Comment Section

Currently Listening To: Cuddle Fuddle by Passion Pit
This whole web 2.0 nonsense (and yes, I realize that would include, say, my facebook, youtube and blogspot accounts) is based upon user-created content. And you know, there is some stuff of value coming from it. Every so often I'll see a funny or insightful video on youtube, or read something of interest on blogger, and facebook is good for keeping in touch with friends over the summer and planning events during the year, and also talking shit about people I know with other people I know.

But then I'll read an article on a news site. Pick any news site. Almost all of them do it. At the bottom there will be a comment section, and nothing thoughtful or coherent will be contained within. If the article in anyway references politics (or even if it doesn't), within five comments it will have been reduced to "liberls r ritarded" "no conservitivez sukkk big tyme" "no u guse r pansies GO 2 FRANCE!!!" "hay fuck u racist"

I actually really enjoyed typing that.

But I digress. The four comments leading up to that disintegration will more than likely be "first". You'd think that only the first one would say that, and then the second would say second and so on an so forth, but usually they will all say first because people are so refresh-happy that that will all see the article the second it is published and immediately and simultaneously head for the comment box. That's my first issue with the "first" phenomenon. My second is, as I'm sure everyone else who isn't guilty of this nonsense, "How on earth is this in anyway relevant to the discussion?" Very rarely do these ever have anything beyond the "first". They just leave it that. Never a "first"+"The Great American YouTube Comment".

Web 2.0 has given voice to the voiceless, and shown why they were voiceless to begin with; they had nothing to contribute.

And yet, the once-respectable news sources like CNN have been reduced to asking what we think. To consulting twitter, to giving polls and asking for viewer videos. The results on this rap are then presented alongside the news. The already non-news Letterman-makes-a-joke-about-Palin's-daughter bit becomes even less interesting when I hear that it's only still on Fox News' homepage because 60% of readers think his apology wasn't enough. The news shouldcover events. This story skidded to a halt when Palin accepted the apology... but now they've left it open-ended.

I suppose, as dearest freshman year at college has taught me, I should suggest some sort of solution. I don't have one. At least, one that doesn't evovle removing these people from the gene pool. It's only like this because people eat this shit up. Ooh, CNN wants my video. CNN should have specified; they need your video or your tweet when you're on the scene of the downed plane or the riots in Tehran, not when you have some inane commentary. They've already got guys for that.