Lunchtime Poll: Internet Comment Scavenger Hunt

Post author By [E] Selena MacIntosh*
Post date Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
7 Comments on Lunchtime Poll: Internet Comment Scavenger Hunt

Happy Wednesday, readers! Today, instead of asking you a question, I’m sending you on a quest.

The first P-mag commenter who can bring me an example of the following five internet commenting tropes will win a tiny prize. By example, I mean a link to the source and/or a screenshot of the actual comment. Knowing the internet as I do, I bet we’ll have a winner within 10 minutes of this post running. I think you may have to go outside P-mag’s Hallowed Halls to find these things, because our readers and commenters are the best on the internet.

1. Find an example of Godwin’s Law.

2. Find a comment where someone struggling with infertility is told to just adopt.

3. Find a comment that begins “I’m not [racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.], but…”

4. Find an angry commenter who has completely missed the point. (Of the article he or she is commenting on, of another comment, of everything – I’m very flexible on this one.)

5. Find an example of a commenter correcting another commenter’s grammar or spelling with a spelling or grammar mistake of their own.

Good hunting.

Tags fun with Google, internet comments, internet jackasses, like a snipe hunt if snipes were assholes, ltp, lunchtime poll, scavenger hunt

By [E] Selena MacIntosh*

Selena MacIntosh is the owner and editor of Persephone Magazine. She also fixes it when it breaks. She is fueled by Diet Coke, coffee with a lot of cream in it, and cat hair.

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7 replies on “Lunchtime Poll: Internet Comment Scavenger Hunt”

This is hilarious, both article and comments.

Well, here are a couple off the top of my head…

Yesterday, I was searching around for good ‘J’ songs and came across these lovely comments. I know I saw, “I’m not racist, but…” at least once in response to the top comment. Â Â

Infertility and adoption. First featured comment on this article from Jezebel. I remember thinking ‘here we go again’ when I read it the first time around.Â http://jezebel.com/5908111/is-it-ivf-or-infertility-itself-thats-causing-birth-defects

The others I’ve been looking around for, but I don’t know if I can handle it anymore. Though I did learn that Katie and Tom are splitting, lol. Here’s an interesting comment on a Huffington Post article that I think qualifies both as an off topic rant and hypocritical spelling/grammar critique…the last I’m not sure about because it’s not clear if this person is replying to anyone. O.OÂ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Warreng2u/daniel-tosh-rape-joke-laugh-factory_n_1662882_167632455.html

Maybe I’ll try to find an example of Godwin’s law later. Â Right now I need a break. :)

I typically avoid badly moderatedÂ commentsÂ sections likeÂ plague, so I had to do a bit of hunting on a few of these.

From cracked.com. Bonus points it was inÂ responseÂ to someone who thought everyone was just being to easily offended.

2. I had to do a bit of google fu for this just because infertility isn’t something I am usually part of the discussion on but here we go…

http://www.hollywoodlife.com/2012/06/19/khloe-kardashian-fertility-clinic-visit-baby/#comments

It’s awful and a few posts down

3. Does it count if I can give you a whole blog of them? Or is that cheating? I hear this more in real life than I see it on the internet so…

http://imnotaracistbut.tumblr.com/

4.Â http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120707/METRO/207070363/DIA-offers-enticements-voters-millage-OK?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

There are more examples of the problem on this article than I can shake a stick at. My favorites are the “WhyÂ doesn’tÂ the DIA just sell art to stay open?”Â comments. Because it isn’t allowed to do that dumb ass. Comments about the museum director’s salary also grossly miss the point. Yes it is a 6 digit salary, but the musuem budget is $25 million, and what he’s paid isÂ competitiveÂ for running a museum that size. Cutting his salary will hardly provide aÂ significantÂ boost in funds. And those saying that the museum should just charge more admission. Admission has never been theÂ primaryÂ funding source. Ever. This is to fill a gap left from state and city funds. (I uh… have feelings about this one)

5. A bit old, but it struck me how badly they missed the mark onÂ semicolon usage (enough for me to remember the comment was there anyway). That and I tend to tune out all the “You have bad grammer so your argument is invalid”Â comments.

http://www.verbicidemagazine.com/2011/09/20/strippers-jfk-and-stalin-illustrate-why-you-should-use-the-serial-comma/

I have seen all these things before, but the average comment section makes me so crazy that I don’t think I can face the prospect of looking for specific examples.