Saturday Jul 21 2007 - 5:43pm
Wordcamp 2007: “Comments are Content”
by Brendan
under No Tags
with 7 comments
During Lorelle VanFossen’s session at Wordcamp - she’s a hilarious, engaging, and insightful speaker, by the way - she mentioned that “comments are content” while discussing the relationships that exist between bloggers and readers. This got me thinking about a topic that I’ve put off writing about for a while concerning comments that I’ve read on various sites, but specifically focusing on YouTube. It was a confounding, uncomfortable experience that I feel needs to be talked about.
I was sent a link to Obama Girl around a month ago. The video seemed funny enough and did what all the best political marketing does: sell a candidate by using boobs (and lines like “You can Barack me all night”). What really caught my attention though, was the comments. I know that YouTube is the worst of the worst for internet comments, but I still wasn’t prepared for this. It started when I saw a comment by the user “1pookie2″ (all of these are buried pages deep in the comments by now):
[in reference to Obama Girl] Are you a Half-breed too ? is that why you have a Crush or you kinda look Mexican !
To begin with, I couldn’t tell if they were joking or not. Then I kept coming across more by the same user, and it was clear that they weren’t kidding.
The Name Alone Wouldn’t Float !!
President of the united States Obama Bin Hussein Barack !! Yeeeaahh Riiiiiigghtt !!!
And to top it off:
IT is the white house-not black house !
Always Was - Always Will Be !!
GET USED TO IT BRO!!
When I came across user vicious27’s comment that simply read “Obama is a nigger” I felt like I had just been slapped across the face with a wake up call. The sad reality is that it’s not just these two users or this one video. YouTube is full of people writing similar comments. I have this bad feeling in my gut that this is representative of some part of our country (read: the South). Does the anonymity of commenting make them feel safe saying something no one I know would say out loud? Is this how people really feel?
Maybe I should ignore these comments as the ramblings of an angsty 13 year old. Or perhaps this is just the latest piece of evidence in the case for northern secession.
1
I definitely agree that there’s no excuse for the comments, but generalizing against the South is similar to the ignorance of the racist people making the stupid comments over on YouTube.
2
(aβ Member)
Agreed. Don’t worry - being from the south, I’ve already given Brendan plenty of flak for this.
3
(Post Author)
My apologies. That came out far more serious than I had originally intended. Making sweeping accusations about a whole region of the country in a post about bigotry is ironic, and I’ve beaten myself up for the oversight.
When Brian and I talked about this, he noted that it’s probably just a small but vocal group of people in the South responsible for the perception that ignorant northerners like me have. While I recognize this, the question I was ultimately trying to raise with this post was, “But what if it’s not?”
4
I live in Virginia, and have quite a bit of family either from, or that still lives in Mississippi. So while I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the subject, I do have a fair amount of real life experience with the situation from a caucasian person’s perspective.
I would say that it is mostly due to a vocal minority. From my observations, age and education are key factors (If you’re older and/or less educated, you seem to be more likely to be potentially racist). Of course that doesn’t mean that all racists are dumb and/or old, and it doesn’t mean that all dumb and/or old people are racist. Just a common factor that seems present in those that are racist.
I think the “But what if it’s not?” question needs more context around it. If that extra context is, “then the North/South should secede,” then I would recommend you really think that one out. Let’s say the nation divided along roughly the North/South boundary of the civil war era. I don’t know where all of our ballistic missles are, but would you really want any of the “southern racists” with full control over them? If my above observation is correct and they tend to be less-educated, they may not grasp the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction.
I hope that things are getting better. Personally I think they are, not fast enough, but at least moving in the right direction. But honestly, I realize that I’m the last person that should be the gauge of that (the minorities are the only ones that can probably really measure it).
5
(Post Author)
I don’t actually want the North or South to secede. It’s more that I’m no longer convinced things are getting any better. Here I thought that we had left things like racism in the dust, only to find that the Great Equalizer™ of the internet is home to the worst of it I’ve seen or heard recently. So I’ve lost some faith in humanity. It’s good to know that there are some optimists out there, though.
Along those lines, does anyone else remember that time about a decade ago when everyone thought the internet was going to bring about the next social revolution? My middle school teachers (especially the librarians) were crazy about proclaiming that if everyone in the world could learn about what everyone else in the world was like, then tere would be no more war or conflict or hate, etc.
But it turned out that social networks are no revolution - they’re just another platform for promoting the same old prejudices.
6
Yeah, my seccession paragraph was largely just making a bit of a joke. It sounds like the difference between you and I on the matter is that you thought we had it under control, so it looks like a step backwards. I never saw it as being under control, so I still see us moving forwards.
Either way, good thought provoking post.
I also remember a lot of the claims people were slapping down about the internet, and agree, it doesn’t seem to be going that way at all. I actually heard or read a report the other day that suggested it is going in an entirely different, and largely more frightening direction.
The 2 second synopsis of the report is, instead of pushing people to interact with more different-kinds of people, it allows people to find silo’s of like-minded individuals, and thus never having their beliefs challenged. In particular it was talking about this with kids/teenagers and social networks. Instead of interacting with people that will make them potentially rethink their beliefs and learn empathy, etc, they are able to find large groups of people that think and act exactly as they do, only reinforcing their existing and potentially bad traits. I have to admit, after reading it, I definitely could see it and it worries me a little.
7
(Post Author)
I totally agree with that study. There are some great examples of that.