Internet etiquette: Comments

May 15th, 2010 General, Stuff No Comment

At the bottom of this page there is a box. It says Leave A Response. Essentially it’s your chance to comment on what you’ve read here, in this bit, the post bit.

It’s the Internet’s version of free speech. But, as with the real-world version of this sacred right people abuse it. I don’t get many comments on this blog, mainly because nobody reads it, and that’s fine by me. I get more than enough comments on my Asylum posts.

And they’re generally hate filled diatribes.

Asylum is humorous men’s lifestyle blog, with an irreverent, slightly geeky, tongue-in-cheek tone, and as such we make quite a lot of jokes. And it would seem that even the most inane jokes can be offensive to people.

For example, last week I wrote the words:

“Okay she’s not “classically pretty” but come on, she’s working that steam powered elephant gun. You’re not going to be seeing them in Accessorize any time soon.

Pretty innocuous right? It was a post called “The ladies of steampunk”. The reason I referred to her not being classically pretty is because a) she wasn’t b) if I hadn’t I’d have had comments saying, “Dude why have you included picture 4, she’s genk! What are you some sort of [insert generic homophobic insult here]” — and frankly I don’t like those.

The post got a few comments.

Great article — haven’t seen steampunk covered like this before, these girls are hot.

etc…

And then this.

Not “classically pretty” why the fuck are you commenting on how these women look? Who do you think you are? You clearly no nothing about steampunk… or women. Go on Oliver Jones show us your frat-boy mug so we can judge it. Congratulations Oliver Jones you are a dick.

First let me answer your question:

1) Because we are a men’s lifestyle blog and that’s kind of what we do. Generally we say, “wow isn’t she hot” or “wow isn’t she awesome” but occasionally, and only where appropriate, we say “okay, maybe she’s not that hot, but look, for [enter intrinsically awesome reason] she’s still ace”.

And actually by including her with a joke, aren’t I sort of undermining the process of judging women by their looks? Oh yes, quite clearly I am.

The next thing she does is the archetypal commenter’s reaction to something they don’t like. It’s some sort of transference — applying attribute to me that she dislikes to make her massive overreaction more rational to her (her name was Clare).

Unfortunately for her, as an Englishman who has never been the US, I went to University here and was never a member of a fraternity — or our closest British equivalent the rugby team.

As with all the nasty comments I get, I sent her a generic email:

“Hi,

Thanks for your comment.

I sincerely appreciate your opinion and would like to extend a warm invitation to comment on as many of my posts as you can humanly manage.

Unfortunately your comment has been deleted as it contravened our commenter’s policy.

Keep reading Asylum — you’re a great person.

Oli”

Occasionally I’ve had replies apologising and I’ve yet to have an angry response.

The Internet is an odd place, made up almost entirely of opinions, where it’s easy to get offended, if you’re one of those people who likes to get offended.

Offence is one of those very odd things — some people are more prone to it than others. And from my personal experience, those who claim to be offended by things are generally self-important, righteous, ignorant, close-minded morons. I can honestly say I’ve never been offended by anything I’ve read on the Internet. I’ve disagreed sure, but for me it’s hard to find offence in something that is neither directed at me personally, and is simply the opinion of one person.

That’s what makes comments on articles upsetting, and occasionally offensive, because they’re absolutely always, directed specifically at you, the writer, the author, the “fucking cunt who wrote this piece of shit” (a comment I got on a new post about a gold dispenser is Abu Dhabi for suggesting that the machine was a bit gaudy).

The Internet is weird faceless place and there are plenty of opinions flying around. I just wish people would take the time to think that behind every post is a person, and ask yourself: “Would I talk to them like this in real life? Face to face?” And if the answer is no, then maybe you should rewrite your comment