them for mostly is inanities. These people read or view the content and then without a coherent thought involved, vomit out the first thing that occurs to them, whether or not it has anything to do with the subject matter at hand.
On top of that, most of them don't seem to grasp that the format of a comment is as important to communication as the content. Capital letters, punctuation, grammar, verb tense, and sentence structure are ignored completely. No editing is performed. It is more important to them that they immediately regurgitate their random thoughts and submit them than making it coherent. If they do use punctuation, it is almost entirely incorrectly, or they substitute 'lol' for every form of punctuation.
They also seem to think that their own opinion is so stupendously important that it never occurs to them to check the other replies to see if, just perhaps, someone else has already penned the exact same thing they're thinking (How could anyone else have the same universally profound mentation as me?).
A lesser characteristic, but one that I still see every single day, is that the comments on any piece of music or video--regardless of the source--are written as though the original artist has posted it out of the goodness of their hearts and are personally reading every malescribed comment as though their very livelihoods depended on it.
I used to regularly play a MUSH called TinyTIM. TinyTIM is (we believe) the oldest still-active MUSH on the Internet. A good number of my friends here on LiveJournal, on Facebook, on Twitter, and other social media met each other during TIM's heyday, which would have been 1990 to about 1998. (By that time, most of the people on it were in their mid-20s and dealing with real life.) On TIM, we could tell instantly if someone was going to "fit in" with us by how they interacted. We would see every single one of the characteristics I've described here. They'd come in and within five minutes, we'd know if they were someone we would deign to pay attention to or, as in many cases, ruthlessly hound them about their lack of intelligence until they left. That group was and still is one of the most literate randomly assembled groups of people I've ever had the honor to be associated with. (And I'm not saying this just because approximately 50% of my friends list is made up of these people. Well, technically I am because they wouldn't still be my friends if they weren't, but...I'm digressing.)
So, what prompted this diatribe? A number of straws added to the load pretty much every time I made the mistake of reading a comment posted to an article or video. But the one that finally broke this camel's back was...well, let me explain one thing further before I go on.
See, heh, I was trying to make a pithy reply to a friend of mine on a social networking site and to do this, I needed the exact lyrics of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana." Really. That's the only reason I was looking it up. Honestly. You believe me, right? Right?
So, anyway, I looked it up on Google and found one of the many lyrics sites that had the lyrics in question. This particular one allowed comments.
Now, keep in mind that this is one of kabillions of sites that host lyrics. Not music. Not a fan site for Mr. Manilow. So why are there comments? Who knows. But featured prominently near the top was this gem.
That song is the best song I have every heard! The sad part is when Tony dies and Lola loses her love. Thanks for the best song ever.So, let's take this apart. (It's what I do.)
"That song is the best song I have every heard!" The only thing that stuns me is how grammatically correct this sentence is. I mean, there's only one exclamation point and "heard" is spelled with an 'a.' We'll ignore the "every" because that could simply be a typo. And if she (for I assume it was a female who posted this) had just stopped there, it would have been a perfectly cromulent comment. Inane, but cromulent.
"The sad part is when Tony dies and Lola loses her love." Oh. My. God. Is this the very first coherent thought that took diaphanous form in this poster's jam-packed cerebellum as the song played, and then she thought, "Oh! I simply must post this profundity before it abandons my mind!" The utter lack of a thought process evinced by this statement simply boggles my mind. I think this girl should start a movie blog. Really. Think of the scintillating, in-depth reviews that would spew forth from her brain, zing down to her fingers, out through her keyboard, and onto an Internet waiting with bated breath for her profundity.
I loved Sixth Sense! The sad part was how Bruce was a ghost the whole time!And so on. Oh, how the Internet would eat it up! They'd probably turn it into a TV show called "Profundities My Daughter Spewed."
Soylent Green was the best every1 movie! The sad part was that they were eating people.
Gone with the Wind is my favorite movie! The sad part was when Rhett told Scarlett that he didn't give a you-know-what.
I loved Hamlet! The sad part was when everyone died.
"Thanks for the best song ever." It would seem that this young (again, I have to assume a certain naïveté) lady believes that Barry Manilow had nothing better to do with his copious spare time than troll the internet looking for random sites on which the lyrics or music to a song he might have written was posted, and stroke his ego that some little idiot actually got that "[t]he sad part is when Tony dies and Lola loses her love."
Perhaps she believes that Barry will respond. "Hi, Heather!2 I'm so glad you got the song! No one else in the history of ever has ever gotten that that was the sad part! Finally! My entire career as a song writer, singer, and performer is vindicated because of you! I can die, now!" (Which, of course, would be the sad part. And now that Heather has a forum to tell us these things, we don't have to wonder.)
And believe me, the irony of me posting this on LiveJournal where comments are encouraged and in which I'm making fun of the ego of people who think the world has nothing better to do than read their every random thought is very much not lost on me. :)
- A funny: I actually typoed that and decided to leave it. :)
- In my version of the Internet, this young poster is named Heather, although statistics would suggest 'Jennifer' as a better guess. But I digress.3
- I do sincerely apologize to any and all of my readers who might be named either Heather or Jennifer. No insult is implied. It just was the first thing that popped into my head. :) (See what I did, there?)
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How could I not comment with my first thought to a post such as this?
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Of course it is! Wikipedia says so.
More validly, the TinyTIM article cites a 1995 book, the Internet Virtual Worlds Quick Tour, which called it the "oldest MUSH in existence." If it was in 1995, it should still be now.
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http://www.babynamewizard.com/
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