No Comment

I make the mistake of reading the comments section sometimes of articles I read online or of videos I watch on YouTube. I say it’s a mistake because it always makes me sad for the amount of ignorance that is displayed in these statements. Also defensiveness and vitriol. Comments sections sometimes resemble cesspools of nuclear waste.

At lunchtime at work I sometimes peruse a web site called Deadspin. It is in itself its own pond of sewage. Ostensibly a sports site, they run mostly stories that other sites don’t and then proceed to slag off the people involved. They also print rumors and conjecture. They admit up front of no proof for their post but write about it anyway as though their admission absolves them of guilt when the proverbial shit splatters the fan blades.

My favorite articles are the re-telling of supposedly bad behavior by sports commentators or journalists. Again, no fact checking is done, the stories could be true or complete fabrications, Deadspin doesn’t care. Usually in the comment section this will prompt people to write about their own supposed encounters with semi-famous people behaving badly. This will always be followed by someone commenting “I totally believe so-and-so would do something like that.” Really? Someone with a screen name that contains 3 expletives and has an avatar with a scene from a movie no one saw because that makes him ultra-cool and hip, writes a story and presents no proof beyond the phrase “I swear this is true” and you totally believe it? Of course, the next question is why I continue to read this kind of shit and I don’t have a good answer.

I like to watch videos on You Tube of heavy metal bands I’m not familiar with to see if I like their music. Reading the comments sections is an exercise in pedantry and juvenile behavior. There is always the inevitable argument over what sub-genre of metal the band is performing:

Metalhead #1: I love black metal!

Metalhead #2: This isn’t black metal. This is death metal.

Metalhead #3: No way. These guys aren’t metal enough to be death metal. This is pansy power metal.

Metalhead #4: You’re all idiots. This is funeral doom metal at its finest.

Metalhead #1: Funeral Doom?????? Are you out of your mind?????

Metalhead #3: Doom!!!!??? Justin Bieber is closer to doom metal than this band!!!!!!!!!

Metalhead #2: It’s DEATH METAL you $%%#$%

Metalhead #4: It’s clearly funeral doom. Maybe you could classify it as drone metal, but it’s not power, progressive, thrash, speed, dark, gothic, hardcore, emo, noise, nu, hair, punk, deathcore, Christian, emocore, powercore, screamo, symphonic, grindcore, experimental, stoner, industrial, sludge, melodic, technical, Viking, extreme, deathgrind, goregrind, neo-thrash, or post-thrash.

This conversation goes on for 8 pages worth of comments with the expletives flying fast and furious. Everyone is an idiot or a moron for having an opinion that differs from say, FatSam34 or IChokeOnMetal666. I’m an idiot for wasting my time reading the thread, but it makes me laugh.

If you decide to comment on this post about commenting on other people’s posts, be sure to call me an appropriate name, make up a new and colorful swear word and act like your opinion is superior to mine, even though that is pedantically not possible.

By the way, that video was totally German power pop glam metal. Morons.